Dark Horse Presents (1986) #156

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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 yada yada.

Warner and Brunner—Brunner can draw (he’s a terrible writer though, good thing Warner’s here… sort of)—do a story about a hit man who dresses like a clown. Even drives a little car. It’s not bad, it’s not good. It passes the pages pretty well and there are some nice panels.

Chuah Ghee Hin has a very confusing story about dragons. His artwork is gorgeous, however; it’s almost a mix of cartooning and etching. He can’t really draw action (the etching), but there’s a lot of charm to it overall.

Dark Horse Presents Annual (1998) 2000

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It’s the “all female” issue… without a single female creator working on the book.

The best is in the Buffy story, when they turn rape prevention into a pun.

The Buffy story is the worst–Fassbender and Pascoe’s writing is, tasteless jokes aside, awful. Their dialogue is weak as is their plotting. Richards and Pimentel’s art isn’t awful.

Motter writes an indistinct Star Wars. But Owens’s artwork on it is fabulous.

The Xena story, from Edginton, Deodato and Nelson, is probably the best. Though Deodato’s photo referencing is annoying and ineffective. Edginton writes funny dialogue and comes up with solid plot developments.

Kennedy’s Ghost story isn’t bad. Brunner’s artwork varies. He has some good panels and some weak ones. Kennedy’s able to manage a good pace with a lot of details.

The one from David and Henry–Spyboy–is amusing. It’s breezy action; David gets in a good closing joke.

Dark Horse Presents (1986) #150

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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 action. His art’s odd too—he outlines Concrete in thick inks.

The Devil Chef has a single good joke at the end. Maybe Pollock’s first good joke….

Amara and Davis finish The Nevermen. As usual, great art, bad writing. Here we find out the Presents three-part story is just a pointless prologue.

Brunner’s story about recent college graduates is hilariously awful. It’s so absurdly written, one wonders if Presents had any submission standards at this point.

And Moncuse’s Fish Police closes the issue. Another dumb story (with pedestrian art) for a bad issue.