Red Sonja and Conan Crossover Coming From Dynamite and Dark Horse

October 8th, 2013, Mt. Laurel, NJ - New York Comic-Con Announcement:  Dynamite Entertainment and Dark Horse Comics are proud to announce the 2014 crossover of swords-and-sorcery icons Red Sonja, She-Devil with a Sword and Conan the Barbarian, a reunion that fans have asked for since their last team-up over fifteen years ago.  Two series will be published, Red Sonja/Conan and Conan/Red Sonja, by Dynamite and Dark Horse, respectively.  Acclaimed writers Gail Simone and Brian Wood are confirmed as the writers for the epic crossovers, both firmly established as valuable contributors to the Robert E. Howard fantasy mythos.

Gail Simone, current Red Sonja series writer, states, "It's only the crossover that readers have been begging to have for over a decade: the two greatest barbarian adventurers ever created in an epic tale of blood, lust, and vengeance.  This is the kind of stuff that made me a reader in the first place, and working with Brian Wood and his amazing version of Conan?  It's just a sword-and-sorcery dream come true.  It's sword vs. sword, Cimmerian vs. Hyrkanian, loincloth vs. bikini, and it'll probably be the most fun you'll have reading a comic all year."

Brian Wood, current Conan series writer adds, "Conan and Red Sonja together are a genre dream team, and I'm looking forward to not only working with Gail on the story, but creating a crossover story that is epic and huge as these things should be... and something that matters, that's relevant, and adds something to each character's rich history."

Nick Barrucci, CEO and Publisher of Dynamite Entertainment, says, "Red Sonja and Conan are the power-couple of fantasy comics.  They define the genre together, the iconic figures by which all others are measured.  Their history is intertwined, and I suppose it was only destiny that would lead them together again.  Well, that and a lot of planning alongside great folks like Mike Richardson, Gail Simone, and Brian Wood, plus the editorial teams from both of our companies.  And the timing could not be better, as this is a huge crossover to hit as we go into our tenth anniversary.  We couldn't be more pleased to see the Robert E. Howard legacy made whole again with two Hyboria-shaking crossover events."

Mike Richardson, President and Publisher of Dark Horse, says, "I think the fans of these series have been waiting a very long time to see them together again. I'm happy that we could work this out with the good folks at Dynamite."

Gail Simone is a multiple award-winning writer of comics and animation.  She began her career writing the popular comics parody column, "You'll All Be Sorry," which led to writing The Simpsons at Bongo Comics, Deadpool at Marvel, and Killer Princesses at Oni Press.  She has since written for many different publishers, including popular runs on iconic books like Birds of Prey, The All-New Atom, Secret Six, Wonder Woman, Catwoman, and Red Sonja.  In addition to her comic book work, Simone has written prose, game material, and animation, including Tomb Raider, Justice League Unlimited, and Batman: Brave and the Bold.  She was also a co-writer of the critically-acclaimed Wonder Woman animated film released in 2009.

Multiple Eisner Award-nominee Brian Wood released his first series, Channel Zero, to considerable critical acclaim in 1997 and has gone on to create hard-hitting original series such as DMZ, Northlanders, The Couriers, and The Massive.  Adding to that body of work, he's also written some of the biggest titles in pop culture, with work on Star Wars, Conan the Barbarian, Lord of the Rings, and The X-Men.

More information will be available in coming weeks regarding the long-awaited Red Sonja and Conan reunion event.

About Dynamite Entertainment:

Dynamite was founded in 2004 and is home to several best-selling comic book titles and properties, including The Boys, The Shadow, Vampirella, Warlord of Mars, Bionic Man, A Game of Thrones, and more.  Dynamite owns and controls an extensive library with over 3,000 characters (which includes the Harris Comics and Chaos Comics properties), such as Vampirella, Pantha, Evil Ernie, Smiley the Psychotic Button, Chastity, Purgatori, and Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt.  In addition to their critically-acclaimed titles and bestselling comics, Dynamite works with some of the most high profile creators in comics and entertainment, including Kevin Smith, Alex Ross, Neil Gaiman, Andy Diggle, John Cassaday, Garth Ennis, Jae Lee, Marc Guggenheim, Mike Carey, Jim Krueger, Greg Pak, Brett Matthews, Matt Wagner, Gail Simone, Steve Niles, James Robinson, and a host of up-and-coming new talent.  Dynamite is consistently ranked in the upper tiers of comic book publishers and several of their titles - including Alex Ross and Jim Krueger's Project Superpowers - have debuted in the Top Ten lists produced by Diamond Comics Distributors. In 2005, Diamond awarded the company a GEM award for Best New Publisher and another GEM in 2006 for Comics Publisher of the Year (under 5%) and again in 2011. The company has also been nominated for and won several industry awards, including the prestigious Harvey and Eisner Awards.  For more information, please visit: http://www.dynamite.com/.

