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Dark Horse Presents 114 (October 1996)
Miller’s pseudo-anti-misogyny Lance Blastoff is back… it’s amazing how someone can turn in something so stupid and pretend it’s profound. I guess the sci-fi setting means Miller has to work a little harder on his art. Trypto gets weird this time. The dog develops superpowers and goes around (flying like Krypto) freeing and magically rehabilitating… 📖
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Dark Horse Presents 113 (September 1996)
I was trying to remember where I knew Leialoha from… he inks now. He pencils and inks Trypto, which has a superhero dog splash page and then a rather traditional story. It’s about a stolen dog being forced to dogfight. Mumy and Ferrer’s script is fine and Leialoha has some imaginative composition, but his art… 📖
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Avengers Prime (2010) #5
I think this issue must be Bendis’s best-paced ever. Lots happens here… Let’s see, very big battle scene, followed by a fight scene. Before the battle scene there was some stuff, including Steve and his elf girl. Really wish Brubaker would bring her into the regular title (or whoever’s writing it once Steve’s Cap again… 📖
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Avengers Prime (2010) #4
Does the Twilight Sword Hela kills Enchantress with—oops, did I spoil that? I’m sure she’ll be okay—have anything to do with the Twilight movies or is it established in Thor canon? Why does every Thor comic need footnotes and never have them? This issue has a full-on Bendis conversation where we discover Thor bedded Hellcat.… 📖
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Avengers Prime (2010) #3
There’s the Bendis dialogue no one was missing… nothing like Steve and Tony bickering like it’s a Kevin Smith movie and they haven’t been superheroes for the last forty or sixty years. There’s even a gay joke. How Smith could let Bendis just continually plagiarize Mallrats dialogue is beyond me…. But I digress. This issue… 📖
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Avengers Prime (2010) #2
Steve Rogers… man-slut. I guess I haven’t been keeping up with Brubaker’s Captain America enough to know if Steve’s cheating on Sharon with an Asgardian villager. The whole thing feels like Secret Wars with the villagers and the Enchantress and the giants… only, you know, Secret Wars with just three heroes and some tie to… 📖
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Avengers Prime (2010) #1
Do you think Bendis called in Avengers Prime because Nimoy’s Spock is now known as Spock Prime? For some reason, it seems like a Marvel (read: Bendis) move (integrate blockbuster pop culture nomenclature). Anyway, this first issue is pretty funny, actually. On one hand, it’s post-Siege and it’s Alan Davis so it’s very modern. I… 📖
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Dark Horse Presents (1986) #112
One Trick Rip-Off finishes here, the first story in the issue too. It’s pretty clear Pope was thinking, especially here—it has a multi-page wordless sequence for dramatic effect—of a single sitting read, not a one-year one. Some very nice art; some weak sentiment. The finish might read better as a single piece. Actually, it’s an… 📖
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Avengers Prime 5 (March 2011)
I think this issue must be Bendis’s best-paced ever. Lots happens here… Let’s see, very big battle scene, followed by a fight scene. Before the battle scene there was some stuff, including Steve and his elf girl. Really wish Brubaker would bring her into the regular title (or whoever’s writing it once Steve’s Cap again… 📖
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Avengers Prime 4 (January 2011)
Does the Twilight Sword Hela kills Enchantress with—oops, did I spoil that? I’m sure she’ll be okay—have anything to do with the Twilight movies or is it established in Thor canon? Why does every Thor comic need footnotes and never have them? This issue has a full-on Bendis conversation where we discover Thor bedded Hellcat.… 📖
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Dark Horse Presents (1986) #111
I was expecting The Ninth Gland to be creepier this issue, but I guess French has to save something for the finish. While it’s disturbing, it’s just disturbing imagery. The story itself is rather tame—though I imagine the payoff next issue will be something awful. Speaking of awful… Egg, Lovece and Schenck after-school special about… 📖
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Avengers Prime 3 (November 2010)
There’s the Bendis dialogue no one was missing… nothing like Steve and Tony bickering like it’s a Kevin Smith movie and they haven’t been superheroes for the last forty or sixty years. There’s even a gay joke. How Smith could let Bendis just continually plagiarize Mallrats dialogue is beyond me…. But I digress. This issue… 📖
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Avengers Prime 2 (October 2010)
Steve Rogers… man-slut. I guess I haven’t been keeping up with Brubaker’s Captain America enough to know if Steve’s cheating on Sharon with an Asgardian villager. The whole thing feels like Secret Wars with the villagers and the Enchantress and the giants… only, you know, Secret Wars with just three heroes and some tie to… 📖
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Dark Horse Presents (1986) #110
The issue opens with Egg, which is a well-intentioned look at child abuse. The narrator’s father is beating him and the school officials aren’t doing anything to help, even though some are well-intentioned. Lovece’s writing is better in dialogue. Dealing with the narrator’s Stockholm Syndrome, he fails. Also, introducing a giant creature into the situation… 📖
