CONAN THE ROGUE

Why did they have Joe Jusko do the cover for this book? Why not Buscema?

Sometimes when I cover comics on here, I get a negative comment that I pretty much agree with. It's that I usually focus a little bit too much on authors: Roy Thomas, Michael Fleisher, Chuck Dixon, Christopher Priest, Jim Zub... and too little on the great illustrators of those comics. I'll try to take a step in the right direction with that here today, because the Marvel Graphic Novel Conan the Rogue is The John Buscema Show.

Buscema is an interesting character in the Marvel chapter of Conan the Barbarian. To hear him tell it, he doesn't even really like comics very much, especially not superhero comics. I watched an interview where he said he was assigned to draw Amazing Spider-Man for seven issues and despised it. Hated Spider-Man, hated all the supporting characters. Who doesn't like Spider-Man? Big John B, I guess.

The one thing that John liked to draw at Marvel was Conan, and it shows in his body of work. He drew nearly 150 issues of Conan the Barbarian. He drew dozens upon dozens of issues of Savage Sword of Conan, King Conan, and did the daily strip for a while. He preferred the more naturalistic style of the Hyborian Age than drawing rocket ships.

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Even when Buscema was doing Conan, he wasn't always satisfied with the results. He was picky about who inked his work and the resulting pages. 

"I remember the first time [Alfredo] Alcala inked my Conan. I went up to Marvel and ran into one of the editors- Len Wein, or... who's the other guy? Marv Wolfman- in the hallway, and he said, 'Oh, you've got to see it, John. It's beautiful.' Alcala was a good artist, but he destroyed my drawing."

Within the comic book creation process, Buscema would sometimes do pencils, which in comic terms meant producing fully-completed pencil sketches with line work and shadows, and could do about three or three and a half pages a day. 

Other times, he would do just the layouts or "breakdowns," which were only incomplete pencil sketches without blacks or shadows, leaving the rest to his inker. Buscema was adamant that he really only did this out of necessity to keep up with the pace that the books came out. He would've liked to ink his own drawings. Whoever was inking his work- for good or ill- always left their own mark on the image, and I'm sure you can see why John wasn't always a fan. I'm completely ripping this comparison idea off from the book Big John Buscema: Comics & Drawings, where they zeroed-in on several different inks over specifically Conan's eyes. All of the following are penciled by John Buscema.

Buscema's Conan is strong, balanced, and muscular. He draws him with more dynamism than Gil Kane did, though they both draw Conan more like an action figure than the pantherish youth that Barry Windsor-Smith drew. He doesn't really go in for the "square-cut" black mane. While I know it's not the most faithful representation of Howard's Conan, he's kind of become the platonic ideal for the modern Cimmerian.

During Roy Thomas's second run on Savage Sword, he crafted, from what I can tell, is the only story credit he ever got on a Conan book. Seeing Buscema's name listed before Roy's feels a little bit like reading "Garfunkel & Simon," "Tails & Sonic," or "Jelly & Peanut Butter." Unfortunately, Marvel didn't seem inclined to push the book. It had a small print run, low sales, and is pretty hard to come by today. I had to buy mine for $115, and even then it's in pretty rough shape. But it was worth it! Conan the Rogue may be Buscema's very best work on the character he's most associated with!

Look at these bad guys! You know exactly what they're all about from the second you lay eyes on them. Classic!

Conan the Rogue, which is plotted, drawn, colored, and inked by John Buscema (it's very rare you see the artist credited for "Art & Color by..." in a comic) and then scripted by his longtime collaborator Roy Thomas, is set almost entirely at Fort Ghori south of the Vilayet Sea. Conan gets thrown out of a tavern and somewhat accidentally ends up in the employ of a local governor named Tarsu Khan. Khan's life has been threatened by his brother and a scheming vizier hoping to foment a war between city-states that will ultimately allow them both to move up the chain of command. Too bad the big guy gets in the way.

Unlike a lot of political intrigue in comics where you see the twists coming from a mile off, it's densely-plotted and well-scripted enough to obfuscate exactly whose plans will come to fruition while Conan's around. The politicking doesn't become the main focus of the book though, and the ending shifts drastically toward a more traditional Conan adventure.

Take a look at the page below. I think the worst thing you could say about Buscema's art- usually- is that his panel layouts are a little less than elegantly-thought-out and he compensates by adding arrows to let you know which panel should come next. That happens pretty frequently in Conan the Barbarian and it always seems like a cop-out to me, poor panel design if we're being honest, but here, he's doing the same thing, this time to his advantage.

Our suspense is held as the door slowly opens to reveal the giant Romm, who we see essentially from his victim's perspective as he ducks his head to slink into the coliseum. Our flow then snakes left on the page to his defiant last words and the reader's eye ends on Romm, towering over him. The long shot from a side perspective makes the size comparison easy. The next thing we get is the weapon snapping our eye back to the right as he cleaves the skull in half, and we get to see all the carnage of it. It's like your eye floats back and forth down the page, like a swinging mace.

In fact, most of Big John's work here is no-holds-barred. Even Savage Sword, despite its freedom from the Comics Code, didn't usually delight in gore and bloodshed. However, check out Lord Nassidren's head here, impaled and caved-in.

Buscema considered Conan the Rogue to be some of his best work, if not the best of his career, and I'm inclined to agree. His poses are perfect and his character designs are immediately striking. As the book moves out of the Fort Ghori outpost's relatively civilized setting into the "Nightmare Swamp" (fuck yeah), we get some disgusting moss zombie creatures and the book finishes really strong.

Throughout the title, his line work is rough in a way that makes the book feel ragged at the edges and lived-in, while his colors (watercolors? I'm not exactly an art expert) look much better than the traditionally-colored Conan the Barbarian title. They're more natural and muted than the gaudy pinks and yellows of the monthly book.

I think my favorite panel is Conan diving across a parade, pulling Tarsu Khan out of the way of oncoming arrows. The motion feels so fluid that it momentarily feels like it transcends static images. I could stare at the muted teals, browns, and tans all day.

If you approach Conan the Rogue wanting the best, most unique plot of all Conan stories, I don't think you'll find it here. But if you approach the graphic novel with an appreciation for John Buscema and you want to see what he can do outside of the confines of the usual system, this is a book you need to read. He had a few issues of Savage Sword left to do, but I'd say it's fair to consider the Rogue John's Conan swan song. An aging master who hasn't lost a step, finally being given a chance to really throw his weight around? This is a wonderful example of what comic art can be.