Dark Horse Comics Celebrating 20 Years: 1986 – 2006

Star-studded cast commemorates one hundred issues of comics’ favorite samurai bunny in Usagi Yojimbo #100!
Stan Sakai’s biggest admirers—who also happen to be some of the hottest names in comics—come together to celebrate one hundred issues of Usagi Yojimbo at Dark Horse!

Featuring eight extra story pages for a total of thirty-two, Usagi Yojimbo #100 is structured as a good-natured roast of both Usagi and Stan, kicking off with an opening by publisher Mike Richardson and artist Rick Geary before launching into unforgettable contributions from Frank Miller, Jeff Smith, Sergio Aragonés, Guy Davis, Mark Evanier, Scott Shaw, Jamie S. Rich, and Andi Watson—not to mention Stan Sakai himself!

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Tad Stones has posted more information about the Hellboy Animated series at his blog site. The picture is going through some final color tweaking before being sent for sound mix. Even though Tad says he pushed to make the animated feature as dark as possilbe, he admits one scene may be too dark.

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Beginning in late 2006, Hellboy fans will see their beloved hero like they’ve never seen him before. The Hellboy Animated line debuts with The Sword of Storms, a new animated version of Mike Mignola’s Hellboy, being produced by Starz Media and released on DVD by Starz Home Entertainment. Dark Horse Deluxe is joining the celebration with a variety of comics and toys, all scheduled to tie in with the DVD release of The Sword of Storms on February 6, 2007.

Hellboy creator, Mike Mignola, chose character concept artist, Sean “Cheeks” Galloway to create a contemporary, stylized look for the Hellboy Animated movies.

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It’s been over a year since the world first met Heath Huston, a first class drunk and interplanetary alien exterminator. Now, after gathering a successful following of readers, Rick Remender’s Fear Agent comes to Dark Horse.

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Gentle Giant Ltd. will be releasing Bustups of the Hellboy Animated series. These tiny little statues have amazing detail, and for only a couple of bucks (six to be exact) you can own them all. Series One will include: Hellboy in Kimono, Hellboy vs. Batgod, Fighting Hellboy, Lightning and Thunder with Build-a-figure Skeleton. Pieces of the Build-a-figure Skeleton will be included with the other figures.

via Gentle Giant Ltd. (link)

Dark Horse Comics has provided Major Spoilers with covers and solicitation information for product shipping in December, 2006.

ALICE IN SUNDERLAND
BRYAN TALBOT (W/A)

On sale Feb. 07
FC, 328 pages
$29.95
HC, 7 1/2″ x 11″

Sunderland! Thirteen hundred years ago it was the greatest center of learning in the whole of Christendom and the very cradle of English consciousness. In the time of Lewis Carroll it was the greatest shipbuilding port in the world. To this city that gave the world the electric light bulb, the stars and stripes, the millennium, the Liberty Ships and the greatest British dragon legend came Carroll in the years preceding his most famous book, Alice in Wonderland, and here are buried the roots of his surreal masterpiece. Enter the famous Edwardian palace of varieties, The Sunderland Empire, for a unique experience: an entertaining and epic meditation on myth, history and storytelling then decide for yourself—does Sunderland really exist?

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Tad Stones has posted on the Hellboy Animated blog site to let everyone know Hellboy: The Sword of Storms is picture locked (the timing won’t change). Looks like the feature will come in between 75 and 76 minutes by the time it is released on the Cartoon Network in October.

Chris Drake is now scoring music to the exact frame. The guys at Audio Circus are deciding how long the sound of a zombie head exploding should be. Does it last as long as the visual or are the last wisps of zombie dust silent?

Meanwhile, the visuals are tweaked. Shake fx can be added in Final Cut along with blur fx and of course retakes are cut in as they come in.

How long should the sound of an exploding zombie head be? CccooOOoollL. Can’t wait to see this interpretation of Hellboy.

via Hellboy Animated (link)

Tad Stones let spill he and Mike Mignola will be at the 12th Annual Fan Expo in Canada this weekend, and will be showing the opening from the upcoming Sword of Storms Hellboy animated movie.  On Sunday, he and Mignola will answers questions from the fans on the project and possibly more.

Budgets are being formulated and plans discussed for 2007, let’s hope they include more movies! Meanwhile I’m tangled in technical crap about screen resolution, compression, file conversions, eeEEAARGhh! I just want to make the dang movie! So I feel a little like Hellboy here.

