Monster Zero x SciFi Japan - Archive Only

My favorite giant monster comic outside of the IDW run of Godzilla is coming back! Dan Brereton is running a kickstarter for his classic kaiju story Giantkiller. He's going to do a large hardcover reprint with added story. They've already gone over the minimum amount with a month still to go!



https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/no ... n-hardcove

Excellent!

The Beasts of Burden are finally coming back in a two issue mini-series that will finally bring the issue count high enough to make up enough material for a second hardcover collection! Unfortunately, co-creator and artist Jill Thompson will only do the artwork for the first issue, with the second done by Benjamin Dewey, who did the art for the Wise Dogs spinoff. Writer Evan Dorkin has made a few allusions over the years to Jill Thompson's chronic tardiness holding up the release of this, his most successful series. Apparently, the script for these two issues was done years I ago! Dorkin's not really saying anything, but I reckon this may be the last time Thompson works on the characters, which would be a shame as she's terrific... but, Dewey is also terrific in a different way and I'd rather have a comic that comes out regularly then one that has many years between issues!

I've been making my way through all of the graphic novels, paperback collections, and hardcovers that have accumulated in these past couple of years that I have not read. Oh boy, there are a lot. I'm actually having a lot of fun and I'm buzzing through all this stuff.

A few years ago I read half of Dark Horse's collection of Dylan Dog comics that they translated into English almost two decades ago. I finished the book last afternoon, and I really dig it, so after I was done I lamented that only these seven stories are available in English and there's never been another attempt to bring the series over here... then a cursory Google search reveals that I small outfit called Epicenter Comics has been bringing over Dylan Dog books at a slow but steady pace these past three years! Pretty cool.

Holy moly! Usagi Yojimbo is leaving Dark Horse Comics after 25 years for new publisher IDW. The new Usagi issue #1 comes out in June.



https://www.comicsbeat.com/the-exodus-c ... e-for-idw/

The biggest change: we're going from black and white to color full-time. Tom Luth has always colored the covers and the odd color special, so it won't be too much of a change. The crazy thing is that the entire back catalog (aside from the original 7 volumes, still held by Fantagraphics) will be colorized as well!

Besides losing licensed properties like Star Wars, Buffy, Aliens, and Conan in the last few years Dark Horse has also recently lost Eric Powell's The Goon, now self published. Makes one wonder just what's going on at Dark Horse. Last year they were acquired by Chinese investors with an eye for developing their comics into TV and movies.

This year marks the 35th anniversary of Usagi and in addition to the relaunched series there's some manner of anniversary special in the works.

Happy Hellboy Day - 25 Years of the Mignolaverse!

^ Sadly, my shop didn't carry any of the other freebies like the bookmark or the poster, but I got my free issue #1 reprint!

So, in the late eighties and early nineties Eternity Comics put out 3 years of original Captain Harlock comic books... it was in that weird period of time where Japanese animation and manga were beginning to have popularity but it seemed to be cheaper to make new Manga style comics then simply bringing over and translating the Japanese comics? Weird, huh?

Anyway, long story short I just came back from raiding some discount boxes at a comic shop and now I own almost every issue! The ads in the comic feature order forms for things like Robotech strategy guides and VHS tapes of gunbuster. You think those offers still stand?

^ I forgot to mention the most interesting thing about the story of those Captain Harlock comics. They canceled the series after they realized the third party they licensed the rights from was fraudulent. They never actually have the license for Captain Harlock!

Holy moly! Stan Sakai buries the lead in a post describing the nice meeting he just had with the company making the Usagi animated series:


https://mobile.twitter.com/usagiguy/sta ... 5884370944

Dig the design!

Wow! This is why you always snoop around discount comic bins! I haven't collected Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics in ages, but I just happened upon a ton of back issues of the original 80s comics I never managed to find as a kid.

All three issues of Return to New York, the issue with the fight in April's antique store and the subsequent one where they get to the Northampton farm house (both adapted almost in their entirety in the original film), the first appearance of Leatherhead, first appearance of Complete Carnage and Radical, the issue with the nuclear plant and the mutant fish people, and - most importantly - the three-parter by Rick Veitch that'll never be reprinted because of rights issues!

A couple of these I already have via collected hardcover or paperback editions, but for a dollar a pop? Amazing!

... And speaking of anthropomorphic animals and martial arts the 35th Anniversary of my all-time favorite comic, Usagi Yojimbo, is this November. To celebrate, the all new Issue 6 from IDW will be a remake / expanded version the original 8-page Usagi short story published in 1984!



Even the cover is a remake of the cover of Albedo #2!



What makes this really neat is that that first story is kind of important to the overall saga, but it was also made when Stan was just fooling around and making his first comic stories and he didn't plan on this series consuming his entire life so from the point of view of hindsight there are certain things that are a bit inexplicable about it it can be expanded on or explained.

^ Neato! It's a long shot, but I'd love to see maybe a special one shot team-up between the two. Now that the Netflix series has given Devilman more name value here in the states it's a smidgen more possible now, right?

The original Devilman has been collected into two hardcovers here. I definitely recommend them. It's amazing how influential the series is. I didn't really get it until I read it, but I feel like a lot of creature designs and a lot of 3rd act plot twists in anime and manga these past several decades are heavily colored by the crazy stuff that goes down in Devilman.