Dark Horse Presents (1986) #150

Dhp150

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.

Dark Horse Presents (1986) #149

Dhp149

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 another Xena story, maybe the silliest license I can think of. Wagner manages a decent job on the script—except for the TV stuff, it feels like Roman history for a bit. Deodato does great—except on the TV characters, who he carefully draws to look like the actors. It’s a pointless story.

Arcudi and Sook’s Ragnok closes the issue. Arcudi’s writing is still confusing. It’s not clear if it’s supposed to be “real world” and just feature weirdos, because the fantastic elements aren’t here this installment. And, unfortunately, Sook’s still aping Mignola.

Dark Horse Presents (1986) #148

Dhp148

Something about this issue is just very indistinct.

Dark Horse Presents (1986) #140

Dhp140

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 into Dark Horse’s next crappy Aliens series, it doesn’t bother focusing on the neat idea—the aliens home planet. Anyway, decent looking crap.

Then it’s Usagi Yojimbo—my first time reading it ever. I thought the art would be better. Sakai seems to be doing a kids’ book, regardless of the samurai content, but he doesn’t take much time detailing his figures. I wouldn’t even call it anatomy.

Chichester, Barberi and Hvam’s Saint Slayer is ugly and bad. The art’s incomprehensible and Chichester’s writing makes the Aliens guys seem like Faulkner. Total crap.