#Tales from the void prince wells full
#Tales from the void prince wells series

The story starts with a small intro of a small house that is viewed from a far off terrain in the countryside. It makes one understand the value of obligation, trust and safeguarding one’s one way of being with anyone around you.

This style is an ideal fit for Leiber’s work, echoing all the shadow and view askance that characterize Lankhmar.This cartoon is a fairy tale that lets one think of the consequences of being dependent. While this isn’t Mignola’s earliest work (which was actually with Marvel in the early 1980’s on Daredevil and Power Man & Iron Fist), Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser does present a great deal of the style-the use of black space and shadow, unusual angles, stylized presentation and frequent use of symbolism-that would become trademarks of Hellboy three years later.

#Tales from the void prince wells full

It reminded me of the feeling I got from reading a random Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser short story collection when I was 14-years-old, thrown into the deep end of a strange fantasy world full of crime and magic. I know people complain about Chaykin’s scripts being choppy or somewhat difficult-to-follow, but that did not bother me. His artwork is fantastic, and the dirtied-up high fantasy setting is within his general wheelhouse but not quite like anything else he’s done before or since. Mignola’s called this his favorite pre-Hellboy work, and it’s easy to see why. His belt as he is losing his final battle

#Tales from the void prince wells series

The series was collected in one paperback by Dark Horse in 2007.įred Patten writes in Amazing Heroes #186, page 73 In short: I loved this adaptation and it makes me want to read Lieber’s books, but I’m going to go ahead and guess that they’re not as good as this adaptation is. Basically most anybody else would have dropped some kind of explication in there to assure themselves that the reader gets it, but the creators here have complete trust in both themselves and the reader. It reads so perfectly well, and everything is so clear, even if what’s happening isn’t completely straightforward. I mean, it’s not an unique way to do something like this, but it’s just so… assured. Like here, with the effortless parallel progress of the two main characters’ experiences. I could basically put any page from the series in here, and you’ll find some storytelling detail to squee over. The remaining three issues carry on in much the same manner, but with shorter stories with more compact casts, for the most part. Besides, it gives them a reason to kill the bad wizard, right?īut that’s only the first issue of this four-parter, and it feels like I’ve read an entire novel already, because there was so much in there. They then go out and finally exact revenge on the culprits, but… It’s pretty gratuitous, and makes sense only in a meta-story way: If we’re to have story after story with swashbuckling happy-go-lucky guys, they surely can’t have girlfriends? Right? So they have to be killed off. That is: Lieber (or Chaykin I haven’t read the original books) fridges both Fafhrd’s and Gray Mouser’s girlfriends in the most horrible manner. I mean, as shocking and revolting developments go, it’s a shocking and revolting development, and comes completely out of the blue (at least for me). Which is why this horrorshow of a reveal took me completely by surprise. (Stop scrolling now if you don’t want spoilers on this thirty year old comic book.) It’s a perfect little romp of intrigue and danger and excitement and romance. It’s amazing how much it just looks like a part of Mignola’s style and not like… deformities. I had forgotten how small Mignola draws feet. But his style is so well-suited to this sort of picaresque pseudo-medieval stuff… I mean, look at that ramshackle house. I don’t see a lot of Williamson here in the inking, but then Mignola’s pencils usually overpower anybody working with him. The CRAKAKATRASSHH where we can fill in ourselves what’s going on, while the repartee keeps pattering on. I mean, it’s just so seemingly effortless. It’s dense, but it’s playful and light and really readable. And we get hints at dark things happening with the other guys, and a feeling for the city, and… Instead we have a great meet cute between Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser in the middle of a hold-up. Wow! It’s good! No, it’s more than good: It’s funny! And it drops us right into the story without a lot of tiresome exposition, and without an origin story of every character involved. On the other hand, this isn’t a Byron Preiss production (he’s usually involved somehow when somebody adapts something to comics in the 80s, and particularly when Chaykin does some work). I like all of them, but this is an adaptation, and they usually go awry, anyway. By Howard Chaykin, Mike Mignola, Al Williamson and Sherilyn van Valkenburgh