Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser #2

“The Circle Curse” and “The Howling Tower”

Cover Price: $4.50
Bargain Price: 3/$1.00
Cover Date: November 1990

Excepting Hellboy himself, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser may be the perfect characters for Mike Mignola. Mignola’s angular, gothic art and spare, contemplative writing are unlike anything else in comics. Likewise, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, who, before reading this issue, I had known only by reputation, are completely atypical fantasy characters, a towering barbarian and a smaller, rapier-wielding thief, respectively, who speak and act like real people. That said, it’s easy to see how Fafhrd, the Gray Mouser, and Mignola would be a match made in heaven and a combination that made picking up this particular issue very easy. Mignola and Howard Chaykin, who scripted this miniseries, portray the duo as an immensely amiable pair of adventurers, entwined in two stories that in plot and style closely resemble Mignola’s Hellboy work. The first sees our heroes leave the city of Lankhmar following the deaths of their lady loves. They seek new lands and adventures, hoping to forget, but never quite doing so, facing instead a grim, real world reality: they haven’t forgotten, but, as time has passed, their deaths mean less than they once did. The second tale is a more conventional action tale involving a sorcerer and a ghostly pack of wolves. This volume was definitely Mignola at his finest and as satisfying an introduction to these characters as I could have asked for. I’ll certainly be keeping an eye out for the remaining issues (I picked up #1 already) and even for the duo’s prose adventures.