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Avengers Prime 1 (August 2010)
Do you think Bendis called in Avengers Prime because Nimoy’s Spock is now known as Spock Prime? For some reason, it seems like a Marvel (read: Bendis) move (integrate blockbuster pop culture nomenclature). Anyway, this first issue is pretty funny, actually. On one hand, it’s post-Siege and it’s Alan Davis so it’s very modern. I… 📖
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Dark Horse Presents 112 (August 1996)
One Trick Rip-Off finishes here, the first story in the issue too. It’s pretty clear Pope was thinking, especially here—it has a multi-page wordless sequence for dramatic effect—of a single sitting read, not a one-year one. Some very nice art; some weak sentiment. The finish might read better as a single piece. Actually, it’s an… 📖
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Dark Horse Presents 111 (July 1996)
I was expecting The Ninth Gland to be creepier this issue, but I guess French has to save something for the finish. While it’s disturbing, it’s just disturbing imagery. The story itself is rather tame—though I imagine the payoff next issue will be something awful. Speaking of awful… Egg, Lovece and Schenck after-school special about… 📖
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Smoke (2007, Grzegorz Cisiecki)
Cisiecki eschews a traditional narrative for a series of short segments—the longest takes place in a room in the same chain as Lynch’s lodge from “Twin Peaks”—and binds it all together with this cassette tape playing. Smoke opens a lot better than it finishes. Cisiecki’s static composition is fantastic and the first minute or two… 📖
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Dark Horse Presents 110 (June 1996)
The issue opens with Egg, which is a well-intentioned look at child abuse. The narrator’s father is beating him and the school officials aren’t doing anything to help, even though some are well-intentioned. Lovece’s writing is better in dialogue. Dealing with the narrator’s Stockholm Syndrome, he fails. Also, introducing a giant creature into the situation… 📖
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Dark Horse Presents (1986) #109
I can’t believe I’m about to make this statement—I liked Milgrom’s story the best. It’s some charming little thing about a guy treating his roaches as pets (after all other attempts at pet owning in New York fail). Milgrom’s style is more comic strip than I’ve seen and it works. Even if the protagonist does… 📖
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Dark Horse Presents (1986) #108
Ninth Gland is fairly gross this issue, though French still hasn’t done anything to tell the reader what the story’s about. There’s something growing in the alien horse and the two girls who brought it to the hospital maintenance man will be affected somehow. It’s creepy. Pollock’s Devil Chef installment is somewhat less annoying than… 📖
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Dark Horse Presents 109 (May 1996)
I can’t believe I’m about to make this statement—I liked Milgrom’s story the best. It’s some charming little thing about a guy treating his roaches as pets (after all other attempts at pet owning in New York fail). Milgrom’s style is more comic strip than I’ve seen and it works. Even if the protagonist does… 📖
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Dark Horse Presents (1986) #107
I’ll start with the worst—Devil Chef. Pollock threatens a second installment. He can draw, this story shows, he just choses not to. It’s an unfunny strip with a lot of details and zero charm. On the other hand, Purcell and Mignola’s Rusty Razorciam is quite a bit of fun. Mignola’s not a good fit for… 📖
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Dark Horse Presents 108 (April 1996)
Ninth Gland is fairly gross this issue, though French still hasn’t done anything to tell the reader what the story’s about. There’s something growing in the alien horse and the two girls who brought it to the hospital maintenance man will be affected somehow. It’s creepy. Pollock’s Devil Chef installment is somewhat less annoying than… 📖
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Dark Horse Presents 107 (March 1996)
I’ll start with the worst—Devil Chef. Pollock threatens a second installment. He can draw, this story shows, he just choses not to. It’s an unfunny strip with a lot of details and zero charm. On the other hand, Purcell and Mignola’s Rusty Razorciam is quite a bit of fun. Mignola’s not a good fit for… 📖
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Attack the Gas Station! (1999, Kim Sang-jin)
I’ve lost the desire to visit South Korea. I’m not sure how to describe Attack the Gas Station! I suppose it’s a crime comedy, except the audience is supposed to laugh at the victims. The film lionizes its criminals–who spend the near two hour running time assaulting children, attempting the occasional rape and generally humiliating… 📖
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Strange Science Fantasy (2010) #6
How unfortunate. Morse finishes up here (and has the series’s first dialogue no less) and it’s a disastrous wrap-up. For whatever reason, he felt the need to bring everything together for the final issue. It opens as a crossover Indiana Jones and The Lost World, but only for a few pages. It soon turns in… 📖
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Strange Science Fantasy 6 (December 2010)
How unfortunate. Morse finishes up here (and has the series’s first dialogue no less) and it’s a disastrous wrap-up. For whatever reason, he felt the need to bring everything together for the final issue. It opens as a crossover Indiana Jones and The Lost World, but only for a few pages. It soon turns in… 📖
