Category: Dark Horse

By Fred Gallagher
Co-created by Rodney Caston
184 pages, black and white
Published by Dark Horse

All right, I have to admit it—while I certainly knew of its existence, I’d never read Megatokyo before now. A tremendously popular online comic, Fred Gallagher writes and draws new pages and posts them on the Megatokyo website. However, with 530 installments on the site as of the writing of this review and no sign of slowing down, I think it’s safe to say that it can look more than a bit daunting to a new reader. With Dark Horse now publishing Megatokyo print collections, though, a new entry point now exists.

Continue reading “Megatokyo Vol. 2”

Written by Kurt Busiek
Art by Cary Nord with Thomas Yeates
Color art by Dave Stewart
32 pages, color
Published by Dark Horse

As far as marketing strategies go, it’s a pretty cunning one. In October, Dark Horse released the first of four volumes reprinting Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith’s run on Conan (with the second and third volumes released in December and February). In November, they released a special twenty-five cent comic, Conan: The Legend, letting Kurt Busiek, Cary Nord, and Dave Stewart show their take on the character. All of this, of course, leading up to Conan #1 being released at the end of February. Now that’s how you build up excitement for a new comic series.

Continue reading “Conan #1”

Written by Steve Niles
Art by Greg Ruth
32 pages, color
Published by Dark Horse

Dark Horse’s horror line and author Steve Niles both seem to be debuting new books every time I turn around. It almost goes without saying that there’s a slight overlap between the two, including Niles’s newest book Freaks of the Heartland. What intrigued me the most about Freaks of the Heartland wasn’t the larger-than-life, paranormal aspect of the book… but the real terror of every day life.

Continue reading “Freaks of the Heartland #1”

By Marc-Antoine Mathieu
64 pages, black and white
Published by Dark Horse

Have you ever read something and was convinced it was written by a completely different author? That’s what kept happening with me when I read the graphic novel Dead Memory. The cover said it was by Marc-Antoine Mathieu. Mathieu’s biography said nothing about a pen name. But if I didn’t know better, I’d have thought this was a new Cities of the Fantastic volume by comics superstars Benoit Peeters and Francois Schuiten.

Continue reading “Dead Memory”

Edited by Diana Schutz
104 pages, black and white
Published by Dark Horse

I’ve never understood why so many comics focus on autobiographies. Maybe it’s the old adage to write what you know, and what better thing to know than your own life? The problem with that, of course, is that most people’s lives really aren’t that interesting. Editor Diana Schutz probably had that in mind when she put together the anthology AutobioGraphix, then, by publishing short stories by a number of comics creators. Because while everyone’s lives may not be that interesting, almost everyone must have at least an amusing short story from their life.

Continue reading “AutobioGraphix”

By Mike Mignola
32 pages, color
Published by Dark Horse Comics

I think it’s safe to say that Mike Mignola is best known these days for his creation Hellboy, between the numerous comics and the upcoming feature movie. What people might not know as much about is a one-shot comic by Mignola that quietly hit stores last year—The Amazing Screw-On Head. And if you haven’t heard about it before… trust me, you’re missing out on a great deal.

Continue reading “Amazing Screw-On Head”

Written by Jason Hall
Art by Sean Murphy
32 pages, color
Published by Dark Horse

There’s something special about the passage from teenager to adult. It’s more in the mind of the teenager that’s about to turn 18 (or however old adulthood is in one’s particular country), that somehow they’re going to wake up and everything has changed. The reality of the situation, of course, is that it rarely does. You wake up and still have to go to school, or take out the garbage, or whatever thing it was you’re dreading. That’s part of the fun of Jason Hall and Sean Murphy’s Crush; the idea that when you turn 18, something special will happen. If you want it to, that’s another story entirely…

Continue reading “Crush #1”

Written by Roy Thomas
Some chapters based on stories by Robert E. Howard
Penciled by Barry Windsor-Smith
Inked by Sal Buscema, Frank Giacoia, Dan Adkins, Tom Sutton, and Tom Palmer
168 pages, color
Published by Dark Horse Comics

When people talk about Robert E. Howard’s character of Conan, the first thing to leap to mind is usually a movie by a certain Governor of California. If you ask a comic book fan, though, they’ll probably think of the comic published by Marvel for quite some time—and specifically the original issues by Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith. Now that Dark Horse has the Conan license, they’re reprinting those classic stories in a series of four volumes. For people like myself who weren’t reading comics at the time, it’s great to finally see just what all the fuss is about.

Continue reading “Chronicles of Conan Vol. 1: Tower of the Elephant and Other Stories”

Written by Stuart Moore
Art by Jerome Opeña
32 pages, color
Published by Dark Horse

What is it about the wild west and zombies? The number of books that have merged the two (Deadlands, Jonah Hex, Priest, etc.) seems to grow by the hour. So I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that Dark Horse’s new science-fiction apocalyptic western has… you guessed it… zombies.

Continue reading “Lone #1”