Comic Geek Update No. 5

After almost 3 years, Dark Horse's amazing CONAN THE CIMMERIAN series ends with a brutally violent, action-packed finale to the 4-issue "Iron Shadows on the Moon" story arc. Conan has one of his roughest battles of the series as he protects Olivia from a huge Gray Ape, and on the other side of the island Conan's former crew are torn apart by giant statues come-to-life through an ancient curse. It all ends with the surviving pirates once again pledging allegiance to Conan, who has taken over their ship. Along with his new girl (the outcast princess Olivia), they sail into the sunset. The final cover is a tribute to Frazetta by Cary Nord, and the back pages feature some cool fan art and letters.
Conan fans who missed any of these issues missed a real treat, as these were among some of the BEST illustrated Conan tales ever to see print (and that's not over-praise...countless Conan fans agree). The writing and especially the artwork has been top notch since Issue no. 1. Dark Horse is already set to launch a KING CONAN mini-series, so hopefully they'll keep the Cimmerian goodness coming.Dark Horse also releases the 4th issue of their CREEPY relaunch, this time featuring four new stories, one new Loathsome Lore, and one classic reprint from the old Warren Magazine series. While the final installment of the Hitler thriller X-CHANGE was decent, the b-movie titled ZOMBIE WEDDING AT SLAUGHTER SWAMP was the funnest tale of the issue, and has some gore-geous artwork courtesy of Hilary Barta. Classic Creepy cover artist Ken Kelly does the cover.
In traditional CREEPY style, the stories--although grim at times--border on cheezy, so come expecting a retro-good time.
The 7th issue of Vertigo's iZOMBIE series kicks off a new story arc titled "uVampire." Our favorite zombie girl Gwen (who needs to eat one human brain per month to keep her hunger under control) is overdue for a feeding when Horatio calls for a date (she has been putting him off due to her hunger). With a corpse robber on the loose, the cemetery hasn't had any new bodies for a while, but luckily today an old woman was buried who was "really messed up" in a house fire. Gwen feeds on her brain later that night, and sees the woman's life as she does: she thinks she sees herself in the woman's memories . . . and could it be she has just eaten her mother's brain? Along with her retro-60s ghost friend Chloe and vampire girl Claire, iZOMBIE has been an entertaining read and this latest issue opens up a few interesting possibilities. Michael Allred's artwork gives the whole thing a unique feel. My only problem is the 6-page preview of a forthcoming Vertigo graphic novel, too much space that could've been used on the comic I paid for. Otherwise, I'm diggin' this.