Conan the Barbarian #44 - Video Review by ComicBook.beer

Tick tock, it’s beer o’clock and that means it’s time for a ComicBook.Beer review of Conan the Barbarian issue number 44, The Fiend and the Flame. Love that cover. And the beer that I’m going to pair with this issue today is, let’s try January, a non‑alcoholic Guinness. I’ve heard good things about this beer. I’ve never actually had one.

And I’m gonna be pouring this into some appropriate glassware. Pac‑Man. I’m gonna talk about this incredible book. And actually, I’ll leave you with some footage of Conan by the fireplace, by the fire pit that I shot last weekend. Feel the warmth of the hearth of the fire, fiery flame things. That stuff, it’s hot.

Is everyone ready? You. I love that sound. That’s a great sound. Glad to see that the non‑alcoholic version makes the same sound. We’re going to pour this appropriately into a Pac‑Man glass, respecting Pac‑Man and Pac‑Man heritage.

Looks like Guinness. Guinness isn’t a particularly high‑alcohol beer to begin with, so… got high hopes for this.

That kind of looks like a Guinness, right? Guinness is a good beer. It’s one of those beers where if you say you don’t like it, somebody’s gonna punch you in the face. It’s got like this following. Like I like Guinness. It’s not usually one I go for, but I like it. It’s good. Can you smell it? It smells like Conan. Actually, no, thankfully, it smells much better than Conan.

Now that is good. Tastes like a Guinness, but maybe a little bit lighter. Damn. I actually really… got to be honest, I’m surprised. That definitely tastes and smells better than Cognac.

The funny thing about this as a filmmaker is that this camera is better than the professional stuff that we were using 10 years ago, let alone 20 years ago. So it’s pretty easy to film something and make it look… well, like this. Whatever this is. Let’s be honest, that wallpaper is priceless. Beer’s good too.

Had this stuff when I was in high school. All we had was crappy nodules. This is way better. Dry January doesn’t have to suck ass. Thanks to Guinness. Non‑alcoholic draft.

I’ll give that to you, I’ll give that to you for free Guinness. All right. The downside to filming non‑alcoholic beer is I’m not gonna stumble over my words nearly as much by the end of the video. I always find it funny. It’s good to see the point when the beer hits. Conan the Barbarian. This is so good. And the glass is pretty awesome too. Conan the Barbarian issue number 44. I love this era of Conan. This is 1974. This predates even me. So we’ve got, but yeah, probably predates that wallpaper too. Not by much though.

So Conan’s passed out at the beginning here. Even Conan needs a dry January every now and then, what with all the wenching and his flagons of ale. But he’s not passed out from wenching and pounding flagons of ale. He’s passed out because, I think in the previous issue, I’m doing these out of sequence, he was thrown into a dungeon by a crazy sorcerer. So par for the course for Conan. And he wakes up to a beautiful sight. It’s Red Sonja. He starts pawing her and, well, you know, Red Sonja’s whole thing is that she’s badass, but she won’t get with any guys unless those guys can defeat her in battle.

Which seems like a losing situation for everybody. This is a John Buscema issue, and the more of his work I read, the more I’m just a huge fan. John Buscema, how do you say his name? Roy Thomas does the writing. And John’s work is just remarkable. Like, every panel is just fabulous. Every single one of them.

Anyway, Conan and Red Sonja have to get out of this prison. They’ve been tossed in this prison by these crazy‑ass wizards. And basically what the wizards want to do is breed Conan and Red Sonja. Not together, but they want to just breed them so they can make more of these weird creepy witch people or whatever these things are called. Blushing. “Behold your blushing brides and the members of the wedding.”

Conan’s not too happy about this. So what Conan does, this is very tasteless for, I guess, perhaps modern reading audiences, what Conan, well, after being mind‑raped, which is also weird, Conan basically agrees to sleep with this guy’s sister, who’s just like lonely and horny, so that he can secure his freedom. So he tries to pimp himself off under her.

I mean, it just seems like an average weekday for Conan the Barbarian. I guess the difference is he’s sober, because it’s dry January. But she’s kind of a bitch about the whole thing. She’s like, “I’m not going to let Red Sonja leave.” And she’s not very happy about this. So Red Sonja punches a wall, which is also surprising considering it’s dry January. And Red Sonja also enjoys a good flagon of ale. Anyway, one thing leads to another.

And Spider‑Man advertises. Did somebody cut out, look at this. This is why you can get some of these for a dollar. What’d they cut out? What was in here? Marvel value stamp. Somebody took my Marvel value stamp. Some bitch.

There we go, so looks like Conan’s pounding some beers, but he’s not. He’s actually sniffing oil or something. And they’re gonna light, he’s gonna try to fight the wizard by lighting it on fire or whatever. But the wizard keeps summoning things out of Conan’s memory, like this weird Sasquatch‑looking thing. And you might remember this guy from one of the earlier issues of Conan. Pretty creepy‑looking thing, that thing.

Again, the artwork and the panels and just the page layouts are amazing. Like the other cool thing about this era of comics is that they’re packed with, not just panels, how many panels there are, but just packed with words, packed with detail. And like this takes more than just 35 seconds to read like a modern comic book. Like I like modern comics too, but they’re just so short. Like these issues were just packed.

And well… I’m not gonna give away the ending, but obviously Conan and Red Sonja make it out alive. The question is how do they make it out alive and how many things burn to death? And who falls to death? Who dies from a lack of wenching? It’s a good issue. This era is good. And I’m hopefully gonna be covering every one of these, my entire collection, in high‑quality videos like this. So cheers from comicbook.beer.

That’s a pairing made in heaven. It’s delicious. And the beer’s good too.