Category: Dark Horse

By Billy Tucci
32 pages, color
Published by Dark Horse Comics

It’s hard to believe it’s been ten years since Shi first appeared in comic stores. Debuting in a time period when warrior women comics seemed to be appearing left and right, Shi was an instant success… which meant that I was never able to find a copy unless I was willing to pay a small fortune. (I wasn’t willing to do so, I might add.) I was certainly curious about the book, though, and now that Billy Tucci has returned with Shi: Ju-Nen from Dark Horse, I figured this would be a good a chance as any to see what all the fuss was about.

Continue reading “Shi: Ju-Nen #1”

Written by Jeremy Love
Penciled by Robert Love
Inked by Jeff Wasson
32 pages, color
Published by Dark Horse Comics

I’ll admit that most of the initial titles out of Dark Horse’s Rocket Comics line failed to really grab me. Aside from Crush, those books just didn’t seem to really click. With the arrival of Fierce, though, I was intrigued. I’ve known of Jeremy and Robert Love for some time now and the chance to finally see the two of them create a comic together sounded too tempting to pass by.

Continue reading “Fierce #1”

Written by Joe Casey
Art by Steve Parkhouse
32 pages, color
Published by Dark Horse

There’s nothing quite so terrifying as the realization that the world you imagine yourself in and the world you are actually in bear almost no resemblance to each other. That’s what Barbara Vale seems to be discovering in Joe Casey and Steve Parkhouse’s The Milkman Murders, and by the time I was done reading the first issue, I can see why Dark Horse has been so proud of this upcoming mini-series.

Continue reading “Milkman Murders #1”

Written by Matt Wagner
Art by Bernie Mireault
88 pages, color
Published by Dark Horse Comics

It makes me really happy to see Dark Horse reprinting and collecting the original 40-issue Grendel series published by Comico back in the late ’80s. It’s here that I first discovered Matt Wagner’s tales of loss and revenge, and really understood what a powerful writer he was. What I wasn’t expecting was the nature of Grendel: The Devil Inside… but then again, I think that was true of almost everyone reading the book. In many ways, this volume of Grendel defines the term “curveball”.

Continue reading “Grendel: The Devil Inside”

Written by Ian Edginton
Art by D’Israeli
88 pages, color
Published by Dark Horse

We’ve had Martian invasion stories more often than I can count. We’ve seen inventive takes on the basic idea where the Martians invade Victorian England, like Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume 2. What really attracted me to Scarlet Traces was not so much that it was another invasion of Victorian England, but that the book is set ten years after the invaders were destroyed. You see, that’s where Ian Edginton and D’Israeli really take the book into a fun area.

Continue reading “Scarlet Traces”

By Christopher Moeller
168 pages, color
Published by Dark Horse

About six years ago, one of the books in DC’s short-lived Helix imprint was Sheva’s War, by Christopher Moeller. I remember thinking that the art was gorgeous, but knowing that it was the second volume in a series I decided to pass on buying the book. (Let it now be known: I am solely responsible for the failure of the Helix line.) The first series had been published years earlier, and finding it would have been near-impossible. Well, it’s better late than never, because Dark Horse is now reissuing Moeller’s Iron Empires series as two trade paperbacks, with the first volume (Faith Conquers) now available.

Continue reading “Iron Empires Vol. 1: Faith Conquers”

Written by Gary Martin
Penciled by Steve Rude
Inked by Gary Martin and Andy Bish
56 pages, color
Published by Dark Horse

The cover boldly asks the question, “Who is… The Moth?” That’s a dangerous question, though, and perhaps publishers should really keep from putting rhetorical statements on their covers. You see, the problem is, the reader just might decide to be a smart-alec and answer it with something like, “Who cares?” Never, ever let your cover result in a reader talking back at it.

Continue reading “Moth Special”

Written by Michael Chabon, Kevin McCarthy, Jim Starlin, and Howard Chaykin
Art by Eric Wight, Kyle Baker, Steve Lieber, Jim Starlin, Howard Chaykin, and Kevin McCarthy
80 pages, color
Published by Dark Horse

I have a confession to make. I still haven’t read Michael Chabon’s The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. It’s been sitting on my bookshelf for over a year and a half now, and I really do intend on reading it. I’ve read some of Chabon’s other books and enjoyed them, and I know that The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay won the Pulitzer Prize for literature… and yet somehow I still haven’t gotten around to it. What I’m leading up to here is that while I know that the Escapist is the comic character that Kavalier and Clay create in the novel, I’ve got no actual connection to the character. So the question becomes, if you haven’t read the book, will the comic still be interesting?

Continue reading “Escapist #1”

Edited by Adam Gallardo
128 pages, black and white, and color
Published by Dark Horse

I enjoy anthologies a great deal. They let me take a look at both established and up-and-coming talent and let me see just what they’re made of. In many ways, it’s like getting to see nothing but trailers for upcoming movies and then you get to pick and choose which ones you’d like to go back for and pay full price to see. Strip Search is all about the up-and-coming talent, reprinting the first year of Dark Horse’s online strip contest. Are these comics’s version of the next Kelly Clarkson? Or will it be nothing but disappointment like Jim Verraros and Vanessa Olivarez?

Continue reading “Strip Search”