Jim Zub's Blog, page 16
March 17, 2024
Zubby Newsletter #54: Couldn’t Even See The Bucket
I’m in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin for Founders & Legends and Gary Con, celebrating 50 years of Dungeons & Dragons and tabletop roleplaying games alongside a slew of writers and artists who helped build a hobby from the ground up. Two days in and it’s already been a pretty amazing and surreal experience.
Last night someone asked me if getting to write Dungeons & Dragons and Conan the Barbarian and be a guest at events like this were on my “Bucket List” – life goals/dreams someone hopes to achieve.
And, I had to be honest, the answer was a resounding “No”.
These kinds of things weren’t on my bucket list when I was younger because I couldn’t even see the bucket.
I would read comic books, absorb the names of those artists and writers, and wonder if it might be possible to meet those amazing people some day. My brother and I would pore over RPG books, see that an adventure was originally run as a tournament at a convention and dream about maybe someday going to that convention and playing in one of those tournaments. Just getting a bit closer to the people who made the stuff we enjoyed. That was the extent of my nerdy dreams.
The idea that I would ever get to create that stuff, have my name on the cover of a book, be well regarded in that field or be friends and peers with any of those creators would have seemed ridiculously impossible to me as a kid.
Right now, my creative career is so cosmically beyond any bucket I could have perceived that I can’t fully wrap my head around it. It’s special and wonderful even when it can be stressful and difficult and a bit exhausting.
I said something to that effect to the person who asked me and he said “Well, I’m kind of having that experience right now getting to chat with you.”
So yeah, it’s all a bit mind blowing…
The Crucible Welcomes Its First Victims
Speaking of gaming tournaments, this week at the shows I’m playtesting an original Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition adventure I put together for fun.
The Crucible is a dungeon crawl tournament-style AD&D adventure for six 3rd level characters. It’s filled with dangerous traps, puzzles, and unusual combat encounters in the tradition of the Tomb of Horrors and Deathtrap Dungeon.
I built the riddles and puzzles so a group can “brute force” their way through if needed, but solving them either nullifies or severely weakens an encounter, giving the party a much better chance of surviving the whole adventure.
The adventure is named after an arc of Conan I wrote at Marvel, a story where our Cimmerian is tricked into competing in a similar deathtrap-laden tournament.
I ran the adventure for the first time yesterday and the playtest crew did really well. Over the course of 3 hours these six strangers came together to overcome five major encounter areas and reach the last puzzle, while roleplaying and laughing all the way. The team made some smart strategic decisions in combat and exhausted all their healing magic to bring two characters back from the brink of death. I’m curious how the other groups fare later this week.
A few people here and online have already asked if I’m going to publish the adventure. Right now it’s a pet project I put together so I’d have something original to run at TTRPG shows and in its current state it’s a series of scrappy notes, handouts and other pieces, not a properly written and edited manuscript. That said, it would be fun to formalize it up at some point and bring things full circle by having an adventure playtested at a game event become “real”.
Coffee & Heroes – Part 3A few weeks ago I had a wonderful time talking with the owners of Coffee & Heroes in Ireland all about my career in comics. It was a great chat and covered so much ground that they’ve split it into 3 parts.
Here’s part 3, where we dive deep on CONAN THE BARBARIAN, including writing an icon, working on Conan at Marvel during the pandemic, pitching the relaunch to Heroic Signatures, working on the new monthly series, the new Savage Sword of Conan magazine, and more!
(And here’s Part 1 and Part 2, if you missed them.)
Talking AI Art on NPR
I was one of the comic creators who spoke to Jason Burrows at Emerald City Comic Con all about generative AI artwork and the changing industry.
“I’m confused about the desire to have computers make the fun things, and make sure that people are continuing to do the drudgery.”
Current + Upcoming Releases
• Leila del Duca has a Kickstarter running for a beautiful collection of her Sleepless story and, to no one’s surprise, it’s looking incredible.
• Kyodokan‘s technique for cooking Teriyaki Chicken is simple and effective. I made it last week following their technique and it turned out wonderfully.