About Dark Horse:

Founded in1986 by Mike Richardson, Dark Horse Comics has proven to be a solid example of how integrity and innovation can help broaden a unique storytelling medium and establish a small, homegrown company as an industry giant.  The company is known for the progressive and creator-friendly atmosphere it provides for writers and artists.  In addition to publishing comics from top talent such as Frank Miller, Mike Mignola, Neil Gaiman, Brian Wood, Gerard Way, Geof Darrow, Guillermo Del Toro and comics legends such as Will Eisner, Neal Adams, and Jim Steranko, Dark Horse has developed its own successful properties such as The Mask, Ghost, Timecop, and SpyBoy.  Its successful line of comics, books, and products based on popular properties includes Star Wars, Mass Effect, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Aliens, Conan, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Halo, Serenity, The Legend of Zelda, Game of Thrones and Domo. Today Dark Horse Comics is the largest independent comic book publisher in the US and is recognized as one of the world's leading publishers of both creator-owned content and licensed comics material.  For more information, please visit: http://www.darkhorse.com/.

All characters ™ and © their respective owners.

Dark Horse's Conan: Queen of The Black Coast in Review

Finally, I managed to get a copy of this first issue. I have been looking forward to this collaboration between two fresh voices in comics: Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan. Yes, it's not the first time that they have worked together. Fans of super-hero comics should track down their two Demo collections for a series of interesting and thoroughly modern takes on super-heroes and super-powered people.

This comic isn't about someone with super-powers, a code name, or brightly colored tights. It is about Conan, the Barbarian, and it is the launch of a new Dark Horse title about the pirate years of the character, and his travels with the pirate queen Belit. Outside of a few references in other stories, the original Queen of the Black Coast, written by Robert E. Howard, is the only appearance of Belit. She appeared in numerous issues of the old comics from Marvel.

First, let's talk about the art. Becky Cloonan is one of the best young artists to hit comics in a long time. She brings an energy and vibrancy to this issue that is unlike any artist that you have probably seen before on a Conan comic. Her sensibility is very much that of the alternative comics of the last decade or so, and I think that brings a new feeling to the story. Her characters are expressive. You can see Conan smirk and Belit smolder within the pages of this book. The sample at the right shows our first glimpse of the character of Belit, filtered through the lusty imagination of Conan.

Brian Wood's writing weaves between quoting the original story and giving an emotional resonance to the characters in the story.  Both Conan and Tito have distinct voices that allow you to tell the difference between who is talking when. Even though this is a younger Conan, with much of his life and adventures before him, Wood gives the character a wight that shows the big hero that he is going to become one day. Wood and Cloonan manage to demonstrate in just a few short pages that even this young Conan is a charismatic leader of men, who manages to quickly convince a ship of merchants to help him and take him away from the city where his savage ways have once again gotten him into trouble. He only needs a small hint of violence to do it, but his manner quickly wins over the crew.

Admittedly, this is an introductory issue and it shows. Most of this issue is given to explaining who Conan, Tito, and Belit are as characters and setting the tone for Conan's world. This might be a bit dull for someone who is a long time fan of the characters and stories. However, this is a new ongoing that will also give us new adventures during this period of Conan's life, so a little bit of setup can be overlooked. To me, this is one of the classic Conan tales, and I think that the adaptation has been done right.

Is this comic worth buying? Definitely, yes. I plan to keep buying it past the adaptation of this story as well, because I think that the work done by Wood and Cloonan, as well as the talent that they have already demonstrated on other projects, show that this will be a book that is a keeper as long as they are doing it.