Dark Horse Previews Picks: January 2020
Above-the-Board Recommendation:
The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service Omnibus vol. 5
Longtime readers should not be surprised to see this volume here. At all.
For those of you who’ve joined us more recently, “The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service” is one of the best manga published by Dark Horse. It’s about a group of unemployable college students with their own talents — talking to the dead, dowsing, channelling, embalming, and hacking — who use them to get paid by taking jobs from the dead. As good as it was, the title’s appeal was rather niche and it wasn’t selling great even before the manga market bubble burst in ‘08-’09. Dark Horse published more volumes irregularly after that, but each subsequent title only pushed the series further into the red.
Then the company had the bright idea to repackage the existing volumes as three-in-one omnibus editions. It took a while, but this format eventually saw “Kurosagi’s” sales back in the black again. Now with vol. 5, the omnibus editions take their biggest step yet: Publishing new material. Vol. 5 collects the existing vols. 13 & 14 and the never-before-published-in-English vol. 15., which will see the gang take on a zombie biker gang and invade the ruins of Fukushima. If this sounds good to you, then go out and pre-order this omnibus NOW because if this and the forthcoming vol. 6 don’t sell, then this really will be the last we see of “Kurosagi” on these shores.
ApocalyptiGirl: An Aria for the End Times HC (2nd Edition): If you like “Head Lopper” and were wondering what its creator got up to before that, here’s your answer. “ApocalyptiGirl” is about Aria, a girl currently making her home in a ruined city with her cat Jelly Beans. While she’s mostly concerned with the day-to-day business of survival, events conspire to set her on a path towards an artifact of great power. This was Andrew MacLean’s first graphic novel and it was a confident work which showed that he was a creator worth following. This new edition is also advertising more story and process pages, and the former is something that always gets my attention. That said, the bonus story pages which come at the end of each volume of “Head Lopper” are fun but never essential. So while I don’t feel the need to pick up this new edition, everyone else who hasn’t, should.
Baltimore Omnibus vol. 2 HC: Collects the second half of the series with a new short story from original artist Ben Stenbeck. This bonus is a lot more appealing since this series was at its best when Stenbeck was drawing it. Buying this collection of volumes I already have in order to get it is a tall order for me. Which means I’ll see about trying to read it if I see this omnibus on sale at a bookstore or convention if I get the chance.
Black Hammer/Justice League HC: As I’ve said before, I’m done with following “Black Hammer” spinoff miniseries. None of the ones I’ve read so far have matched the quality of the main series. But this one has the Justice League in it! The very characters that have served to inspire the series itself! Which means that this could go in some unexpected direction, or it could be five issues of the characters going, “Hey, we’re kind of similar, yet different at the same time. How about that?” The latter seems more likely than the former at this point for the series and I’m not interested in paying $20 for a hardcover edition of this story to find out if that’s really the case.
Frankenstein Undone #1 (of 5): Hey, it’s a new Mignolaverse miniseries. That’s good! But it’s being co-written by Scott Allie. That’s bad. Oh, it has art from Ben Stenbeck. That’s good! Except the miniseries’ premise — telling the story of how Frankenstein’s Monster got from the end of Mary Shelley’s story to the Mignolaverse — sounds a little unnecessary and indulgent. That’s bad. All this evens out to a wash. Which means that this can be safely ignored by the general comics readership and left to Mignolaverse completists (like me) to puzzle out whether the actual product is any good.
Jia and the Nian Monster: It looks like Dark Horse publisher/co-founder Mike Richardson is going the all-ages route with this Chinese-inspired new graphic novel with art from Megan Huang. Jia and Deshi are two kids who have decided to fight back against the monster that comes to attack their village every year. Jia is doing it to avenge her mother, while Deshi is doing it for a good time — I mean, adventure. I’d be more excited about this if Dark Horse’s other co-founder and VP Randy Stradley was writing this since Richardson’s work tends to be just functional at best. Then again, my nieces don’t have my biases or experience so it’s kind of tempting to think about buying this, throwing it their way, and seeing what they think about it.
Machine Gun Wizards: This is a PSA to let you know that the series formerly known as “Tommy Gun Wizards” is now known as this. It turns out there as a copyright issue that nobody found out about until the series started publication and now it’s being enforced with the final issue having to “board up” the “Machine Gun” part of its title.
No One Left to Fight: Now this is interesting: The collected edition of this five-issue miniseries costs $20, the same as the hardcover edition of the five-issue “Black Hammer/Justice League” collection in these solicitations. So what gives? I’m guessing it’s a clear case of Dark Horse believing that one of these projects has greater commercial appeal than the other. That being said, the superhero crossover may boast better name recognition and more familiar creators, but I’m more interested in seeing what writer Aubrey Sitterson and artist Fico Ossio are doing here. After all, it’s not every day that you see a comic come along and ask, “What’ll happen to Goku when he finally runs out of people to fight?” and then try to find an answer.