Jim
March 10, 2024
Zubby Newsletter #53: Marching Onward
Quite a whirlwind this week trying to get caught up on emails and work after Seattle and prepping for my road trip next week to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin for back-to-back gaming events with Founders & Legends and Gary Con, celebrating 50 years of Dungeons & Dragons and TTRPGs. If you’ll be at either convention, let me know. I won’t have a booth or table, I’m there to run and play some games, do a few panels and interviews, and otherwise hang out with friends and enjoy. That said, if you have any of my books, feel free to bring them to either event as I’m happy to sign them.
While I was away last week I received notification that my YouTube channel finally reached the threshold for the YouTube Partner Program (ie. I will start receiving a portion of ad revenue generated from video views), which was nice. I haven’t had time to post many videos lately, but past ones about art and writing continue to get traffic. Here are some for you to check out if you’ve never seen them before. Watch and share:
Making Comics – Dialogue Order and Page ThumbnailsMaking Comics – Outlining Your Story
Making Comics – Page Turns and Pacing
Making Comics – The Power of Short Stories
Making Comics – Writing Conan the Barbarian Coffee & Heroes – Part 2
Speaking of YouTube, a few weeks ago, I had a wonderful time talking with the owners of Coffee & Heroes in Ireland all about my career in comics. It was a great chat and covered so much ground that they’ve split it into 3 parts.
Here’s part 2, where we cover omnibuses, Rick and Morty VS Dungeons & Dragons, Thunderbolts, Avengers: No Surrender, Al Ewing’s Immortal Hulk pitch, Avengers: No Road Home, the zen of Chip Zdarsky, and more!
(And here’s Part 1, if you missed it.)
Conan Noodles
UDON Entertainment is now offering an exclusive variant cover for CONAN THE BARBARIAN #9, the first issue of The Age Unconquered, our epic third story arc. Cover artist Ickpot has taken an anime approach to the Hyborian Age and it’s a pretty fun fusion of styles. Get your pre-order in before they’re gone.
Over on my Patreon– The full scripts for CONAN THE BARBARIAN #24 + 25, the final issues I wrote on the previous run before the Titan relaunch.
There are now over 300 scripts in my Patreon archive, available for the price of a fancy coffee.
Current + Upcoming Releases
• On Valentine’s Day I cooked the best steak of my life, a medium-rare dry-aged rib eye that Stacy and I could not get enough of. The cooking technique I used is called a Reverse Sear and, if you haven’t tried it before, I highly recommend it! J. Kenji Lopez does a great job covering the process here.
• Brian Lagerstrom‘s cooking channel is great in general, but his new video with Easy Techniques to Make You a Better Cook is extra sharp, a solid summary of useful techniques I’ve incorporated into my cooking approach over the past few years.
• Todd Klein has posted up his entire Art and History of Lettering book on his site and, if you’re a fan of comics or a creator looking to enhance your knowledge about the medium this will absolutely hit the spot.
• NASA has created their own tabletop RPG adventure? Seriously…check out The Lost Universe on the NASA website. It’s absolutely free.
Jim
March 4, 2024
Zubby Newsletter #52: A Sparkling Emerald
but I’m sure he’ll get his first sword soon.
This past weekend was Emerald City Comic Con, my first convention of 2024, and it was an incredible experience. ECCC is usually a sharp show, with excited comic fans aplenty and a solid guest list of professional pals, but this year had more sparkle than usual.
At New York Comic-Con back in October I had a few old school Conan the Barbarian fans come to my table to tell me how much they were enjoying the new series. This time, with 5 more issues and the first trade paperback released and months of good word of mouth across the industry, it was a steady stream of readers, many of them collectors from the 1970’s, lining up in front of my table with praise and hearty handshakes as we talked about everyone’s favorite Cimmerian and the incredible artwork Rob De La Torre and Doug Braithwaite are unleashing each issue. In addition to longtime fans, there were plenty of new readers too, many who said they had wanted to check out Conan for years but didn’t know where to start. The new series grabbed their attention and now they were looking at back issues and collections to dig in even more.
It was an intense and heartfelt experience and it kept happening in person over and over, every day of the show, while at the same time my social media was blowing up with photos, compliments, and strong reviews for Savage Sword of Conan #1 and Conan the Barbarian #8, which both arrived in comic shops on Wednesday. I was taken aback by all of it in the best way possible.
This isn’t meant as an ego thing, I swear. I just want to mark this moment and thank everyone for their abundant enthusiasm.
