Category: Dark Horse Presents
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The final issue of Dark Horse Presents doesn’t even note it on the cover. On either cover actually. If it weren’t for The Goon, one might say the series just trailed off. Luckily, it does have The Goon. That statement is not to suggest The Goon is fantastic. It might be only my second ever…
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Well, Gray inking Sook on Witch’s Son—at least at this stage of Sook’s career—produces a far better result than Sook inking himself. It still looks very Mignola, but there’s a lot more fluidity to the characters. As for Allie’s script? It’s competent in terms of dialogue, but the content is fairly weak. Witches, demons, yada…
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Another fine issue. The pleasant surprise is the Angel story finally approaches good. Golden and Sniegoski introduce a lot of humor into this installment (completing the story) and it helps a lot. Also, Horton and Lee are mostly drawing supernatural beings and they do it well. The end’s a bit weak, but it’s something to…
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Finally… a solidly mediocre issue. Iron Reich 3000 isn’t bad. Land writes it like an infantry comic set in the future (one has to wonder about Starship Troopers influences) and Saiz and Blanco do a good job with the art. Saiz’s abilities are clear here… but he does draw all his characters like male models. It’s…
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I think some of these Presents licensed properties stories might be ideal examples of why properties should never be licensed across mediums. This issue’s Angel—and Golden and Sniegoski’s script isn’t even bad—is too short and too slight, even for the concept (one of the Angel cast makes a Blair Witch movie for demons). Horton and Lee’s art could be…
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Von Shelly has another fumetti this issue. While I suppose it’s a bit of an achievement to mix all the photos together, it’s godawful. Von Shelly’s writing is real bad. It’s clear he thinks his work is maybe the greatest thing ever; only a similarly minded (i.e. illiterate) reader would enjoy it. Full Throttle is…
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Mignola’s Hellboy is inexplicably pointless. Hellboy’s sort of the main character, but it’s really this secret group of people out to… kill him? Study him? Mignola never specifies and it makes the ending flop. The first part is decent—it is nice how Mignola works out a three-act structure even in eight pages or whatever—but it quickly…
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The issue opens with Petrie, Richards and Pimentel on Buffy. Petrie’s writing is awful (Buffy explains the story to herself through expositional dialogue) and the art is fairly weak. Even the resolution is lame. Chadwick’s Concrete is bad, but in interesting ways. Chadwick avoids the usual humanity of his stories (good or bad) and concentrates on the…
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Something about this issue is just very indistinct. It opens with Amara and Davis’s The Nevermen. It’s got some fabulous art—Davis is illustrating all these different pulpy heroes and villains with some sci-fi elements. It fabulous looking. The writing is awful. Amara’s plotting is confusing and his dialogue is wooden. Art’s great though. Then there’s…
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Something about this issue is just very indistinct. It opens with Amara and Davis’s The Nevermen. It’s got some fabulous art—Davis is illustrating all these different pulpy heroes and villains with some sci-fi elements. It fabulous looking. The writing is awful. Amara’s plotting is confusing and his dialogue is wooden. Art’s great though. Then there’s…
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I wanted to like Ragnok—not because Arcudi’s writing, but because Sook’s on the art. But it’s dark and indistinct. Lots and lots of black—very Mignola-lite. If Arcudi maybe had an interesting script, it would work. Unfortunately, the script seems to be going for something eccentric; Sook’s art doesn’t fit it. Maybe it’ll get better…. The…
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I was really expecting more from Edginton here. His Aliens vs. Predator starts out as a rip of Alien—bickering crew, uncharted planet—only adding in aliens once the people land (they don’t have spacesuits either). But then it turns out to be a poorly conceived “thirty years in the future” sequel to the first Aliens vs.…
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Wow. Another generally stinky issue. Obviously, Burglar Girls is the worst. Amara’s writing here is more confusing than anything else–he’s trying to pull a trick on the reader, but doesn’t give it any tension. In fact, the only time he foreshadows, he reveals the next panel. Barberi and Velasco’s art continues to be bad. Shabrken…
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If it weren’t for Hedden and McPhillips, this one would be a complete stinker. Okay, Vortex, from Kennedy, Larson and Moncuse, isn’t atrocious. It’s a dumb superhero story about a guy from another dimension who comes to Earth and does stuff, blah blah blah. What’s crazy is Kennedy does it all in summary, so the…
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It’s Yeates and Bissette doing a Tarzan issue… how bad can it be? Not at all; it can’t be bad. The story is split into three parts–the first features Tarzan exploring the Hollow Earth and thinking about his life, before he runs into some cannibals. Well, are they cannibals if they only eat other humanoids?…
