Dark Horse Previews Picks: May 2013
Brian Hibbs’ annual crunching of the BookScan numbers is up at Comic Book Resources and as always it’s worth a read. While I haven’t finished the whole thing yet, it gets off to a depressing start mainly due to the dire state of manga in the bookstore market it reflects. That may seems strange even though it’s still the dominant kind of book in the market, but the numbers show that with the departure of Tokyopop and the bankruptcy of Borders it’s not going to be that way for much longer. Even former bestselling titles like “Naruto” are selling at historic lows and without any smash-hit series to turn things around, things are only going to get worse.
What does this have to do with Dark Horse? The company only placed one title in the top 750 periodicals that Hibbs focuses his analysis on: the “FLCL Omnibus” with just under 6,000 copies sold. News like that just depresses me and it should depress the company itself that their best selling title on the list was a license rescue from Tokyopop. Since it was, it makes me wonder if they’ll even have a manga in the top 750 come next year. It is my sincere hope that they’ll prove me wrong here.
Akaneiro #1 (of 3): This is another videogame tie-in from a forthcoming title by American McGee. It apparently involves reimagining Little Red Riding Hood in the context of Japanese folklore as a slayer of devious yokai. I could take it or leave it, but it does amuse me that the cover is listed as being by someone “to be determined” even though they’ve got a picture of it with the solicitations.
Billy the Kid’s Old Timey Oddities (vol. 3): The Orm of Loch Ness: I really liked the first volume of Eric Powell and Kyle Hotz’s series about the title character teaming up with the members of a freakshow to investigate supernatural phoenomena. Despite this, I, uh… haven’t got around to buying vol. 2. Don’t ask me why I haven’t, it’s just something that hasn’t been done by me yet. I’ll fix it in the near future, promise.
B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth vol. 5: The Pickens County Horror and Others: Notable for the fact that none of these stories are with regular co-writer John Arcudi. Everything here was apparently either written by Mike Mignola himself or with Scott Allie. I’m not worried, though since Mignola has done decent work with the writer in the past. Plus, there’s no way I’d miss the collection that features “The Transformation of J.H. O’Donnell” which explains how the B.P.R.D.’s resident doomsayer got to be the way he is today.
Fagin the Jew 10th Anniversary Edition: Part of the Will Eisner library, so it automatically deserves consideration for that reason alone. This is Eisner’s re-imagining of the Dickens’ character, detailing his childhood on the streets of London and his initiation into its criminal underworld. That he also addresses the anti-semitism of the era that the original story was written in makes it that much more interesting. As does the new introduction from Bendis. There are plenty of reasons to pick this up, but I feel that finding out what he has to say about this work may be the tipping point for me.
Gate 7 vol. 4: This is still coming out, in case anyone was interested. I’d harp more on its low profile being due to Dark Horse’s issues with promotion, but this series hasn’t really generated much interest or buzz from its Japanese release. Even so, since we’ve reached the fourth volume of this title from the publisher you can be assured of getting at least two more because they don’t cancel titles unless the volume number is a multiple of three.
King Conan: Hour of the Dragon #1 (of 6): I figured that the forthcoming “The Phoenix on the Sword” would be the last we’d see of the character from Tim Truman and Tomas Giorello, but I’m glad to be wrong here. They’re going all out here as this adapts Robert E. Howard’s only novel featuring King Conan in two six-issue miniseries. Considering the quality of their previous stories, picking up the collected edition of this title will be a no-brainer come next year.
Lobster Johnson: Satan Smells A Rat: I’m not planning on buying this, even though it’s another Mignola/Arcudi joint with art by Kevin Nowlan. I’ve just never been as enamored of the pulp-based character as everyone else has. This gets a mention just because I think that’s an AWESOME title.
Star Wars: Agent of the Empire vol. 2 — Hard Targets: Agent Jahan Cross finds himself involved in a political assassination thought to be carried out by none other than Boba Fett. But did the bounty hunter really do it and what of the fate of the target’s young son? Aside from Fett, this storyline’s guest stars also include Princess Lei and Darth Vader. So many guest stars may seem a bit gratuitous. However, after writer John Ostrander made good use of Han Solo and Chewbacca in the first arc, I’m expecting the same to be true here as well.
Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi vol. 2 — Prisoner of Bogan: Notable for the fact that it’s being solicited in the same space as the final issue of the miniseries it collects. This means it’ll be shipping two months later in July, because that’s how Dark Horse rolls with the collected editions in these solicitations, but it does strike me as odd considering that the first volume didn’t arrive until the end of last year. Could it be that they want to get this edition out so that they can begin serializing the next miniseries in the time they have left with the license? I hope so because I liked the first volume enough to not see the storyline here be cut short.