Taking it even higher, on Friday morning the nomination list for the 2023 Robert E. Howard Awards went public and I found out that the new Conan comic is up for two possible awards:
THE COSTIGAN – for literary achievement
THE RANKIN – for artistic achievement
I’m thrilled that The Robert E. Howard Foundation, a dedicated group of scholars and conservators of the man’s work, has recognized our series. It’s an honor to contribute to such an important literary legacy and bring new fans into the fold.
I’ve been writing Conan stories since 2015 and this is the first time I’ve been nominated by the Foundation, so that’s a pretty special milestone. Fan engagement at the show and the REH Foundation nominations hitting at the same time was an incredible jolt of excitement. It feels like we’re tapping into the bedrock that made the original stories so engaging and helped launch the sword & sorcery genre over 90 years ago.
Off the show floor, lots of great meals and conversations with friends, some karaoke and a few pints to celebrate another year on the convention circuit.
My good friend Jody Houser was hit with an inner ear infection that brought on intense bouts of vertigo Friday evening and that necessitated a group of us skipping out on social stuff to help take care of her, but even in the swirl of all that there was a throughline of friendship and looking out for each other that reaffirmed how much I enjoy doing these events and being part of this industry.
UndrivenThe enshittification of technology continues.
When Google Drive launched, I was an early adopter and it was an absolute gamechanger.
The document I had on hand was always the latest, saving me from version numbering and worrying about losing work. Having every single story I’d written saved locally on my laptop simultaneously backed up on the cloud and my desktop computer at home meant I could work flexibly and fearlessly. A bit of writing done at the airport or on a flight would update all versions as soon as I connected to wifi or settled in at a hotel.
It was simple, elegant, and made sense…so, of course, it couldn’t stay that way.
Now, the files in my Google Drive folder will not open without current active internet running, which means I can’t continue working on a project on a flight or check older files as reference when I’m on the go. Why? No idea. The full-size file is sitting there in the folder saved locally taking up hard drive space and the prompt says it’s all up to date, but now I click on it and it just loads endlessly until it crashes because of…reasons, some new bloated complicated process running under the hood that acts as an unnecessary barrier between me and the file that didn’t used to be there.
It’s so frustrating.
The people building this stuff have stopped using their own products and, in turn, have forgotten what it was supposed to do in the first place. Endless spyware, subscriptions, or hidden processes for less efficient, less elegant, less productive everything.
Coffee & Heroes – Part 1A few weeks ago, I had a wonderful time talking with the owners of Coffee & Heroes in Ireland all about my career in comics. It was a great chat and covered so much ground that they’re splitting it into 3 parts.
Here’s part 1, where we cover nerdy reading with my brother, my influences, the things I did before comic writing, sword & sorcery as a genre, tabletop RPGs, superheroes and Vertigo books, serialized entertainment, the struggles of launching and maintaining Skullkickers, being typecast, and more!
Current + Upcoming Releases
• The second Thunder Road: Vendetta board game Kickstarter is on now. I really enjoyed the base game (it’s basically Mad Max as a board game) and being able to snag a new expansions and other exclusive additions here is enticing.
• J.L. Collins let me know that the crowdfund campaign for Thistle, a new fantasy comic series, is now underway. I read an advance of the first issue and it looks like it’s channeling classic elements with a bit of a twist.
Have a great week, everyone!
Jim
March 3, 2024
Conan the Barbarian #8 Reviews
• Comical Opinions: 9.5/10 “If you’re a Conan fan, this is a must-read. The story is perfect, the character development is on point, you get your fix of classic Conan action and it all just…works.”
• Hither Came Conan: “I am very satisfied with the way that this arc ended. It ends in quite the cliffhanger…I really enjoyed it. It was a great second arc. I am super pumped to get into the next arc.”
• League of Comic Geeks: 10/10 “Hot damn! This book is everything I’ve ever wanted from a Conan book and it shows no signs of slowing! This book is perfect in my eyes.”
• Multiversity: “As for the artwork? It’s as dark and gritty as it should be, but also wonderfully detailed and illustrated with care. Doug Braithwaite’s artwork is intense, emphasizing Conan’s hulking form and making every detail pop.”
• Pop Culture Philosophers: “Another satisfying issue of Conan the Barbarian. The artwork by Doug Braithwaite is absolutely fantastic. I love the use of color here.”
