ALIENS: TRIBES

Front dust-jacket cover, painting and Tribes logo design by David Dorman.

"The Queen is Dead 

An orbiting medical facility infested with an Alien scourge. 

A military clean-up crew dispatched to destroy them. 

A berserk warrior in a lethal exoskeleton with enough fire power to kill them all. 

A race against time. 

Long Live the Queen."

Rear of dust-jacket, painting by David Dorman.

Painting by David Dorman.

"Our Call is of a greater Need; know this: we are the Chosen, and so we do Choose: our only value is to the Queen Mother and her Swarm, to Her and Hers, is as I have Written: 'Protect and Proliferate'".

-The Rev. Dr. Thomas Engstrom, Totem of The Queen Mother

(Banned by Corporate Governor's decree)

Painting by David Dorman.

Painting by David Dorman.

Well...

I was in the attic/loft the other day and found two boxes full of comics and graphic novels that I read from the age of 11 until ... ? In amongst the Marvel and D.C. dross were my old favourites; Dark Horse's Aliens, Terminator, Predator, and Robocop comics, a couple of old Epic magazines (Marvel's answer to Metal Hurlant/Heavy Metal), Concrete and, of course, 2000AD.

Since that lot could collectively fall under the science fiction umbrella I thought I'd post a few scans because; why not?

Starting with Aliens: Tribes, then - this isn't a true graphic novel, per se, Dark Horse published a few and called them graphic story albums, sort of a novella with a nice, full-page illustrations (paintings) every other page or so. The story is excellent for a few reasons - what I liked in particular is that you experience a few fascinating snippets of Alien drones thought processes (or the equivalent of;) in moments when the 'chatter' of the hive dies down; there's a particular passage where a drone is contemplating the (dead, human) host/womb that bore it; referred to as soft ones. There's an odd, complex, almost loving relationship from the Alien's point of view. In terms of expanding the conventions, organization and disposition of the Alien hive, it's definitely on a par with Labyrinth, which I will post later-on.

My copy is hardback, though paperbacks were also published at the same time. The hardbacks have a nifty embossed alien under the dust-jacket. Contemporary (1991) ads in Direct market comics added the following blurb:

"An Alien has been detected on board a space station orbiting Earth, and a crack extermination team sets out to destroy it. The success of their mission may be jeopardized by one man's sinister secret."