If you are going to the Fan Expo and attend the panel, drop me a line and fill me in on all the details.

via Hellboy Animated (link)

Joss Whedon has updated his blog with info on the status of the Wonder Woman script and the new Buffy the Vampire Slayer, due out from Dark Horse Comics sometime next year.

And since I haven’t posted (anything real) in some time let me bring y’all up to speed. The Brothers Warner HAVE read Wondy Gal, and are arranging a meeting to tell me that it is a perfect crystalline gem and I must not change a word, nay, not a syllable. I’m certain that’s how it will go. I’m pounding away on X-men #18 and Buffy #2 and having a blast. Like a “close the blast doors” sized blast, especialy after I saw my first page of Georges Jeanty’s Buffy art. That cute little sketch on his website? No, no, silly british man. The real thing is SO deeply cherry. It makes the fun I’m having revisiting these characters increase tenfold.

via Whedonesque (link)

When the first Hellboy animated feature hits the store shelves in February, it will include a 32-page comic inserted in each.  These stories are spin-offs from the animated movies and will have no connection to regular Hellboy continuity.  Earlier this month, Dark Horse Comics Editor Scott Allie posted information about the upcoming 80-page digest comics also based on the animated films.  Stories will be written by Jim Pascoe, who  will be assisted by Rick Lacy.
Providing the art in the digests (and presumably the DVD insert) will be Fabio Laguna.  Mike Mignola will be creating a unique pin-up for each issue based on the main story by Pascoe and Lacy.  Also, included in the digest will be a short by Tad Stones that chronicals the exploits of a young Hellboy and his fascination with Lobster Johnson.

Tad Stones has posted a mock-up of the cover to the first digest issue over at his website.

via Hellboy Animated (link)

Here is the New Comic Release list for comics scheduled to be in stores August 23, 2006. There may be items on this list that  are not shipped at the last minute, or new material may be added. Check with your local retailer for more details. Thanks to Collector’s Pair of Dice for assisting in the building of this list.

This list was last updated August 22, 2006

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Dark Horse Comics has provided the cover images and issue information for titles available for order in November 2006.

APPLESEED HYPERNOTES
SHIROW MASAMUNE (W/A)
Nov. 8
b&w w/FC, 160 pages
$14.95
TPB, 5 3/4″ x 8 1/4″

World war Three is over, but for nomad soldier Deunan Knute and her cyborg lover, Briareos, the greatest challenge lies ahead, not in the abandoned cities and DMZs of a post-war battlefield, but on the streets of a new “utopia.” Shirow Masamune’s visionary Appleseed is widely regarded not only as one of the linchpin works of graphic fiction, but one of the most influential science-fiction stories in recent memory, culminating in the astonishing 2005 animated adaptation. Appleseed Hypernotes, never before collected in America, features an over 80-plus-page Appleseed tale, plus reams of detailed information and art of the characters, machines, and weapons of Appleseed, presented in a non-Westernized, right-to-left reading format, as originally published in Japan.
Contains Appleseed stories from Super Manga Blast! #25-39.

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Ever wanted to see how a great page is created? Check out the Will Eisner: A Spirited Life Interview blog for a great rundown of how Will Eisner and Alex Saviuk worked to complete the pages for Dark Horse’s The Escapist series, in which The Escapist meets The Spirit. If you are an artist, fan of Eisner’s work (who isn’t?), or just someone who enjoys the creation process, you should check the site out. Included on the site are the splash page and five additional pages from the story. Simply amazing…

via Will Eisner: A Spirited Life Interview blog (link)

The Hellboy Animated blog has some really great images from the upcoming Sword of Stones DVD. Producer Tad Stones has some great insight on the project, including lots of images. Stones says he thinks there could be three or four direct-to-dvd Hellboy movies each year.

I think there’s plenty of room for three or four Hellboy movies a year. The more quality work starts coming out, the better for all of us. Cartoon Network has been a great partner for us on HELLBOY ANIMATED. They are HUGE fans of Hellboy comics and hope these movies really take off for them. But the people we deal with don’t make the overall decisions about what type of programming defines the network so we could be affected by future changes. It would be great to have a secure DVD market, separate from any broadcast or cable entity, where great animation can be aimed at whatever audience is appropriate for the subject matter and storyline.

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Here is the New Comic Release list for comics scheduled for August 09, 2006. There may be items on this list that are not shipped at the last minute, or new material may be added. Check with your local retailer for more details.Thanks to Collector’s Pair of Dice for assisting in the building of this list.

This list was last updated August 08, 2006

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