Comic Joy (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} comicjoy) wrote,@ 2003-05-19 10:30:00 |
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New Indies
There seems to have been a boom of new product from Dark Horse and Image of late. I know people say they are not indy, but to me, anyone who isn't the big two... Both Dark Horse and Image have been publishing a lot of licensed comics - ranging from Buffy (yay!) to Battle of the Planets (er, no). So it's nice to see them making a commitment to original work again. Shame that the original stuff is so patchy, but so what. A lot of the Dark Horse stuff is horror, and I think there is two main reasons for this. 1). They've got the Hellboy license, which isof course coming out as a film later this year (or sometime...) and they can publish an anthology with one Hellboy story and you'll get all the Hellboy Fanatics (for they are) buying it. 2). 30 Days of Night.
30 Days of Night is fairly good. I wouldn't have gone as far as to say classic, but it's a fun and intriguing vampire story. It's got interesting art, which is atmospheric and scary. And it's gone stratospheric. So we've got this other character by the same creative team - let's build a whole horror line around it. And it appears to be working.
In other news, I'm reading Battle Royale. It's my first proper manga, going from right to left as it does. Taking a while to get my western brain round this. I'm incredibly dismissive of manga, as I do not like being ripped off, nor do I like romance comics. But I'm giving it a go. It's violent enough, although the art degenerates into kiddie a bit often, and it's been translated by the guy who wrote Ambush Bug. Which makes me laugh.
There seems to have been a boom of new product from Dark Horse and Image of late. I know people say they are not indy, but to me, anyone who isn't the big two... Both Dark Horse and Image have been publishing a lot of licensed comics - ranging from Buffy (yay!) to Battle of the Planets (er, no). So it's nice to see them making a commitment to original work again. Shame that the original stuff is so patchy, but so what. A lot of the Dark Horse stuff is horror, and I think there is two main reasons for this. 1). They've got the Hellboy license, which isof course coming out as a film later this year (or sometime...) and they can publish an anthology with one Hellboy story and you'll get all the Hellboy Fanatics (for they are) buying it. 2). 30 Days of Night.
30 Days of Night is fairly good. I wouldn't have gone as far as to say classic, but it's a fun and intriguing vampire story. It's got interesting art, which is atmospheric and scary. And it's gone stratospheric. So we've got this other character by the same creative team - let's build a whole horror line around it. And it appears to be working.
In other news, I'm reading Battle Royale. It's my first proper manga, going from right to left as it does. Taking a while to get my western brain round this. I'm incredibly dismissive of manga, as I do not like being ripped off, nor do I like romance comics. But I'm giving it a go. It's violent enough, although the art degenerates into kiddie a bit often, and it's been translated by the guy who wrote Ambush Bug. Which makes me laugh.
