Conan: The Dance of the Skull Comic Review (#83)
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The idea of these short reviews is to give you a quick overview of what this issue is about (or remind you if you’ve forgotten!).
I try to give as much information as possible without spoiling any plots or twists, though of course there are likely to be some mini-spoilers… so read on dog-brother!
Conan the Barbarian #83 – The Dance of the Skull
Writer/Editor: Roy Thomas
Guest Illustrators: Howard Chaykin and Ernie Chan
Colorist: G. Roussos
Letterer: Tim Orz
Consulting Editor: Archie Goodwin
Cover Penciller: John Buscema
Cover Inker: Ernie Chan
Published: Marvel, Feb 1978
Cover
Another classic from Buscema and Chan. We’ve got Conan battling three man-dragons somewhere underwater.
The action is dynamic, Conan is mid-stab and surrounded on all sides, and you get a real sense of danger and energy.
The twisted forms of the creatures make it clear who’s ‘good and bad’, and the composition draws your eye straight to the heart of the conflict. It’s an eye-catching and energetic piece.
I’m sure I would have bought it if I’d seen it on the shelf.
Art
Once again, with Buscema on a short hiatus, the art team of Chaykin and Chan really gels.
It’s maybe not quite at the classic Buscema level, but for ‘guest’ illustrators they go above and beyond.
We get lots of tall, thin, vertical panels, especially in the first half, which is quite unusual for a Conan story — but there’s a lot of action going on, and it fits it very well.
It gives the story a real sense of urgency and speeds the story along quickly.
The first few pages have a lot of blue and green hues, which give way to some very intense reds and yellows later in the story.
Once again, I’m a big fan of Roussos’ colouring work. He is quickly becoming one of my absolute favourites.
Story
Okay, so this issue is a conclusion of the build-up that we had last week.
We know that Conan and others are being bewitched by someone or something, and we’re going to find out who and why today.
I won’t say too much else without making it a spoiler, but we definitely get the resolution we wanted — with a bit of a twist at the end as well.
The twist itself was satisfying and hit the right note, even if it wasn’t completely unexpected — it tied things up well while leaving a little room for Conan to reflect.
Howard Accuracy / Faithfulness
This is a two-parter and it’s based on Black Canaan by Robert E. Howard (which I still haven’t read).
It does have our swords, sorcery, sorcerer and sorceress, so I’d say this fits the theme very well.
We see the best of Conan’s skills – tracking, hunting, fighting… and how he uses his brain to resist, not just his brawn.
There are plenty of Conan’s superstitions and hates in here too. And once again, he will stick by those who are loyal to him.
We also have an instance of Conan being relatively nonplussed by a fairly sensitive situation. Then he goes on to do some mercy killing, which I think fits him quite well.
Character Spotlight
I’ll stick with Neth-At, who Conan befriended last week, and he continues his adventures with him this week. I like him for the most part.
I said (with a little tongue in cheek) that they’ll probably be friends for a long time — we’ll see if that is really the case or not.
Best Panel or Scene
I’m going to go with where Toroa, the witchman, does his dance. You can almost smell the fire and hear the drums as he becomes the puppet-master.
The colouring is fantastic. The glaring red eyes look particularly evil and fit the theme of the story. The flames and the shadows also look fantastic and even better on paper.
Where to Buy
It’s probably easiest to read The Dance of the Skull in the new Titan/Heroic Conan Omnibus 3, or you might get lucky and find a single issue on eBay, though it seems to be one of the rarer ones.
Final Thoughts & Rating
A good story, and I liked the panel layouts — they were energetic and fairly unique.
You rarely see this style in Conan books and it brought the story along very quickly (much like Robert E Howard would have done), and I enjoyed the twist at the end.
Even if the resolution didn’t quite reach the same heights as the buildup, the pacing, atmosphere, and character work carried the issue through very nicely.
Rating: 7/10.
