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."

METAL HURLANT NO.77.78.79.80.81.82

 Look what I found in the attic. This is a collected volume of five issues of Metal Hurlant in its original french language. I can't understand much (if any) but still, it's nice to look at. Ten points to the anonymous commenter who noticed that the Blade Runner cover is actually issue 79, not 78. There must be a misprint here because there is no issue 77 inside the book, we start at 78 and end at 82. The chapter that constitutes issue 79 has a large Blade Runner feature featuring stills, artwork and a nice photo of Ridley Scott with Philip K. Dick (who died six months before the magazine was published). For the curious, the other cover reproductions aren't anything special, issues 80 and 82 for example feature Dragonslayer and Tron promo photos on the covers.

Page from Salamandres - Axolotls by Philippe Caza 

Page from Logiciel - Coup D'Etat by Philippe Gauckler and Charles Imbert.

Cover for Metal Hurlant 79 by Ralph Reese.

Page from Richard Corben's Den II.

THE CITY

"In the aftermath of mankind's final war the few survivors scratch an existence from the ruins. This is no brave new world. From the shattered fragments of a once great civilization crawl the Rats - to claim the domain as their own. The city and its pitiful human inhabitants finally belong to them. The people have become prey, the hunters the hunted. But now the traveller has arrived and he is no victim. In search of his past, he has come to take back the dream of life as it was before. But in the city the only dreams left are nightmares."

LONE SLOANE : DELIRIUS

"Philippe Druillet is one of Europe's most prominent and popular artists in the field of illustrated fantasy and science fiction. The adventures of Lone Sloane through time and space and on the incredible world of Delirius are here presented for the first time in English. Forthcoming books by druillet in the series include "Yragael" and "Urm". 

He is at present working on further adventures of Lone Sloane. Druillet (pronounced dru-yay) has won numerous awards in Europe and America for his books. 

He says that his ultimate ambition is 'to create a whole universe of science fiction. It would be terrible to think of not doing it. I have worlds to create, characters to develop. It's what i have in me, and i want to experiment. I believe that i will always draw comics; they are among the most beautiful things that can be imagined - and they are true.'"

YRAGAEL : URM

"Philippe Druillet is one of europe's most prominent and popular artists in the field of illustrated fantasy and science fiction. This book is the second in the series of English translations of Druillet's work published by Dragon's Dream; the first "Lone Sloane - Delirius" was released in 1977. Druillet (pronounced dru-yay) has won numerous awards in Europe and America for his books. He says that his ultimate ambition is 'to create a whole universe of science fiction. It would be terrible to think of not doing it. I have worlds to create, characters to develop. It's what i have in me, and i want to experiment. I believe that i will always draw comics; they are among the most beautiful things that can be imagined - and they are true.'"