Conan Volume 20: A Witch Shall be Born Paperback – January 31, 2017

Good

Let me say right off the bat that I'm a huge fan of Conan and the sword and sorcery genre in general. I'm grateful that Dark Horse revived the Conan franchise and is continuing to reimagine the Howard classics, like AWSBB.One thing DH did right was give this story its due treatment across several issues rather than to compress it into a single issue's tale. Much as I loved the Thomas/Buscema rendition in SSOC, there's just too many subplots that needed to be fleshed out than 40 pages allows.To their credit, VanLente and Ching give the story the space it deserves. And kudos to the Luis/Owens artwork in chapter 2, which is superb.Which brings me to my main criticism of this book: Ching's artwork throughout the rest of the book. It's simply not up to par for a classic like AWSSB. Ching had a good showing in past volumes, but he just didn't have the aptitude/desire/time/S&S sensibility or whatever to do this story justice. At times his work is borderline amateurish, not at all imagining the tale as it should be. I highly recommend that the DH executive editors rethink their commitment to Conan, and if they decide not to put their best artists on these stories, then I strongly recommend they stop producing more stories.

This volume collects the final issues of Fred Van Lente and Brian Ching's run from Conan The Avenger issues #20 to #25. Originally printed in late 2015 and early 2016. This is volume #20 in the Matched Sets of Hard Covers that started with Kurt Busiek's relaunch. They are limited to the first printing and still a great value for six issues in a Hard Cover format.This volume collects the story A Witch Shall Be Born. It was a originally printed as a Novella in the December 1934 issue of Weird Tales. It has been adapted once before in Savage Sword Of Conan #5 from 1975. That Black & White version was much condensed running around 40 pages.The plot involves Conan being the Captain of the Guard for Queen Taramis. Her look-a-like Sister (presumed dead) returns, she puts the Queen in prison and takes over as ruler. Conan is crucified and left for the vultures. Spared by a Desert Bandit he eventually finds his way back.Fred Van Lente continues to do a very good job scripting but the art continues to disappoint many. Brian Ching is a good artist, his style just is just not right for this book. It is a style that looks like Bruce Timm and Alex Toth are trying to to do Anime. Issue #2 is done by artist Jose Luis, it is jarringly realistic and a drastic departure. Luis art resembles Veteran artist Pablo Marcus.This run ends with this volume and I look forward to new creators and hopefully less "Cartoony" art.

This Conan volume wasn't the strongest of Van Lente's, I'd actually go so far as to say it could be the weakest. The story jumps around a bit and doesn't provide explanations to how Conan got where he is when it starts. Some parts felt like filler while others seemed to drag, a strange contradiction because the filler space could have provided more backstory as to how we got here at the start of the story, we were sort of just thrown in. The first three Van Lente books flow together like a complete story but this one feels tacked on at the end with nothing much to do with the others. I like the concept of A Witch Shall be Born but the execution was off.Much has been said about the art and I'll repeat it, Ching's stuff really worked in previous volumes but something was wrong with it here. Either the inking or colors seemed to throw it off. The fill in artist on the second issue did not appeal to me at all. Artistically this was by far the worst of recent volumes.Much like Brian Woods run at the end, I'm anxiously awaiting the next creators take on Conan to get something fresh and rejuvenated.

Fred Van Lente's "A Witch Shall be Born" pays a fitting homage to the original story from back in the 70's which is one of my personal favorites. Its a great story and any fan of the Conan series should purchase this. My only complaint is Brian Ching's version of "Skinny Conan". I can't stand it because he makes Conan look like a little boy. Ching's work on Star Wars, Batman, Supergirl are excellent but in my opinion his take on what should be a huge and muscular Conan is misplaced. Its so bad that it distracts from the story and I found myself skipping pages. You can see for yourself when you compare Mr. Ching's work in Chapters 1 and 3-6 with Chapter 2 which was drawn by Jose Luis. Mr. Luis has a much more traditional version of the sword wielding beefcake. Please Dark Horse, give the talented Mr. Ching another assignment and bring back Tomas Giorello, Jose Luis or Jose Villarrubia to continue the Conan series.

Great story line by Van lente but art not my favorite

Never disappoints!

Following the car crash of the Belit saga, I hoped to see the standard of Dark Horse Conans picking up. It has, but still not to the extent of the first volumes in this series, let alone the BWS and Buscema classics. The story is treated well, it captures much of the REH original. What lets it down for me is the artwork. There's a couple of nice splashes but overall I'm not a fan of this scrawny, "muppet-mouth" approach that seems fashionable lately.I'm often drawn back to classics like BWS Red Nails, as much for the artwork as anything. This one, I'll probably read a couple of times and that will be it.So, to sum up, certainly an improvement, especially story-wise, But no my cup of tea when it comes to the artwork