Dark Horse Penguin Picks: July 2024
Above-the-Board Recommendation:
H.P. Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu
The solicitation text calls this Lovecraft’s most popular novel and given the title character’s prolificacy in pop culture, I’m hard-pressed to disagree. The story itself involves two bands of cultists, one in the Arctic and one in the bayous of Louisiana who share a practice of blood sacrifice and a familiar chant, “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn” – “In his house at R’lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.” It’s an investigation into this connection that will lead investigator Francis Thurston across the world to some of its most forsaken spots in search of understanding. At the expense of his sanity.
This adaptation is once again being handled by mangaka Gou Tanabe, who has shown that he’s really good at realizing Lovecraft’s insanely creepy visions. I don’t expect that to change here, but the publisher is picking an auspicious time for its release. This volume is advance-solicited for September, which means it’ll be hitting right in the midst of this latest election cycle. Will it provide a boost to this perpetual also-ran presidential candidate whose efforts to Make America Crazy Again have failed to motivate the public time, and time, and time, and time again? One can only hope Tanabe’s work will finally be able to move the needle this time.
Arkham Horror: The Terror at the End of Time #1: Meanwhile, in Lovecraft-adjacent storytelling we have the tale of adventuring socialite Jenny Barnes and private investigator Joe Diamond who have teamed up to find Jenny’s kidnapped sister. She was kidnapped by a cult that has since fled to the town of Arkham, Massachusetts. You can probably guess how things are going to go from there. Given that this board-game spinoff comic is being written by Cullen Bunn and illustrated by Andrea Mutti, you can also probably guess whether or not this is going to be for you or not. I mean, given these creators’ prolificacy everyone has to have read something they’ve been involved with before, right? While we’re on the subject of creators everyone should have an opinion on by now…
Gilt Frame #1 (of 3): New from Margie and Matt Kindt – likely related, no idea how. This miniseries involves a nephew and aunt crimesolving duo whose Parisian vacation is interrupted when they encounter a staggeringly bizarre murder scene. Trying to solve it won’t just put them into competition with a master French detective, but jewel thieves, art forgers, gun runners, and a lost puppy. It all sounds appreciably bizarre for a project involving Matt Kindt, who’s also illustrating it as well. My main concern, as with most of the creator’s recent projects, is that it’s likely going to be just a bit too expensive to convince me to give it a shot without some kind of discount being involved.
Midst: Address Unknown #1: Between the light of Un and the darkness of Fold lies the islet of Midst. Which is where siblings Rowen and Ogden have found themselves after their postal ship crashes. What they find their won’t just challenge their wills to survive, but their family bonds as well. This appears to be spun off from a larger fictional universe that may involve Critical Role in some way. I’m not exactly sure how as the solicitation text doesn’t make things clear. What is clear is that this comes from writer Colin Lorimer who gave us the appreciably weird “Daisy” which had some of the best solicitation text writing I’ve ever seen. Which means that Lorimer either lost his touch between writing the text here, or that they got a different person to do it this time. Which makes this that much less interesting, in my opinion.
‘Patra #1 (of 4): “Starman” writer James Robinson is the latest creator to be given his own imprint at Dark Horse and this horror miniseries is the first project to come from it. Illustrated by Scott Kolins, it’s about a young girl who wakes up one day with no memory of her past. All that she knows is that a big knife and menacing mask appear on her whenever she’s in trouble. Oh, and she’s being stalked by a family-murdering madman in the small midwestern town she’s found herself in. While Robinson’s run on “Starman” is deservedly venerated, everything he’s done since hasn’t quite been on the same level. Still, if you’ve been following his work since the 90’s you’re probably just glad to see that he’s still making comics after all these years.
The Shaolin Cowboy: Cruel to be Kin – Silent But Deadly Edition: Finally, a chance to enjoy Geoff Darrow’s artwork without his dialogue getting in the way.
Usagi Yojimbo vol. 6: Ice & Snow: Actually vol. 39 when you consider every previous “Usagi” collection published up to this point. I imagine they’re publishing this as vol. 6 to keep with the format and style of the IDW volumes, which is fine. Anyway, this latest volume kicks off the title’s return to Dark Horse in a big way by having Usagi’s first encounter with Jei in a very long time. Big things happen whenever these two meet and I’m expecting nothing less from this latest volume. Though anyone worried about Yukichi surviving the experience can rest easy. He’s not set to die for another couple decades in the series’ timeline yet.
Masterpiece: The latest miniseries from Bendis and Alex Maleev have these creators giving us a new criminal mastermind. One who is all of sixteen years old, has made a fortune from her inventions, and is beloved for her webcomics. Emma would be content to continue living her life, until she finds out one day that she’s the descendant of the two greatest criminals who ever lived. Now she’s got a different idea about how she’s going to live her life. Bendis and Maleev had previously been working together on “Scarlet” as their creator-owned joint, but it appears that with their move to Dark Horse they’ve decided to do something new. While I’d like to see them go back and finish off “Scarlet” at some point, it wasn’t so good that I’m going to begrudge them their decision to do something new. So let’s see how this goes.