ADRON, RE (Adron, King), started
off as a weekly comic strip in the Sunday Maltese language newspaper,
IL-MUMENT. The strip ran from late 1981 to the first months of 1982.
The book version (self-published in 1982 and distributed by North Star
Publications) was a collection of the strips, with a few changes and
some added pages that linked the different episodes together.
The drawings on ADRON, RE now look rough and uncultured (which they
most definitely are), but they indicate early experimentations with
the comic strip format in Malta; the exploration of the interplay
between panels, sometimes the ignoring of the intransigent demarcation
among panels for the sake of narrative. The influences here are
clearly Robert E. Howard's Conan stories, particularly as interpreted
by Roy Thomas and Barry Smith in the early issues of the Conan comic
published by Marvel comics. The result is a fanboy's tribute, very
amateur and crude, but with a dynamism that could only come with the
deep enthusiasm for the genre.
The story is about ADRON, who was once the king of Valtusja, a land in
a far off time in which anything was possible - even sorcery. With the
help of the sorcerer Ezra-Dim, the tyrant Davinu took Adron's throne.
The latter is helped by the Grand Visier Bodri to look for an
enchanted medallion, with which to return the natural order in his
country.
|