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Strange Science Fantasy (2010) #5
Morse unfortunately does not arrest Strange Science Fantasy’s decline this issue. In fact, the previous issue’s problems just compound here. Morse has a hero again—this time it’s a Mr. Fantastic-type; an accident of science turns a boxer into an elastic man. He uses his power to beat up those who wronged him, then he unknowingly… 📖
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Strange Science Fantasy (2010) #4
So it’s a war comic, mixed with an alien comic. All done very fifties… should be fine. But it’s not. Morse changes up his format here. Instead of the three panels a page, he includes multiple single panel pages (with the same amount of text as if he was doing the normal format). They slow… 📖
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Strange Science Fantasy (2010) #3
This issue features Morse’s most concise, yet most ambitious (just because he’s sticking to a formula) work on the series so far. I get the concept. I’m just not sure how successful it all works out. Morse does a film-noir set in Hollywood, with very literal looking characters (the projectionist has a projector for a… 📖
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Strange Science Fantasy (2010) #2
Returning to Strange Science Fantasy raises a question about expectation. The first issue ends with a “to be continued.” How does a story without characters get one interested enough to come back? I didn’t really see what Morse could do with that story, certainly not for five more issues. Well, he doesn’t continue it (this… 📖
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Strange Science Fantasy 5 (November 2010)
Morse unfortunately does not arrest Strange Science Fantasy’s decline this issue. In fact, the previous issue’s problems just compound here. Morse has a hero again—this time it’s a Mr. Fantastic-type; an accident of science turns a boxer into an elastic man. He uses his power to beat up those who wronged him, then he unknowingly… 📖
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Strange Science Fantasy 4 (October 2010)
So it’s a war comic, mixed with an alien comic. All done very fifties… should be fine. But it’s not. Morse changes up his format here. Instead of the three panels a page, he includes multiple single panel pages (with the same amount of text as if he was doing the normal format). They slow… 📖
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Strange Science Fantasy 3 (September 2010)
This issue features Morse’s most concise, yet most ambitious (just because he’s sticking to a formula) work on the series so far. I get the concept. I’m just not sure how successful it all works out. Morse does a film-noir set in Hollywood, with very literal looking characters (the projectionist has a projector for a… 📖
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Strange Science Fantasy 2 (August 2010)
Returning to Strange Science Fantasy raises a question about expectation. The first issue ends with a “to be continued.” How does a story without characters get one interested enough to come back? I didn’t really see what Morse could do with that story, certainly not for five more issues. Well, he doesn’t continue it (this… 📖
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Strange Science Fantasy (2010) #1
Morse takes a peculiar approach here. I imagine he chose it to lessen the illustrating load. He has three panels a page, no dialogue, all very overdone exposition. He’s mimicking the tone of a sensational movie poster or comic book cover. And it works. There’s not a single character in the comic, yet it’s totally… 📖
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Strange Science Fantasy 1 (July 2010)
Morse takes a peculiar approach here. I imagine he chose it to lessen the illustrating load. He has three panels a page, no dialogue, all very overdone exposition. He’s mimicking the tone of a sensational movie poster or comic book cover. And it works. There’s not a single character in the comic, yet it’s totally… 📖
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Dark Horse Presents (1986) #106
Okay, so Wray did have something to do with “Ren & Stimpy.” Otherwise, it’d be a little too coincidental. He does the art on Big Blown Baby (Fleming scripts). Great art, very detailed, very fluid. Too bad Fleming’s script is just a mediocre absurdist comedy thing. It’s amazing how many of these poorly written, obscenity-laden… 📖
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Dark Horse Presents (1986) #105
Dark Horse had a misprint this issue. A couple pages were out of sequence on Niles’s Cal McDonald. Well, that misprint in addition to continuing Shaw’s Alan Brand and Musgrove and Chamberlin’s Pink Tornado. What’s funniest about Shaw this issue is how lazy he gets. Lots and lots of white space here. Alan Brand started… 📖
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Dark Horse Presents (1986) #104
Musgove and Chamberlin have a Helen Keller joke in this installment of The Pink Tornado, presumably because they thought it makes them edgy. They’re really just incredibly stupid and rather terrible writers. Their dialogue’s endless and their art’s bad. As for Niles’s Cal McDonald, it’s fine. I mean, it’s bad, but it’s Jones’s fault. Niles… 📖
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Dark Horse Presents (1986) #103
I want to take back all the nice things I said about Shaw’s Alan Bland. This installment is annoying and idiotic–Shaw has so many sight gags, he eventually runs out of space on the page. And the script thinks old hippies (who look more beatnik) are hilarious. It’s atrocious. Pope’s got second slot, which is… 📖