• Set The Tape: 8/10 “Everything about these comics continues to impress. The phrase ‘passion project’ feels right for this series, as though everyone involved has a genuine love of the world of Conan. It’s a joy to see these comics grow and mature, weaving another glorious thread through an already rich tapestry.”
• Stygian Dogs: “Here in the second arc, thanks to that ambitious and well laid foundation, and all to our benefit, Zub was able to let loose…we’ve been given a thrill ride of action…It’s brutally awesome.”
• Thinking Critical: “When we got to the ending of this book, I was shocked…It’s crazy. I did not see that happening.”
March 1, 2024
Savage Sword of Conan #1 Reviews
• Comics Beat: “…an excellent start to this new series and follows the proud tradition of Savage Sword’s of the past. I highly recommend checking this out, especially if you are a fan of the current Conan the Barbarian series.”
• Comic Book.com: “It’s just a very cool complete oversized package of a thing that feels really substantial compared to a lot of the monthly releases.”
• Comic Book Dispatch: 9.8/10 “Patch Zircher’s art in Master Of The Hunt Part One has an elegant and historic appeal. While Solomon Kane wears the hat and cloak of a Puritan, the penciling evokes Prince Valiant.”
• Graphic Policy: 8.25/10 “It not only stands out from the Conan the Barbarian series but is an easy way to dive into these worlds. It opens up the opportunity for Titan to not only give other creators a shot at writing Conan, Kane, and more, but also try out other characters from Howard’s worlds and see what might work in their own comics.”
• Infinity Flux: “If you’re a Conan fan you’re definitely going to want this and if you’ve never dipped your foot in, this is a good entry…Really cool.”
• League of Comic Geeks: 10/10 “There literally isn’t a better cost-to-content release this year so far, and it will be hard pressed to compete with this.”
• Mass Movement: “I was more than a little nervous and keen to dive headlong into the pages of the revival of the magazine that I consider one of Marvel’s finest moments. I was not disappointed…The days of high adventure are here again, make sure you embrace them.”
• Major Spoilers: 9/10 “I thought that this was really, really good…I think you’re really gonna want to drop your $7 and get your fix.”
• Pop Culture Philosophers: “It is awesome. As far as values goes, it absolutely rocks and it’s on that newsprint so it gets the smell of the week.”
• Pop Culture Maven: “If you’re a fan of Conan it’s well worth checking out…I like it and I like the nostalgia of it too.”
• Pullbox: 10/10 “While the new title has all of what I thought was great about the old, I’ll add that this is going to be an outstanding jumping-on-point for new readers. No matter where you stand, don’t let anything stop you from picking up a copy”
• Set The Tape: 10/10 “A fantastic title with a thrilling debut, it’s great to see there’s so much life in the old barbarian yet.”
• Stygian Dogs: “In its physical form it’s wonderful. It feels right, all of it. The newsprint, the monochrome…You’re purchasing an experience here.
• Superhero Hype: 10/10 “This is sure to be the start of something special, and you will curse the gods should you miss out on this one.”
• UBJ: 10/10 “For enthusiasts of fantasy, mature-themed comics, and high-octane narratives, snagging a copy of Savage Sword of Conan #1 is a must. Miss it, and you may find yourself in lamentation.”
• Wakazashi’s Teahouse: 9.5/10 “I can honestly say it’s off to a blinding start. This issue is an absolute corker!”
February 26, 2024
Zub at Emerald City Comic Con 2024!
It’s wonderful to be back at Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle, Washington. I’m so pumped to be kicking off another convention season at one of my favorite shows. I’ll be set up with the Comic Sketch Art team at-
ARTIST ALLEY TABLE A-29
In addition to signing at my table during the show, I’ll also be on a couple panels throughout the weekend:
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 29
02:00 PM-02:45 PM — — Summit Room 431
Jim Zub (Conan the Barbarian, Rick and Morty VS Dungeons & Dragons) and Katie Cook (My Little Pony, Nothing Special) are back with their fan-favorite con horror stories panel! What’s it like working as a pro in the business on the convention ‘circuit’? Ridiculous, embarrassing, and always entertaining. Some of these stories will make you laugh out loud, others will make you cringe! This panel is recommended for those 16+ due to coarse language.
FRIDAY, MARCH 1
03:30 PM-04:30 PM — — Summit Room 431
Pull up a chair to the hearth, settle in, and enjoy spending time with Dark Horse creators who are well-versed in weaving winsome fantasy and chronicling captivating characters.
