And Then I Read: DARK HORSE PRESENTS 9

Images © Dark Horse Comics and the respective copyright holders.

DHP is, I think, an excellent package for the price. Squarebound, 80 pages, an anthology of continued stories in chapters, one-offs, and a nice mix of familiar Dark Horse regulars and new stuff (often acting as a preview for new series). In short, it’s very much the sort of package you might have picked up for a dime on the newsstands any time in the 1940s, and though the price is much higher, considering the value received in high-quality printing and content, I find it one of the best deals around.

This issue begins with a new Lobster Johnson short written by Mike Mignola, with nice art by Joe Querio. Not much to the story itself, but entertaining. I find it notable that Mignola keeps finding artists who work well in his “house” style.

Continuing episodes of “The Massive,” “Concrete Park,” “Skultar,” and “The Many Murders of Miss Cranbourne” leave me with nothing new to say about them. Each has good points.

Richard Corben adapts what I suspect is a fairly brief poem by Edgar Allan Poe, “The City In The Sea,” and probably in ways that would confuse the author, but it’s choice Corben work, so I’m not complaining. Nate Piekos of Blambot seems to have created a font from Corben’s old lettering, or at least that’s how it looks to me. Nicely done.

“1969″ by Paul Pope is an interesting idea, but his art doesn’t do a lot for me.

“The Once and Future Tarzan” has wonderful art by Tom Yeates, but the writing by Al Gordon takes some strange turns in this chapter, and the dialogue doesn’t sound to me like anything real people would be likely to say, even in the future, if that’s where the story is set.

“Amala’s Blade” by Steve Horton and Michael Dialynas looks like the beginning of a pretty good steampunk pirate story.

“Alabaster: Wolves” is a preview of an upcoming book by Caitlin R. Kiernan and Steve Lieber that looks pretty good.

Recommended.