Dark Horse Penguin Picks: March 2025
Above-the-Board Recommendation:
The Witcher: The Bear & The Butterfly #1 (of 4)
Dark Horse has published a lot of comics based on “The Witcher” over the years and I have read exactly zero of them. That’s not because I think they’re bad, just that my appreciation for the franchise only extends so far as the third videogame and they haven’t published any comics by creators whose work demands that I start reading them. That changes with this latest miniseries as it’s being written by Simon Spurrier with art from “Sea of Stars’” Stephen Green. The setup has a vampire attacking a small town that has put up a bounty large enough to attract all kinds of monster hunters. This includes Geralt of Rivia, as well as a rival Witcher from the School of the Bear. It all sounds very standard-issue when put like that, but Spurrier is a writer who I know is going to take some extended, perverse joy in turning it inside out before the story is over. I’ll absolutely be picking this up when it’s collected… maybe regardless of what kind of format it’s published in.
Arcana Royale #1 (of 4): Hudson Tremaine is one of the best poker players around, having taken money from just about every high-stakes competitor in Vegas. So when she’s invited to participate in the Arcanos Mysterinos tournament, saying no doesn’t even cross her mind. Until she finds out that it’s a competition where magicians, demons, and demigods compete to shape the world. “Sandman” meets “Rounders” is the high-concept description given to this latest miniseries from writer Cullen Bunn, with A.C. Zamudio providing the art. Bunn can be hit-or-miss, but a series about (supernatural) poker players has an inherently strategic approach that at least makes me interested to see if he can deliver on it.
The Great British Bump-Off: Kill or be Quilt #1: I wasn’t expecting to see a sequel to writer John Allison and artist Max Sarin’s “The Great British Bump-Off” when I started reading these solicitations, so this is a delightful surprise! The original miniseries involved amateur chef Shauna Wickle trying to ferret out the murderer among the cast of a baking show that was thinly veiled riff on a similarly titled British series. With all that behind her, Shauna is now taking a boating holiday in the canals of Yorkshire. Surely there won’t be any actual or near-murders occurring that will demand her attention here!
(Also, I’m betting that this will be a four-issue miniseries like its predecessor. I say “betting” because it’s not indicated as such in the solicitations or on the displayed covers for the first issue.)
Lady Baltimore: The Daughters of Medusa #1 (of 2): Co-writers Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden and artist Brigit Connell pick up the story of Sophia who has now assumed the Baltimore name and monster-hunting duty. Now she’s off to Paris to investigate what sounds like a gorgon that is turning spies and soldiers on both sides of the war to stone. I liked the first “Lady Baltimore” miniseries well enough and while this two-part miniseries implies that there’s more on the way (to fill a proper volume) I do wonder if the creators have been away from this series for too long. The previous miniseries wrapped up over three years ago so I have to wonder just how many “Baltimore” fans have been anticipating this, versus people who will pick it up because Mignola’s name is attached.
From the World of Minor Threats: Welcome to Twilight #2: I was surprised to see a creative team as high-profile as Matt Fraction and Michael Allret doing this miniseries and with the solicitation for this second issue it becomes clear why: They’re only doing one issue. “Welcome to Twilight” is an anthology series with (what looks to be) a different creative team for each issue. This time around we have Bendis writing and Soo Lee illustrating the story of a friend of Frankie “Playtime” Follis who is both a) so dangerous that no one has ever heard of her before now and b) going to affect the future of Twilight City. I have to hand it to the writer, this setup could not sound more like fanfiction if it tried. I’ll be interested in seeing how much it actually reads like fanfic when this miniseries is collected.
Space Usagi: White Star Rising: Collecting the second “Space Usagi” miniseries now being collected in a regular-sized comics format and in full color for the first time. You know what to expect: It’s the sci-fi version of “Usagi Yojimbo” that allows creator Stan Sakai to indulge in his love of the setting and draw dinosaurs in a way that he can’t in the series proper. I’ve already got the smaller sized, black-and-white series collected in my library, but after picking up the reprint of the first miniseries from Sakai’s booth last Comic-Con, I guess I’m fated to re-buy the entire series in this new format. At least we’re promised some new material with this edition, so that’s something to look forward to.