Yesterday, we took a look at the April 2012 solicits for Image Comics. Today, we turn our lens over to the folks at Dark Horse, for a perusal of what this fine comic establishment has to offer us in the coming months.
Take a look after the cut for some thoughts on Dark Horse’s April 2012, and check out the full solicits here.
2012 Is The Year Of Monsters Is The Coolest Thing Ever
Mike Mignola, John Arcudi, James Harren, Dave Stewart and Duncan Fegredo on BPRD: Hell on Earth – The Long Death. Mike Mignola, Scott Allie, Jason Latour, Dave Stewart and Becky Cloonan on BPRD: Hell on Earth – the Pickens County Horror. Mike Mignola, John Arcudi, Tonci Zonjic, Dave Stewart and Dave Johnson on Lobster Johnson: The Burning Hand.
HOT DAMN, is it a great time to be a fan of the Mignolaverse or what?
The “Return” of the Giant Man
Fans of Matt Kindt are going to have a lot to look forward to at Dark Horse this year. With his new book Mind MGMT starting in May (which I look forward to spotlighting in this column next month) and a slew of other projects lined up, now is the time to start checking out the fantastic work of this great and entirely underrated creator.
So what better place to start than picking up a comic that both enhances one story and reads as one of its own? Kindt’s 3 Story: The Secret History of the Giant Man came out back in 2009, but was missing three short stories that ran in Dark Horse Presents. Now, in April, Dark Horse will be collecting those three stories into a year zero issue for your perusal and enjoyment, and they can be read both with knowledge of the graphic novel or without. Now that’s a deal you can throw money at.
Oh — and you get a preview of his new ongoing when you get this one-shot. Deal!
Don’t Fear The Wolves
I am not at all familiar Alabastar by CaitlÃn R. Kiernan, but if Dark Horse has proven to be good at one thing and one thing only, its that they are great at producing original content based on licensed properties, and that they are the premiere comic publisher for horror comics (ok, fine, that’s two things). If Baltimore‘s inherent success in the land of book-to-comic is anything to hang your hat on, Alabastar will be a title to watch come April.
That, and the cover by Greg Ruth is awesome!
(Although, truth be told, I was honestly sold when I saw Steve Lieber was illustrating.)
Properties Done Right
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Star Wars: (Insert Secondary Title Here), Angel &Faith, Mass Effect and Conan the Barbarian are all comics I wouldn’t normally think I’d be buying or reading, and yet here we are.
Licensed property comics are a tricky thing; you don’t just have to tell a good story, you have to appease a fandom that tends to fear things it isn’t familiar with, and offering up extra canon or side-stories to established programs and universes is a daunting task fo anyone. Yet, at Dark Horse, the conceivably difficult becomes quite typically the norm, and I for one am about to buy my first Conan comic ever. I couldn’t be more excited.
Dark Horse Presents: The Most Underrated Bang For Your Buck
I want to be explicitly honest: when Dark Horse Presents relaunched, I wasn’t initially sold. I love the concept of anthologies, but it is such an odd thing to fully invest in. Us comic fans are supposed to pretend we are crafty consumers; can we really justify paying X amount of cash for Y amount of content?
Yet after a few issues, DHP sold me, and I’ve found myself buying all the back issues of the latest volume and re-reading all of them from the beginning. Sure, not every story appeals to me, but the majority of it does, and you’ve got fantastic creators all over this book.
Now, with April’s eleventh issue, what do we have? The introduction of Francesco Francavilla’s pulp-noir the Black Beetle, John Arcudi’s the Creep, a story illustrated by Geof Darrow, plus more Finder and an interior piece/cover by Tonci Zonjic — and more that I’m sure I will also enjoy once I crack open the issue.
It has been flying under a lot of people’s radars from what I’ve seen, but Dark Horse Presents has a great deal of worthwhile comics hidden inside it.
The Goon: Spoofing The Best Of Us Since 1999
The Goon is a remarkable comic. As a cultural icon within the comics community, it has managed to keep its quality for over a decade now, and it never pulls its punches. You also have to love the fact that, even if you’ve never read the Goon before, you can pick up issue #39 and read along as if you’ve been a fan forever (there is certainly a lesson to be learned from that alone).
So now what do we have? I’ll let the solicit do the talking for me on this one:
In order to try to compete with the gimmicks and rehashes of the Big Two superhero companies, Eric Powell has decided to completely sell out and relaunch the Goon in this super-epic, brand new, first-ever first edition of the 39th issue of The Goon! Not only do the Goon and Franky get new costumes, but we also discover there are different-colored versions of the Goon! Green Goon! Red Goon! Blue Goon! Purple Goon! WHAT A PLOT!
Out Of Dark Horse Presents And Into The Big Scary World
In the coming year, we will at some point see the Massive bursting out of the pages of DHP and into your various longboxes in single issues, but that’s not the only comic to do so. For those of you who have been reading Dark Horse Presents (as you really should be doing), Pete Hogan and Steve Parkhouse’s Resident Alien, the story of an alien hiding out in Patience, USA, who becomes the local doctor after the current one is mysteriously murdered. It’s a charming little story that has been unfolding between various issues, and I’m excited for people to be able to get a chance to read it who haven’t been reading Dark Horse’s anthology title with the upcoming #0 issue, and I’m even more excited for it to become its own entity.
Although, for those of you skipping DHP and still want to read The Massive‘s prologue, this pretty much guarantees you that Dark Horse will release a #0 issue for you. So there you have it.
Boba Fett Is Dead. Long Live Boba Fett!
I don’t really read Star Wars comics. This always seemed odd to me given that I love comics and I love Star Wars (I’m a walking stereotype), but the facts remain the same. To me, Star Wars comic territory is just one I don’t really enter into.
However, this is where I cross the line, which in turn brings me back to my earlier point about licensed properties: put a good enough writer (John Ostrander) on a book or a good enough character (Boba Fett) in a book and you’re guaranteed to get at least a look from me, and probably more. And, given Dark Horse’s notoriety in releasing quality licensed comics, they’ll probably end up with more.
Thus brings us to Boba Fett Is Dead #1. While I refuse to believe that Boba Fett would actually die* (what next, is Marvel going to kill Captain America?), I still have a small wealth of Boba Fett comics hiding in a long box somewhere (as I’m sure you all do), and I also read some of the story that came before this one (though, regrettably, not all of it). With a title like that, this is definitely worth further investigation.
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*I mean, come on, he’s Boba freaking Fett! His backpack’s a jet! Who is really going to kill him? The Sarlacc pit couldn’t do it. I refuse to believe some Mr. or Ms. Nobody Whatever could really kill the man who captured Han freaking Solo. Not happening!
