Category Darkhorse

Nov 21 2018

William Gibson’s Alien 3 #1 Rewrites the Initial Alien Encounter for Communists

by Patrick Ehlers

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Ridley Scott’s 1977 sci-fi horror masterpiece Alien works because it is slow, atmospheric, and truly terrifying. Much of that terror comes from watching the various forms of an unknown alien species wreaking havoc on the crew of the Nostromo, who are, by all accounts, a bunch of blue collar folk just trying to make their way in a world run by enormous corporations. These working stiffs would have survived their encounter just fine were it not for the dispassionate, often robotic, interference of The Company. It’s Weyland-Yutani’s plant, Ash, that breaks protocol and allows Kane and the facehugger onto the ship, despite ranking officer Ripley denying them access. The first issue of William Gibson’s Alien 3, Darkhorse Comic’s adaptation of Gibson’s un-produced script for the sequel to 1986’s Aliens, revisits a very similar point of first contact with the alien, this time without a company stooge to muck it up. Continue reading →

Sep 17 2018

Subjectivity in Symbols and Characters in The Seeds 2

by Patrick Ehlers

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Ann Nocenti and David Aja’s Seeds is, on the surface, about a race of aliens that comes to earth to document, or possibly expedite, the extinction of the human race. But even from the end of the first issue, this tidy sci fi premise has already been upset: one of these aliens has feelings for a human woman. Those are clearly defined roles for the humans and the aliens, right? And even that little twist falls into the dramatically convenient theme of love blossoming on the battlefield. Issue 2 of Seeds more thoroughly explores the difference between what is expected of an actor and how they actually act. Continue reading →

Aug 23 2018

Usagi Yojimbo: The Hidden 5 Finds the Parallels Between Criminals and Children

by Michael DeLaney

Usagi Yojimbo The Hidden 5

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Usagi Yojimbo: The Hidden 5 is a great reminder of how the comics medium can be/should be very intentional with its imagery. In film the term “match cut” refers to a transition where two shots are paralleled (matched) by their action or subject matter. Stan Sakai uses this technique in the middle of Usagi Yojimbo: The Hidden 5 to reiterate the kind of villains that Usagi is dealing with. Continue reading →

Aug 3 2018

The Seeds 1: Discussion

by Drew Baumgartner and Patrick Ehlers

The Seeds 1

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Drew: Like a lot of people, I was deeply resistant to the concept of symbolism in my high school English classes. I don’t know if I resented this new (to me) world of symbols that I was so bad at identifying, or if I just lacked the imagination to conceive of writers having more literary tastes and aspirations than 15-year-old me, but I was incredulous that symbolism even existed in the works I was reading. My teacher was reading way too much into things (because, I reasoned, making things overcomplicated and boring was her job), and that no writer actually intended for these images to have any non-literal meaning. But my fixation on intent blinded me to the much more complex world of who was observing the symbolism. Is it just me, the reader, or are the characters themselves ascribing deeper meanings to the objects and actions around them? Or what if it’s the narrator, conjuring some kind of coherent aesthetic for the narrative as a whole? Perhaps it’s not the “writer,” but some diegetic force crafting these symbols, perhaps as clues to their motives or intentions? These are all questions wish I could go back to my teen self and ask, but honestly, I might be better off handing him a copy of Ann Nocenti and David Aja’s The Seeds 1, which interweaves all of these modes of symbolism with breathtaking ease. Continue reading →

Jul 17 2018

Idol Worship in She Could Fly 1

by Drew Baumgartner

She Could Fly 1

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Is familiarity the opposite of idolatry? I suspect it’s only possible to idolize a celebrity or public figure because they’re unknown. Because we’re unfamiliar with their annoying habits or bad smells, we mythologize them as some kind of immaculate demigod, incapable of error. It’s easy to come up with a certain political example, but this is true for most public figures, from Elon Musk to Taylor Swift. We only know so much about these people, and in the cases where we like them, our brain rushes in to fill the rest with perfection. This is obviously the case for Luna Brewster, who has pinned her imagination to a mysterious woman seen flying over Chicago. Continue reading →

Jun 4 2018

Blackwood 1: Discussion

by Mark Mitchell and Ryan Mogge

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Mark: It’s pretty insane that we choose which college we’re going to attend based on almost zero context. Sure, you can take a campus tour, read about the experiences of alumni, and maybe even shadow a current student for a day or two, but in the end choosing a college — any college — is an immense leap of faith. This seems to be doubly true of attending Blackwood College, the eponymous school of the occult in Evan Dorkin and Veronica Fish’s Blackwood 1, as none of the students we meet in this premiere issue seem to have much understanding of what they’ve signed up for. Continue reading →

May 25 2018

Secret Identities are a Weakness in Incognegro Rennaisance 4

by Drew Baumgartner

Incognegro Renaissance 4

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Dark secrets are the number one motivator in noir, whether they’re motivating criminals (or witnesses) to hide the truth, or motivating detectives to uncover it. Indeed, the world of a noir story often feels like everybody has a deep dark secret they’re hiding from the world, leaving the detective with nobody to trust. It’s a great way to goose the tension of an investigation, but it can also feel a bit over-the-top, as though the secrets are there specifically to complicate the narrative. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen a suspect be evasive about their alibi because they were with a mistress or something, but more than enough to spot it a mile away. Which makes the secrets in Incognegro Renaissance 4 a refreshing change of pace. Here, the secrets aren’t reduced to some underhanded act the characters want to hide, but are tied up in their very identities. The result is a much more interesting and nuanced vision of secret lives that draws on the realities of 1920s Harlem, as opposed to the fantasies of noir’s criminal world. Continue reading →

Apr 25 2018

The Virtue of Justice in Usagi Yojimbo: The Hidden 2

By Michael DeLaney

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

In a world of glorified anti-heroes we often forget the merits of the old fashioned, tradtional hero. Usagi Yojimbo: The Hidden 2 leans on the classic archetype of the law-abiding do-gooder in Inspector Ishida, who is in charge of the murder case that Usagi Yojimbo is working on. Continue reading →

Apr 24 2018

Elusive and Scattered Narratives in Mata Hari 3

by Mark Mitchell

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Mata Hari continues to be an interesting but ultimately elusive book in its third of five installments. Margaretha Zelle’s life is clearly worthy of examination, but the book itself is hamstrung by the extremely limiting nature of this mini-series’ run. Continue reading →

Mar 27 2018

Usagi Yojimbo: The Hidden 1

by Patrick Ehlers & Michael DeLaney

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Patrick: I saw the new Wes Anderson movie, Isle of Dogs, this weekend. It’s cute, moody and starkly graphic — it fulfills the promise made by the phrase “Directed by Wes Anderson.” But the film also has a weird relationship with its setting: the Japanese language and and culture represent the alien in its own country. The dogs that we follow around, who are the heroes of this story, are all voiced, speaking English, by white American actors. A note tells us early on that barks and translated into English, but Japanese will remain untranslated (unless when done diegetically). For whatever argument you can make for Anderson’s reverence of the language and the culture (to say nothing of employing a bunch of Japanese actors and film folk), there’s no denying that the Japanese-ness of Isle of Dogs is meant to be novel and out of the ordinary. Usagi Yojimbo: The Hidden 1 takes the exact opposite route, making damn sure that the East is familiar and the West is exotic. Continue reading →