Dark Horse Previews Picks: June 2015
A special above-the-board mention for this round of solicitations goes to “The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service Omnibus Edition: Book One.” While “Eden: It’s An Endless World!” is still — and will always be until the final volume is published — the Dark Horse manga that I most want to see completed, this is another series I’m always looking forward to seeing more of. In addition to having the best English localization and translation notes, courtesy of Carl Horn, of any manga being released today the stories it features in each volume manage to balance comedy and horror in an always-entertaining fashion. It’s also one of the most reader-friendly of the company’s irregularly published sales-challenged manga as the stories being told in each volume are self-contained within them. The August-arriving omnibus collects three volumes and is well worth your time and money. Reserve your copy now so we can see about getting vol. 15 sooner rather than later — and maybe tell your friends as well!
Also worth mentioning because I want to say “Called it!” is word from Dark Horse co-publisher/occasional writer Randy Stradley that “Resident Alien” may become a TV series. It’s the story of an alien who crash-lands on Earth and assumes the identity of a Dr. Harry Vanderspiegel to fit in with the locals in a rural woodland town and winds up embroiled in a murder investigation. I enjoyed the first volume “Welcome to Earth!” and felt that the execution was perfect for this kind of thing. If it does become a series, I’ll actually make the effort to watch it!
Age of Reptiles: Ancient Egyptians #1 (of 4): I’ve seen the original series mentioned in the back of collected editions from Dark Horse almost as long as I’ve been buying them. Never gave it much thought until now. It’s a wordless series from writer/artist Ricardo Delgado about dinosaurs in the Cretaceous Era and after seeing some of the art for this new miniseries, I have to admit that it was an error on my part to ignore it before. Time to go check out the first volume before this new one gets collected.
The Art of Satoshi Kon HC: Much like “The Art of Blade of the Immortal,” this is something I picked up in its original Japanese incarnation. It’s a visual history through Kon’s career with an emphasis on his animation work, along with a few nods to his manga career. Interestingly enough, director Darren Aronofsky (of “Black Swan” and “Noah” fame) provided an appreciation in the Japanese edition. It was actually in English, so I’m not going to be picking up this book to find out what he said after all these years. I’ll be buying it to support the localization of more works like this.
Black Hammer #1: From “Sweet Tooth’s” Jeff Lemire with art from Dean Ormston. Lemire has a distinct style that I like more for his willingness to experiment with layouts on the page than how his art actually looks. Ormston, on the other hand, is someone you go to when you want your book to look “creepy” above all else. As this is a series about superheroes banished from their reality to reside on a timeless farming town, his involvement signifies that you’re not going to get a conventional genre book. Lemire’s involvement does too, but the idea of the kind of visual style this book will have is what intrigues me most about it.
Conan vol. 17: Shadows Over Kush: With the death of Belit behind him, Conan heads into the title land to further distance himself from that tragedy. His first act there apparently involves drinking himself into a stupor. Then an act of thievery begets adventure, demons, and rebellion. The adventures of drunken Conan? Sounds like a winner to me! I’d be more excited if new writer Fred Van Lente’s previous “Conan” story, “The People of the Black Circle,” had actually been as fun as his Marvel work. There’s still hope that he’ll find his groove with this new ongoing series, which features art from “Knights of the Old Republic’s” Brian Ching. He’s an underrated artist and I’m surprised he didn’t go on to bigger and better things after his work on that title. Even this is about as far away from “Star Wars” as you can get, I’m looking forward to seeing what he can bring to this title.
Empowered vol. 9: Not that I want to complain about getting two volumes of “Empowered” in a year — “Empowered Unchained,” the collection of the one-shots released in between volumes arrives in a couple weeks — but I wouldn’t have minded a longer wait for this volume. Assuming it would mean that we’d get vol. 10 sooner. I bet creator Adam Warren is having a great laugh at the expense of trade-waiters like me. “HA! If you’d bought the issues as they came out, the wait between volumes would be less agonizing and you could enjoy this new one without wondering about when I’m going to deliver the next!” Well Mr. Warren, I will just buy “Unchained” and vol. 9 when they come out and I will enjoy them BOTH in the same calendar year while you try to get us vol. 10 before the end of the next calendar year.
As for this volume, our title heroine is suspended from the Superhomies for being involved in the theft of alien technology of mass destruction in vol. 8. Empowered also has to deal with the return of the Fleshmaster, whose plan to wipe out the superhuman community she foiled back in vol. 4. That’s a lot of continuity to take in, but it’s never been an issue in enjoying any of the previous volumes up to this point. Think of it as an added seasoning to the flavor of this already-great title.
Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: 1952: It’s the story of the title character’s first mission with the B.P.R.D.! Given how he obviously survived it, I’m sure that nothing went wrong in his investigation of a series of bizarre murders in the Brazilian jungle which leads to the discovery of ancient horrors in a 16th century Portuguese fortress, right? Riiiiight? It’s co-written by Mike Mignola and John Arcudi, that well-oiled machine of consistent quality that makes each proper volume of “B.P.R.D.” an entertaining read. More impressive is that the art comes from Alex Maleev who I can only imagine took this project on after he got tired of waiting for the next “Scarlet” script from Bendis. That writer’s loss is Mignola and Arcudi (and the reader’s) gain.