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Presents does Lovecraft homage; they do it well. The weakest is Mignola’s Dr. Gosburo Coffin (with Sook on art). It’s basically just standard Mignola (sure, there’s some Lovecraft influence, but the whole thing plays like an 1800s B.P.R.D. to some degree). Also, either Sook started out as a Mignola mimic or he’s just really good…
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It’s the all-Buffy issue and, wow, does it get bad. The first story, which I thought was going to be a low point–from Brereton, Golden, Bennett and Amash–turns out to be all right. It’s Buffy meeting the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Golden’s writing is fine, Bennett’s art is adequate. Golden plots it weird and…
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The art’s not terrible on the Aliens story—Leonardi and Wiacek do all right (they certainly get the art win for this issue)—but Schultz and Amara’s writing is atrocious. They don’t just feel the need for bad dialogue, they want lots of it too. There’s endless poorly written expository dialogue. And the story is some segue…
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It’s a strange Roachmill because it’s very confined—Hedden and McWeeney set it at a public school where Roachmill’s after the school bully. So it’s sort of an all-action story. Dark Horse seems to have included both parts in this issue (there’s a very clear break, with cliffhanger), which is nice. McWeeney’s art is still good…
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Wow, the first Terminator story in Presents. I thought they’d gone through all the licenses, but no. It’s not terrible. Grant’s writing is adequate and Teran’s art has an energy to it. He’s a little confusing in action scenes (Grant’s plotting hurts there too) but he’s got some great designs. Martin and Rude’s The Moth…
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So Nazis versus Predator and the best Marz can come up with is a story set in South America? Castellini’s art makes up for some of it—even though he can’t draw the Predator, the rest of it looks good. But Marz’s writing is pretty dumb. Seagle and Gaudiano have another My Vagabond Days, this time…
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Another endless installment of The Ark. Verheiden’s writing gets really padded here, especially with the conversations. With the long page count–sixteen pages an installment–I wonder if it was intended to be a limited series then someone at Dark Horse realized no one in his or her right mind would buy it. So instead they stuck…
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Macan and Doherty finish Carson of Venus poorly. Doherty’s artwork this installment is particularly bad and, though Macan seems to be trying, the characters are all weak. Macan’s attempts at humor are a woman getting slapped around by her husband. So it kind of goes well with Brubaker and Lutes’s finish to The Fall, all…
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Warren finishes up Dirty Pair and I guess it’s good. I mean, it’s a lot of well-drawn action and the jabbering is starting to grow on me. There really isn’t a story though, just scantily clad girls in action scenes. But Warren’s art carries it. Macan’s writing is sort of better on Carson of Venus…
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Starting with The Fall, Brubaker introduces some complications and revelations here. I’ve read it before, but I can’t remember how it ends. This installment implies there might be some very bad things about to happen. Brubaker handles the change in tone well and Lutes’s art is great. He does fantastic night scenes. Macan and Doherty’s…
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Cooper brings Dan & Larry to a very disturbing conclusion. I mean, he really goes for it here–after backing down from going too far a few issues ago–but here, Cooper sort of leaps off the cliff and makes the installment just plain disgusting on a dozen levels. It’s great. As for Warren’s Dirty Pair story,…
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Where to even start. Beto’s got a good girl future story with Girl Crazy. It’s about a lovesick robot. He takes his time establishing it (then has to hurry towards the end) and finishes the story on a good joke. It’s a very cute story, sort of not what I expected from him. Then there’s…
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Wow, so Presents dropped Shane Oakley’s Stiltskin, one of the best things it’d published, before it finished? Swell. For a replacement, we get the endless Wanted Man, from McEown. McEown is a good cartoonist, though his writing is self-indulgent and seems only to serve putting topless little cartoon girls in his story. It’s a waste…
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Wow, Kelley Jones likes the phallic symbols doesn’t he? The character’s called The Hammer, but it doesn’t look like a hammer on his head… Anyway, it’s fine. Nice artwork, some decent scenes. The ending flops though. Stilkskin continues, this issue turning its dwarf protagonist into a porn star. It’s a change from Oakley, who didn’t…
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Wow. Dave Cooper’s Dan & Larry might be the most horrifying thing I’ve ever read. Cooper is creating this psychotic, awful version of the standard cartoon buddies. One’s a duck, the other’s a… something or other. And he does awful, awful things. Great art, amazing ideas… it’s awful and strange and wonderful. Metalfer is a…
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