SATURDAY, MARCH 2
12:30 PM — Dungeons & Dragons Young Adventurer’s Signing and Giveaway – Booth #20515
Jim Zub will be signing FREE copies of Places & Portals, the newest D&D Young Adventurer’s Guide, while supplies last!
February 25, 2024
Zubby Newsletter #51: Big Week
This coming week is absolutely packed for me-
CONAN THE BARBARIAN #8, the wild conclusion of our second story arc, Thrice Marked For Death.
SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN #1, a grand return to black & white magazine-sized glory.
EMERALD CITY COMIC CON, my first convention of 2024 and always one of my favorite conventions each year. Will I see you there?
BRING IT ON!
My Pulpy Prose
If you do snag a copy of the new Savage Sword, 80 pages of bold barbaric goodness for $6.99, let me know what you think of Sacrifice In The Sand, my prose short story.
Speaking of Savage Sword #1, Rebecca Puebla has a pin-up in there of Bêlit, Robert E. Howard’s famous Queen of the Black Coast.
It’s a wonderful illustration and also a fun synthesis of pulp and silent film influences coming together to create a new look for an iconic character. It’s so great!
The Public Lending Right
Last week I received my Canadian Public Lending Right payment for 2024. For the past five years, I’ve been compensated for books I wrote that circulate in Canadian libraries. There are over 18,000 Canadian authors registered in the program.
The average payout per title found in their database is $49 and, as long as those books are in libraries, they will pay out for the next 25 years.
I have 52 books registered. Do the math.
If you’re a Canadian author, it is worth the effort to get enrolled and update your profile with new titles as you release new books.
Authors are giddy when royalties pay on their backlist work. The Public Lending Right is like an extra royalty payment every February for published Canadian authors and illustrators from the Canada Council For The Arts.
For five years I’ve beat the drum about this, and yet I still hear from some prolific Canadian comic creators that they haven’t gotten around to getting their profile set up yet – You. Are. Missing. Out.
Some quick tips for Canadian comic creators registering for the PLR:
• You’ll need the ISBN, year of publication, and page count for each book you register.
• You’ll also need a photocopy of the title page of the book with your name and a photocopy of the copyright page.
• For graphic novels, writers get 50% of the “share claim” since the other half would go to the illustrator (even if they can’t claim it because they’re not Canadian).
• Anthologies don’t count. If there are more than six contributors to a title it’s considered ineligible.
• Each year all you have to add are new titles that weren’t on there previous years.
I returned as a guest on the wonderful Rogues In The House podcast. We chatted up a storm about the return of Savage Sword and talk about the ‘moment’ Conan seems to be having right now in comics, prose, games, and more.
At The Campfire
I had a great chat with Kurtis Wiebe (writer of Rat Queens) as part of his Campfire Stories online conference that happened over the weekend.
We cover a LOT of ground – working on iconic characters, getting started in my career, burnout, gratitude and more. Check it out.
Current + Upcoming Releases
• My buddy John Barber has a new creator-owned comic project launching called SIGNA and it’s looking good!
• Rafal Jaki, the showrunner on the Cyberpunk: Edgerunners anime, reached out to chat storytelling with me. he also pointed me toward the new manga series he’s been developing called NO/NAME. It’s a really neat concept off to a strong start, read chapter 1 here, so much so that it’s going to be !
I hope your week is looking strong.
Jim
February 23, 2024
Arriving in May – Conan The Barbarian #11
CONAN THE BARBARIAN #11
Story – Jim Zub
Line Art – Roberto De La Torre
Colors – Diego Rodriguez
MAR240475 – COVER A – Alex Horley
MAR240476 – COVER B – Richard Pace
MAR240477 – COVER C – Sean Galloway
In Shops: May 22, 2024
BEYOND FLESH. BEYOND DEATH. BEYOND TIME.
Conan has travelled far and seen much in his legendary journeys, but nothing he has experienced thus far can prepare him for a quest to lands beyond to answer dark riddles of the past.
Unexpected allies await, fierce enemies loom, and the strange power of the Black Stone stirs in THE AGE UNCONQUERED!
February 18, 2024
Zubby Newsletter #50: Value-Packed Anniversary Edition
Wait a sec, newsletter #50! Oh geez, this should be some kind of anniversary-sized special release…Bigger page count and a higher cover price, right?
