Horror Comic Review Roy Thomas And Tim Sale Dream Snake

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1999 Robert E Howard’ Myth Maker – spoiler alerts Roy Thomas was largely responsible for developing the Robert E Howard Conan The Barbarian comics for Marvel, bringing the prose stories to the visual medium, and gaining Conan a legion of fan even Howard’ 1930’s stories never enjoyed. It paved the way for the Arnold Schwarzenegger movies in the 1980’s. In 1999 Thomas was working on collection of more Howard stories and drew in legendary Batman writer / artist Tim sale to co-create this comic strip adaptation of one of Howard’s creepiest horror stories. It features a wealthy elderly businessman who suddenly passes out in the middle of a board meeting. When he comes too, he tells the board of the nightmare that ha haunted him all his life. He cannot recall how or when the dream started. In the dream, he is travelling in India with a faithful Hindu companion, who goes on ahead to prepare a room for them both at an isolated house in a jungle clearing. As the narrator nears the house, he sees a long trenching indentation in the grass as though some vast snake ha recently lithered through the field. The track leads right to the house and the man rushes there to find the rooms wrecked and no sign of his friend. He concludes that the snake has eaten him. The man is so scared of leaving the house in case the snake is waiting for him that he stays there day after day until he ages and his hair goes white with fright. Finally fearful the snake might get in to attack him, he flees, convinced the snake is pursuing him and catching up. As the board members listen on, the man back tracks to earlier in the narrative when he was just leaving the house to run for it, and it is apparent that he is still trapped in his dream, constantly reliving the story over and over. At no point do we see the snake in any frame in this comic strip. It’s a masterpiece of tension and illustration blending the original Howard text to the images. Arthur Chappell