Dark Horse Presents (1986) #24

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And here debuts the licensed property… Aliens. Luckily, it’s a really decent eight pages. Nelson and Verheiden almost make it feel like it’s just a comic book, not a movie tie-in. What’s really interesting is the aliens. Nelson’s able to draw so much fluidity into his own creatures, when he’s got to draw the movie alien, it feels awkward. The shape is defined by being able to be a costume worn by a person, a hampering Nelson doesn’t have with his own creations.

Duranona’s Race of Scorpions continues to be unimpressive. Some more Star Wars homage and a lot of details. The art, once again, makes it impossible to easily discern the content. And a lot of the writing is just silly.

Arcudi and Miehm’s Homicide is a good police procedural. Arcudi is weak on the cop chatter, but the mystery is good. Nice inks.

Geary’s Police Beat‘s fine.

Dark Horse Presents 24 (November 1988)

Arcudi and Miehm’s Homicide is a good police procedural. Arcudi is weak on the cop chatter, but the mystery is good. Nice inks.

Geary’s Police Beat‘s fine.

CREDITS

Aliens; story and art by Mark A. Nelson; script by Mark Verheiden. Race of Scorpions; story and art by Leopoldo Durañona; lettering by Tim Harkins. Homicide, A Whiff of Madness; story by John Arcudi; art and lettering by Grant Miehm. Police Beat; story, art and lettering by Rick Geary. Edited by Randy Stradley.

Dark Horse Presents (1986) #14

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Reading Mr. Monster, I thought a lot about how much I love Will Eisner’s Spirit in black and white. Not because Gilbert’s art in any way reminds of Eisner, but because it doesn’t. Because instead of publishing wonderful black and white comics, Dark Horse Presents is publishing Gilbert’s Mr. Monster and it looks like pencils run through the photocopier to darken it. Art aside, it’s still atrocious.

The Concrete story is completely depressing. While visiting his parents’ grave, Concrete contemplates his future. It’s bleak. Chadwick’s art isn’t particularly special here (why is Concrete the one thing he doesn’t draw well), but it’s one heck of a lovely downer.

Badger’s Mask story is just a filler, maybe announcing Badger’s leaving or maybe not. It’s hard to tell.

Nelson has a one page Dinosaur Tales, which is more design than anything else, but still nice.

That Mr. Monster story was really awful.

Dark Horse Presents 14 (January 1988)

Badger’s Mask story is just a filler, maybe announcing Badger’s leaving or maybe not. It’s hard to tell.

Nelson has a one page Dinosaur Tales, which is more design than anything else, but still nice.

That Mr. Monster story was really awful.

CREDITS

Concrete, Now is Now; writer and artist, Paul Chadwick; letterer, Bill Spicer. The Mask, Gone Fishing!; writer and artist, Mark Badger; letterer, David Jackson. Mr. Monster, His World; writer and artist, Michael T. Gilbert; letterer, Ken Bruzenak. Dinosaur Tales; writer and artist, Mark A. Nelson. Editor, Randy Stradley; publisher, Dark Horse Comics.

Dark Horse Presents (1986) #12

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Okay, The Mask is supposed to be incomprehensible. Badger’s first line in the story is about it being incomprehensible. In a lot of ways, it’s the best continuing serial in Dark Horse Presents so far. I can’t understand it, not with Badger’s art purposely intended to confuse, but at least the writing is ambitious. It’s ambitious in a really, really small way–this issue it’s showing realistic dialogue at a party–but Badger’s definitely trying something.

On the other hand, this issue’s Concrete is pretty tired. Chadwick’s showing how lonely it is when you’re stuck in an enormous alien, stone body. He could have done something akin to Chekhov’s Misery, but doesn’t because he’s got to keep the comic relatively upbeat. Nice art at the beginning though.

Nelson’s contribution is a five page time travel story. The plot’s decent if predictable and familiar, but the art is exquisite and beautiful.

Dark Horse Presents 12 (November 1987)

Nelson’s contribution is a five page time travel story. The plot’s decent if predictable and familiar, but the art is exquisite and beautiful.

CREDITS

Concrete, Next Best; writer and artist, Paul Chadwick; letterer, Bill Spicer. The Portheus Project; writer and artist, Mark A. Nelson. The Mask; writer and artist, Mark Badger; letterer, Tim Harkins. Editor, Randy Stradley; publisher, Dark Horse Comics.

Dark Horse Presents (1986) #11

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Is The Mask supposed to be understandable? Badger’s writing seems straightforward enough–two CIA agents are trying to find a Cuban priest who’s in New York City, but his art makes it completely incomprehensible. And it’s hard to imagine how the titular Mask (Masque) is going to figure into the priest’s story. I also can’t figure out if it’s supposed to be pro-Cuba or anti-Cuba.

West writes a little history lesson about the Battle of the Somme. Moiseiwitsch’s art is more like etchings and the text is set to them and somewhat related. It’s unsuccessful but not ambitious either.

Roma limps to its finish. Some nice art from Workman but the writing’s incredibly weak. He’s also basically only doing closeups now, which is odd since the story’s got a big finish.

The best thing in the issue–by far–are Nelson’s two Dinosaur Tales pages. Absolutely wondrous art.

Dark Horse Presents 11 (October 1987)

Roma limps to its finish. Some nice art from Workman but the writing’s incredibly weak. He’s also basically only doing closeups now, which is odd since the story’s got a big finish.

The best thing in the issue–by far–are Nelson’s two Dinosaur Tales pages. Absolutely wondrous art.

CREDITS

The Mask; writer and artist, Mark Badger; letterer, Tim Harkins. Forgotten; writer, Ross Evan West; artist, Carel Moiseiwitsch. Roma; writer, artist and letterer, John Workman. Dinosaur Tales; writer, artist and letterer, Mark A. Nelson. Editor, Randy Stradley; publisher, Dark Horse Comics.

Aliens (1988) #6

The whole series collapses here, thanks to Verheiden’s absurd sense of self-importance. In six issues, he destroys the planet Earth. Wait, no, he doesn’t. In one issue he destroys the planet Earth. He didn’t really hint at that plan until this issue either.

He uses Newt as a narrator again and it’s just as bad as the previous issue. The problem is with the plot. He’s back in summary mode, but he’s just fitting too much into it–and Newt’s not the right narrator of the events he’s showing.

It’s a downbeat conclusion (and not a sequel-ready one, which is almost encouraging me to read the second series but I think Verheiden wrote it too and he probably horrifically narrates it with Newt).

The series is a big let down from the first two or three issues. Verheiden had too much melodrama to fit into six issues.

Blah.

Aliens (1988) #5

Yuck.

Verheiden writes the majority of the issue–maybe all of it, I can’t remember, my brain is on strike–from Newt’s perspective. He narrates the issue with her.

It’s awful female narration by a male comic book writer. Probably not the worst ever, but it’s hideous.

The plotting isn’t bad–though I’m not sure why Hicks is even in the comic anymore. He’s practically a villain at this point. Verheiden never bothered establishing a relationship between Newt and Hicks and it didn’t matter when he was telling the story in summary. But now he’s telling it in scenes and the omission is disastrous.

There’s a lot of really cool alien landscape designs here from Nelson. His art hasn’t gotten much better overall, but the design stuff is amazing. Haunting, even. I mean, I remember it from when I was a kid.

But it doesn’t make up for the narration.