Tag: Chynna Clugston

Dark Horse Presents (1986) #133

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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 Carson of Venus is pretty lame. Doherty seems like he’s just about ready to be doing profesional work… but not quite yet. And Macan’s writing is lame. He plots slow and his dialogue is terrible.

The Dirty Pair continues to be action-packed and sort of boring. The back and forth between the protagonists is occasionally amusing, but the whole thing feels artificial, like Warren was writing down quippy conversations and inserting them here.

Clugston’s Blue Monday is well-composed, but badly written. Would Dark Horse have published it if it were by a guy?

Dark Horse Presents (1986) #127

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The issue opens with Brereton’s finish for The Nocturnals. It’s charming and light, which is totally at odds with the visuals. I guess if I’d known more about it, I would have had an idea where it might go. Some great art.

Metalfer does not get any better this issue—Manoukian and Roucher somehow make their protagonist unlikable, even when he’s being unjustly pursued. But the art is excellent, especially here, where they’re setting big action sequences in a future city.

Then there’s Oakley’s Stiltskin, which reminds a little too much of A Prayer for Owen Meany for it to be original, but it’s still a rather good story. Oakley’s a fine artist, but his writing—especially his first-person narration from the titular character, a dwarf growing up in the sixties—makes the whole thing work beautifully.

A mildly amusing one page Blue Monday from Clugston closes the issue.