My Collection - DARK HORSE PRESENTS [1986 Series]

One of the series of posts I was doing here that kind of fell by the wayside the past few months was a look at each series that makes up my over-large comic collection, in roughly the order of how many issues I had (an order that's been changed somewhat by recent purchases). Previous entries in the series are here. Anyway, a few months ago I'd gotten as far as this...

Dark Horse Presents [1986 series]
30 issues [1988 - 1999]
25, 29 - 30, 32, 39 - 40, 44, 46 - 47, 66 - 67, 70, 77, 82, 86, 96 - 98, 100 [1], 100 [2], 100 [3], 100 [4], 100 [5], 101, 114, 118 - 120, 138, 148

This anthology was Dark Horse's first comic book, running until #157 in 2000, and always a good sampling of whatever kind of stuff Dark Horse was publishing at the time, with a mix of single issue stories and continuing pieces. I was, obviously, never a regular reader of the book, usually only picking up an issue or two in a row if something caught my eye.

Those multiple #100 issues, by the way, was how they celebrated reaching that milestone, with five issues worth of material, all self-contained, so it made a good sampler of what was going on at the company at the time.

I can't judge a lot of the contents since there are so many single chapters of longer stories, but the there's a nice variety of art in them, and a few of the longer pieces look good enough that I should really find out if there was ever a collection of them published. The most interesting stuff in most of the issues I have is the Eddie Campbell stuff (more easily available in his self-published books now) and the Concrete stuff by Paul Chadwick (all reprinted in various books, I suppose).

Some other random noteworthy stuff:

It's far from brilliant, but the "Bob the Alien" comics by Rich Rice that appears in several issues still cracks me up.

Not sure what else he's done, but someone named Gary Davis has a few stories that I have loose chapters of ("Delia and Celia" and "Paleolove"), and the artwork in them is gorgeous.

Rick Geary's random short stuff is always interesting, if sometimes creepy.

#118 - #120 feature a three-part "Hectic Planet" story by Evan Dorkin, continuing from his old "Pirate Corps" series. Don't think we've seen the characters again in the decade since, or even a reprint of this story.

#120 also has one of the last times I've seen Al Williamson doing full art on a comic book story, instead of just inks, on the great "One Last Job", written by Mark Schultz.