Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 10, 2009 in
Comic Books 
A while ago that when I read they were gearing up for an Emily the Strange I have to admit that I feared for the worse in terms of quality — as part of a push for the film Dark Horse would be publishing an art book and a comic book. But I have to admit that while I’m still unsure about a film that Dark Horse seems to be off to a good start with our old creepy friend Emily. Shown above is the cover for The Art of Emily the Strange which doesn’t look too bad form the previews — it’s not brilliant, but it’s respectable as you can see: Read more…
Tags: Dark Horse, Emily the Strange
Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 2, 2009 in
Comic Books 
Greg Broadmore is a conceptual designer at the Weta Workshop the New Zealand effects studio that did some amazing work on Lord of the Rings. In his book Dr. Grordbort Presents: Victory Broadmore goes steampunk and has an Edwardian military officer giving a lush tour of a world filled with enemy robots and space aliens. The result reminds me of a cross between old pulp fiction covers and old patent medicine adverts: Read more…
Tags: Dark Horse, steampunk
Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 1, 2009 in
Comic Books 
I just love the power of the draftsmanship of Adam Warren, there’s something so strong and yet silly about his pencil sketching which reminds me of the golden age of Mad magazine. This Thursday his latest effort Empowered Special: The Wench With a Million Sighs will be released by Dark Horse and it looks amazing. The cover isn’t that spectacular but the interior of the book more than makes up for that: Read more…
Tags: Dark Horse
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 11, 2009 in
Comic Books,
Hobbies and Collections 
It’s amazing to think that Buck Rogers got started as a fictional character in an issue of Amazing Stories from over 90 years ago (August 1928 to be exact) — however Buck made his first huge mark as a comic strip series illustrated by John Flint Dille. Those old strips have a wonderfully quirky look to them, and the folks at Dark Horse have picked on this by introducing a line of swag which was designed by the folks at Retro-A-Go-Go. The collection goes on sale on February 24th, 2010 and includes a wide range of goodies including picture frames: Read more…
Tags: Buck Rogers, Dark Horse, Science Fiction
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 7, 2009 in
Comic Books 
365 Samurai and a Few Bowls of Rice looks like a wonderful combination of the storytelling skills of Akira Kurosawa mixed with a Jamie Hewlett look with just a dash of RAW magazine from the 80s. The artist behind this graphic novel is J. P. Kalonji a self taught illustrator who lives in Switzerland. Here’s an amazing 36 page sample from this beautiful book which is nearly 400 pages and will be published by Dark Horse Comics on December 2nd: Read more…
Tags: Dark Horse, samurai
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 4, 2009 in
Comic Books,
Star Wars 
Shown above is the beautiful cover for Star Wars: Invasion #5 by illustrator Jo Chen which comes out today. What I really love about the folks who license Star Wars is that they allow their artists a high degree of creative freedom to work within the brand and they always seem to pull of a high level of quality. So if you didn’t know that the cover was a Star Wars anything you’d still be impressed with it; to me that says so much about how much they care about the product. Below are a few of the interior pages by Colin Wilson which also look great — there’s no bait-and-switch which you see all the time with other titles: Read more…
Tags: Dark Horse
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 23, 2009 in
Comic Books,
Horror 
Beasts of Burden got started as a collaboration between Evan Dorkin (Milk & Cheese) and Jill Thompson (Scary Godmother) for the anthologies The Dark Horse Book of Hauntings, Witchcraft, the Dead, and Monsters. The result? They won the Eisner Awards for Best Short Story and Best Painter categories. So I’m pleased to see that Dark Horse is working to publish an mini-series based on this initial appearance which is due to debut on September 16, 2009. Read more…
Tags: Dark Horse, Evan Dorkin, Jill Thompson
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 22, 2009 in
Comic Books,
Horror 
As a magazine publisher Warren Publishing was born out as a result of the infamous comic book code of the 50s which made the genre a bit too family friendly: Along with sister publications like Eerie and Vampirella, Creepy magazine kept alive the tradition of horror comics from 1964 until 1983. Next year on January 27th, 2010 Dark Horse will be publishing a set of trading cards based upon covers of the magazine. Read more…
Tags: Creepy, Dark Horse, Warren Publishing
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 18, 2009 in
Comic Books 
I don’t have the slightest clue how Citizen Rex escaped my attention, but now I feel that makes it my job to draw attention to this wonderful sci fi themed comic book mini series. But first we need to go back a few decades in time to the 80s: Back then a bit of a revolution was going on in the comic book field, lead by RAW Magazine some very talented artists shook up the field and decided to show that it could be a real art firm. Out were the typical superhero comics that owned newsstands and in came graphic novels and interesting illustrational techniques. Read more…
Tags: Dark Horse, The Hernandez Brothers
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 10, 2009 in
Comic Books 
Yes I’d love to pretend that there was an era when Emily the Strange wasn’t just about the merchandising, but that would be a lie. I first ran into Emily at Virgin Mega Store (sad to think that they’ll be gone) and her image adorned t-shirts, notebooks and other knickknacks — yet it was the sort of brand that was always slightly under the radar, which I think to me was the appeal. If you gave an Emily item as a gift she’d stand out as just a bit different in a Hallmark world. Well sadly that’s coming to an end and above is the first step where Emily goes mainstream — that sad bit of artwork above is the cover of a limited comic book series. Read more…
Tags: Dark Horse, Emily the Strange
