Max Bemis

In the latest wave of licensed creations exploiting the literary remains of Robert E. Howard, this book collects a series of comics teaming up the most famous of the barbarian Conan's love interests. Bêlit is the pirate captain from the seminal "Queen of the Black Coast," and Valeria is a swordswoman of the Red Brotherhood who accompanies Conan in "Red Nails." I was curious to see how the comics writer Max Bemis would justify bringing these two together. As it turns out, Bêlit is show more mysteriously resurrected from her nautical burial, and this enigma forms a driver for the plot. Valeria matriculates from a looted bargaining-chip to a sidekick.

Conan does not appear. Bemis introduces a milquetoast bard Curt to serve as Bêlit's consort and the story's principal narrator. The presentation by this "Songboy" is fallible and self-aggrandizing, affording some comedy. But when his writing is used to frame the story in text boxes, it is set in an execrable calligraphic font that was so hard to read that I had to use higher room lighting.

The full text of Robert E. Howard's 1936 essay "The Hyborian Age" is appended to the comics. I see no evidence that Bemis had read it. The comic confuses Hyborian and Hyperborian, frequently using the latter to mean the former. Bemis is creative with Hyborian theology, giving it a unity that it never possessed in Howard's stories, and ultimately conscripting the Cimmerian god Crom as the chief villain of the series. Another stroke against Bemis' writing is the bad grammar, which cannot be credibly blamed on character voices. "In peace, she had he controlled by his addiction to her divine womanhood." Ugh, I can't even.

The book is hyperviolent and raunchy and mostly entertaining. On the whole, I enjoyed the Valeria-focused content better than the more "epic" plot centered on Bêlit. The international mages' conspiracy celebrating the "Festival of the Blameless" was an amusing and intriguing development--albeit rather remote from REH's conceptions of sorcery--despite its disappointing comeuppance.

I far prefer the illustration style of the book's cover by Olivier Vatine over the actual interior art by Rodney Buchemi, who seems to have given his protagonists anachronistic breast implants. The appended gallery of covers from the individual issues has a series of four alternates where Bêlit & Valeria are presented in the mode of Archie Comics' Betty and Veronica. These are hilarious, but it's probably not a good sign that they were one of my favorite features of the book. show less

Goodreads Synopsis:
When a terrifying creature from beyond the stars attacks his planet, Dale's journey begins. But he is not out to save his world. It is already too late for that. As the lone survivor, the only thing he wants is revenge!
Writer Max Bemis (Worst X-Man Ever, Foolkiller) and artist Eoin Marron (Sons of Anarchy Redwood Original) bring you a tale of survival and vengeance like you've never seen before.

My Review:
I really didn't expect to love this book as much as I did, or for it show more to be as funny as it was. Honestly I loved everything about this book and I'm really glad I got the chance to read it. I really liked the art style, and thought it had a nice cover too. I would love to get a paper copy so that I could read it again, if that tells you just how much I liked it. The main character is a man and he's the last man on earth. Before the apocalypse, he harvested and stole information from light years away, but no one ever expected this. A giant flying centipede landed on earth and quickly took care of the population. There's also massive spiders that attack daily. Although most of the book is him trying to fight back and explaining back story, it does that in a hilarious way that made me want to binge read it. And I did, I loved every part. It's a short read, and probably took less than an hour to finish. I definitely recommend you check it out if you get the chance.

Here's a link to the Author's Twitter, and another link to the book on Amazon.

https://twitter.com/maxbemis

https://www.amazon.ca/Centipede-Vol-Game-Over-TP/dp/1524105864/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF...

Thanks for reading! Check out this review and more at my blog.
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I find myself having a hard time rating this. I think because although I like the idea behind it the execution left me feeling.. meh. I got no deep feelz whatsoever at the end even if I liked the bittersweet feeling to it.

(Note to myself: don't use the tablet for writing reviews on Goodreads.)

An interesting, if mostly forgettable, alternate universe story. Was worth reading, but nothing special.