Unfortunately, you’ll have to pay double for this installment, my friends…Double that $0.00 price tag and I’ll make sure you get everything you paid for. 
Speaking of people getting what they pay for, I’m deeply disappointed that backers, creators, and a charity were misled by the Tales From the Quarantine comic anthology.
My longtime collaborator Max Dunbar and I put together a single page story for the anthology right at the start and have kept it under wraps this whole time, hoping the campaign would complete delivery to the many people who backed it in good faith, but that now seems incredibly unlikely, so here’s DELVE, a little fantasy story created during lockdown, with hopeful sentiments about the future despite dark times-
I had a really bizarre dream earlier in the week-
In the dream, the Wisconsin dairy council asked me to write an epic based on a new dairy superhero they developed called MIGHTY MILK.
I had to include their new slogan
“Milk is also in man”.
I told them the slogan was awful. They told me it was mythic and powerful.
The rep kept saying the slogan slowly, emphasizing different words-
“Milk is also in man.”
“Yeah, I get it, but it’s still awful.”
I told them I probably wasn’t the right fit for this project, but they were insistent that it had to be me. Like most dreams, it just vaporized unresolved, but I wanted to share so all of us could be haunted by it together from now on.
Honoring the Past
Hayden Mears from Starburst Magazine (the longest-running magazine of fantastic media) and I talked at length about Conan the Barbarian as an icon of prose and comics. There’s a lot of good ground covered here in terms of Conan’s pulp roots, mythic storytelling, Robert E. Howard as an architect of the original ‘multiverse’ concept, and how our creative team is trying to honor that in the new comic series-
On Thursday night on Comic Art Live they ran a piece I recorded with Kevin Sharp for a segment called A PAGE I LOVE-
I dug deep into my excitement for DOCTOR STRANGE #55 Page 13 from 1982, a stone cold classic written by Roger Stern and illustrated by Michael Golden:
Doctor Strange #55 is a masterclass in writing and drawing superhero comics, a done-in-one story that delivers on every page. You can still find it in back issue bins for cheap, which is great, because everyone should have a copy and every aspiring creator should study the hell out of it.
This issue is also Aldrin “Buzz” Aw‘s favorite comic and he has (wait for it) over 3000 copies! I love this video rundown on how this issue 55 collection began and his excitement as he walks through its quality and how it influenced the biggest artists of the ’90’s.
Doctor Strange is a bucket list character for me to write, and a big part of that is due to the quality of this era. Editorial can sometimes be cagey about giving writers their favorite characters because sometimes they’re such diehard fans that they don’t want to take big narrative swings or shake up the status quo, but if I ever get the chance to pitch on Marvel’s Sorcerer Supreme I think I could honor the past while pushing out in unexpected directions.
Current + Upcoming Releases
Have a great week!
Jim
February 13, 2024
Conan the Barbarian: Bound In Black Stone – Now In Stores!
CONAN THE BARBARIAN Vol.1: BOUND IN BLACK STONE is now available in bookstores and comic shops everywhere fine books are sold!
In bookstores you’ll find the cover by Dan Panosian. In direct market comic shops you can also choose covers by Stanley “Artgerm” Lau or Mike Mignola.
I know I sound like a broken record, but I am so incredibly proud of this book and thrilled at the response we’ve seen from readers, reviewers, and retailers. Thank you for reading and sharing your enthusiasm.
• Eternal Crusader: 10/10 “This team is creating compelling and often breathtaking visuals that can both rival the beloved classics from the past and newer renditions by Dark Horse, Ablaze, and Marvel…the hype is true.”
• Near Mint Condition: 10/10 “This is perfection. This is some of the best Conan the Barbarian I have ever had the pleasure of reading…I cannot wait for the next book.”
• So Wizard: “The action in this book is amazingly done. It’s brutal, fun, inventive, exciting, fast-paced and, most importantly, plentiful. The action almost doesn’t stop.”
• Trans-Scribe: 8/10 “Fans of the fantasy genre will feel right at home here, and whilst I can’t talk for long time Conan fans I can at least say that it was an enjoyable experience throughout, and one that I’d happily recommend to others.”
• Tripwire: “Bound in Black Stone needs to be read, shared, taken back and selfishly read again and again until the binding wears out.”
