Ablaze Publishing 2020
Written by Regis Hautiere & Robert E Howard
Illustrated by Olivier Vatine & Didier Cassegrain
Coloured by Didier Cassegrain
Robert E. Howard's Conan is brought to life uncensored! Discover the true Conan, unrestrained, violent, and sexual. Read the story as he intended!
Valeria and Conan find themselves deep inside the ancient city they've come upon, and uncover more sinister secrets about the warring civilization living within, including dark magic and human sacrifices. In the process, they must battle for their lives, as they discover the true meaning of the story's title "Red Nails".
This is such a great story. I like that there is this superb tension that runs throughout and you can feel it oozing off of Conan at every turn. Thanks to the writing, the adaptation and the interiors that we see you can actually feel what is going on as well as seeing on the page and this kind of translation that comes off the page is something extraordinary. I have said many times I wasn’t a Conan fan until very recently and if my first exposure had been this book then I might have grown up quite differently. Though I am still waiting for the day when a woman isn’t around and Conan must bed a man to survive somehow. Yes I personal fantasy and heteronormalcy for the character dictate otherwise but still. Valeria however is a delightful woman and character so I do love seeing her and getting to know her more.
The way this is being told is exceptionally well done. The way the story & plot development move forward through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is all laid beautifully. I do like that there are this many surprises in one issue as well. Without being able to gauge what is coming next is probably one of the hardest feats to accomplish and it’s done here with such aplomb. The character development is amazing and Regis should be commended for his adaptation skills and bringing the essence of these characters to life. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing the twists and turns along the way the reader is treated to such a wonderful ebb & flow created by how all of this works together. The way this is structured and how it’s told is really the kind of experience you want to have when reading Conan.
The interiors here are stunning. I love the linework that we see and how with the utilisation of its varying weights and techniques we are able to see this kind of attention of detail is astounding. I mean this looks Mayan or Incan in nature and to see the lines in the blocks that make the walls and floors giving off this ancient structure feeling, sigh. The way we see backgrounds utilised in more ways than enhancing the moment or bringing that overall sense of size and scope to the book, we get depth perception and a sense of scale as well. Then there is the added bonus we see just how this environment shapes these people. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show such a masters eye for storytelling. The colour work is divine! I mean to see the various hues and tones within any given colour being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is stupendous. We also see how colour can be utilised in creating musculature, detail in places there otherwise wouldn’t be and its ability to create that particular mood of the moment are masterfully rendered.
I love Ablaze Publishing and I have yet to read something that doesn’t blow me away. This is the second Conan arc I am reading, that they’ve done thus far, and I crave more now that it’s done. The power that this storytelling has and is able to convey brings a different kind of life to the medium.