Dark Horse Previews Picks: September 2022
Above-the-Board Recommendation:
Berserk vol. 41
Kentaro Miura passed away in May of last year, leaving his epic manga series unfinished. There was still enough material for one final volume and we’ll be getting that in November (it’s advance-solicited here). Though there will be no resolution to the ongoing saga of Guts vs. Griffith, what I’ve heard about the volume implies that things won’t be left off on a major cliffhanger. Which is about the best we could hope for in this situation.
Except that it turns out this won’t be the final volume of “Berserk.” Hakusensha, the publisher of the series, has made the decision to continue the series with a new creative team. This team being Miura’s friend and fellow mangaka Kouji Mori doing the writing, and Miura’s remaining assistant and staff at Studio Gaga providing the art. While Mori hasn’t had any manga of his published over here yet, he has done several other mangas, including an eighteen-volume series called “Holyland” that people seem to like. I’ll be checking that out in due course as it seems the best way to determine how excited I should be about his involvement here. That said, this does seem to be the best development we could have hoped for regarding the future of “Berserk”as any ending feels preferable to just letting this saga sit there unfinished.
Maskerade #1 (of 4): Kevin Smith is the latest creator to get his own imprint at Dark Horse and this is the first title to come out of his Secret Stash. It’s about Felicia Dance, a social media star and TV sensation who overcame a troubled childhood to get to this point. This “troubled childhood” involved being experimented on as a child while her brother was killed as part of these same experiments. She wants revenge, but how does someone as famous as her go about getting that? By… putting on a mask, I guess? The solicitation text doesn’t offer any specifics, and that leaves me to believe that the publisher believes that Smith’s involvement is going to be enough to sell this series. Though, he’s only co-writing it along with Andy McElfresh, with John Sprengelmyer providing the art. This assumption may have been true in Smith’s late 90’s, early 00’s heyday, but I think this miniseries is going to need to be actually good in order to get anyone besides the filmmaker’s fanbase to give it any consideration.
Shock Shop #1 (of 4): This is the latest horror title from writer Cullen Bunn, so you probably have a good idea if this is something for you. He’s been something of a middle-of-the-road writer for me, though he’s re-teaming with “Regression” artist Danny Luckert for half of this title, so I’m a little more curious than usual. I say “half of this title” because this is a flip-book miniseries with each issue telling two stories. The first is “Familiars” and deals with a divorced man moving into a haunted house that’s haunted by things looking to feed off the man’s emotions. “Something in the Woods, In the Dark” is the second and deals with a married couple, who are going through a rough patch, heading off on a camping trip with some friends who wind up getting murdered in short order. Leila Leiz provides art for the other title in the series and… I dunno. I think I could’ve gotten into this as the follow-up to “Regression” from Bunn and Luckert, but the gimmicky anthology setup has me feeling that this is more for people who believe that “Horror Comic from Cullen Bunn” is a selling point.
Kepler HC: This OGN is written by actor David Duchovny and it feels like he’s making his comic-writing debut a couple decades too late for his name to be a real selling point here. Phillip Sevy provides the art for this tale about a world where humans once lived, but subsequently died out and allowed the other races to thrive. Now the planet is facing the return of the Benadem, alien gods whose presence threatens to plunge the world into chaos. At the center of this is West, a sixteen-year-old, who actually has mixed-species human heritage and may be key in finding out what the Benadem really want. This all sounds fine, if not particularly exciting (start placing your bets now on whether or not the Benadem are actually humans who have come back to avenge the death of their species on this planet). I could be wrong, but I can’t see this being a major game-changer that convinces Duchovny to redirect his career focus from acting to comic-book writing.
Castle Full of Blackbirds #1 (of 4): Another Mignolaverse miniseries, and also one where I’m left wondering how involved its creator is in its creation. The solicitation text lists him as a co-writer, but the solicited covers indicate Angelica Slatter as the sole writer, with Valeria Burzo providing the art. The miniseries involves one Sara Blackburn who has come to New York following the events of “The Return of Effie Kolb” to find some answers at the Linton School For Girls regarding the powers that have plagued her all of her life. At first I was wondering about who Sarah was and what “The Return of Effie Kolb” was about, until I read the next solicitation…
Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: The Return of Effie Kolb and Others: So the miniseries above is a follow-up to a story I haven’t read yet. That clears things up. This is a rare volume in the Mignolaverse these days in the sense that it’s solely written by Mike Mignola himself. It has me feeling that this might be a return to the quality of “Hellboy” collections from years past where the ones featuring short stories involving the title character were the most entertaining ones. In addition to the title story, this volume also collects “Long Night at Goloski Station,” “The Seven Wives Club,” “Her Fatal Hour,” and “The Sending” with art from Tiernen Trevallion, Adam Hughes, Zach Howard, Matt Smith.
Our Encounters With Evil and Other Stories Library Edition HC: Collects the three graphic novellas featuring the exploits of monster hunters Prof. Meinhardt and Mr. Knox. The first one is co-written by Mike Mignola with artist Duncan Warren-Johnson also co-writing and providing the art. Johnson flies solo on the second and third novellas to diminishing returns. That’s because the first volume is more of a comedic romp with the following two downplaying the comedy for more serious stakes. I didn’t think it worked that well, but Johnson’s eccentric arc was consistently enjoyable throughout the course of these stories. While this hardcover may seem pricey at $40, that’s still a discount over the $50 you’d have paid to read these individually.
Brilliant: Described as “The Social Network” with superpowers, this was the first (and so far only) creator-owned work to come from Bendis and artist Mark Bagley. It was also infamous for how the final issue for this miniseries was delayed for over a year, and given that we all know how fast Bagley can work, it’s not hard to put the blame at Bendis’ feet for that. The series itself is about a group of college kids who manage to find a way to create superpowers and the personal, professional, and business fallout that comes after that. It’s not a bad idea, but Bendis and Bagley only scratched the surface of it before the series was effectively abandoned after its first arc. Which means that, yes, the volume being solicited here is just the start of a story that has no end in sight.
Salamandre: This is an OGN from creator I.N.J. Culbard who is best known for his collaborations with Dan Abnett (“The New Deadwardians,” “Brink”), Christopher Cantwell (“Everything”) and his Lovecraft adaptations (“The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath”). To my knowledge, this is his first OGN based on his own story. It’s about an artist struggling to create art in a world where it is otherwise illegal. I wouldn’t say this is timely… but it feels like it’s getting there. Culbard is a fantastic artist, but I’m left wondering if the story he’s telling will have anything more to say beyond the fact that forbidding artistic expression is bad.
Panic: This ComicXology Original comes to us from writer Neil Kleid and artist Andrea Mutti. It’s about ten commuters trapped on a train underneath the Hudson River following an apocalyptic event. They’re going to need to work together if they’re going to have any chance of survival, but that’s easier said than done when they’ve also got their own individual fears and paranoia eating away at them. I have a hunch that this story about people working together in a time of crisis, and perhaps failing to do so, may be more about the Current State of Things than a simple tale of survival. I’m still curious, though, and Kleid and Mutti will have a better chance at selling me on the former the better they are at executing the latter.