I saw the cover and thought, huh - is Sergio Aragones doing a Conan book now?
It's fun to see new Conan stuff now that he's in the public domain (I've assumed, but not super sure) and publishers are probably figuring out stuff because the book is called "The Cimmerian" and not "Conan: The Cimmerian" or something like that. I wonder if "Conan" was trademarked or something else?

Anyways - this book has two of Howard's Conan stories (Queen of the Black Coast and Red Nail), thus the split in the writing/art teams on the headline of this post. And, while I'd read both stories a while ago, there wasn't much that I remembered. So, it was fun to go into them "fresh" while also knowing that they were original Howard stories.

So, they're both good barbarian fun and the cover makes it seem like the art is more risque than I think it really is (no nudity as far as I remember) and it's as violent as you'd imagine without going over the top with the gore. I guess what I'm trying to articulate is that the book leans more heavily into the adventure part of the stories than the violence - in all a good thing in my opinion.

I'm now curious to read some of the other volumes AND I also enjoyed the "bonus material" - most interestingly, reprints of the original stories (in prose). So, you can read the comic adaptation, and then read the story!

Of the three "Incal universe" books I've read so far, this is the one that feels the least "Incal". I'm not sure why, because the story is indeed crazy and wild and goes in all kinds of places and it takes a while to even understand what is happening.

But, still. It feels a little out of place. I'm guessing I'm wrong - in the sense that Wolfhead is probably a character I should remember but I don't. So I guess I now need to read Before Incal (because it's been sitting on the shelf forever) and why not also read Incal (because it's been a while), and then I need to make sure I have all of after incal and final incal...which I think are different books, with multiple volumes, but I'm not sure.

And Kill Wolfhead? It was a fun read, strange - in that the story jumps around time-wise, but fun nonetheless.

I was a bit nervous to get this because the spine had a "1" on it, indicating that this was the first part of...several(?). Having read it, it was a fun, short, interesting, sci-fi time-travelling "what is going on?!" story. No regrets. And, the "1" on the spine is just not true? I don't think there's any other volumes and that this story ended pretty much where it ended....

I picked this one up solely on the basis that Greg Rucka was involved. I've been enjoying Lazarus, I enjoyed Gotham Central back in the day and so....it's a name that's sort of of my "watchlist" without officially being on it. (strangely, I never got into Queen & Country).

The story's fun, the characters are interesting - it all takes place in Antarctica and there are murders and conspiracies (but no supernatural elements). And, as the title would suggest - it's all in black and white.

I took a quick look at Rucka's Wikipedia page and learned that this was Rucka's entry to the comics industry! Wow! I feel lucky this came across my lap and that I was able to read it. I was sure it was a "new" (or at least recent) book. Huh.

I did have a hard time making sense of all the names and people in the story - they die a lot too, which made things a bit harder, but still. Overall? Fun read, worth it, though it did take me a while (I was sort of reading it in short bursts over a month).