Conan - El fénix en la espada.

This Conan and not the nipper with glasses who appears on google images.

I had seen the character on the tv show, the Chuaches's films and a couple of comic-books that I read, but I'd never read something from the original author, Robert E. Howard, so I decided to give it a try to the first story: 

The phoenix on the sword (El fénix en la espada):

The magazine where it was published for the first time, in a far december of 1932.

The thing that amuse me the most was that it's not a short novel (I was thinking around 200 pages) but a 'pulga', I mean, that little books which are smaller than the palm of your hand, to made it clear it has five chapters.

The plot has everything that I hope from Conan: fights, magic and blood but...I don't like how every chapter starts (I'm not talking about the quote but the following paragraph), it has a lot of description and it's a lazy paragraph, fortunately it's only one. On the other hand, on the last fight the author made a good job describing it that you can saw the battle very well. Also, I loved that the author introduce not only Conan but also Toth-Amon and his rise.
Here is the book to read it.

Once I had read the pulga and knowing that the fame from the character comes from the films and the comic-books, I searched if there was an adaptation and I found two of them, one from Marvel and the other from Dark Horse (the rights changed from one to the other in 2003).

Marvel.

This was the beginning of the story, with the Robert E. Howard's prologue.

The first adaptation appeared on the second annual of "Conan the barbarian". It's accurate until the last comma, so I can't say much more, it has a good drawing and since the story is supported by the art I dare to recommend it instead of the 'pulga' because we safe the lazy descriptions.

Dark Horse.

Conan, describing the Asgardians.

The, obviously, second adaptation it's related in the four issues of the miniseries "King Conan: The phoenix on the sword". It's lightly different, I said lightly because while the original story happens in the "present" (the present of Conan, not ours) here it's an Old Conan who tells the story to another person. Also, they change some little details or the order in which they tell the story but it's very loyal to the original.

Conan by Tony Parker, I fell in love with this picture.

In my personal opinion, I would recommend the Dark Horse version, we could lost a little loyal details but the art make it more enjoyable, however if we want the loyal version it's better go to the Marvel version than the 'pulga'.

PS: First experiment writing in english, well see if there will be more.