The Lamentations Of Their Artist

The first big announcement from the New York Comic Con came from Dark Horse Comics yesterday, when they announced the new creative team for the upcoming Conan The Barbarian: Queen Of The Black Coast miniseries: Stan Lee’s lawyers!

Just kidding! It’s actually gonna be Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan, the creative team behind the Generation X-focused emo superhero book Demo!

Just kidding! It’s actually going to be – oh wait, that one was real?

I was a little confused when I read this news, because while Wood has written some real hard-boiled stuff like Channel Zero, DMZ and Northlanders, I was honestly only familiar with Cloonan’s art from Demo – which really was Gen X emo porn for nerds…

…and from Vertigo’s American Virgin, written by Steven T. Seagle, which was a story about, well, some dude who didn’t fuck…

…even though clearly everyone else around him did.

So at face value, this seems RIDICULOUS. I mean, how the hell is Becky Cloonan gonna handle a sword and sorcery book like this? I haven’t seen ANYTHING to indicate that she has the right style or any kind of background to – what’s that, Google?

Okay… well that’s one thing, but… has she ever even SEEN Conan, let alone DRAWN him?

Wow. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but if I didn’t know Cloonan could do this kind of art? I’m CLEARLY not reading enough comics.

Conan The Barbarian: Queen Of The Black Coast will be in your local comic store in June, 2012.