Here are highlights from Dark Horse's November offerings:
THE BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH CONAN ARCHIVES VOLUME 1Written by Roy Thomas, art by Barry Windsor-Smith.In 1970, Barry Windsor-Smith burst onto the comic-book scene with his dynamic portrayal of Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian, altering the course of the blue-eyed Cimmerian forever, and cementing himself as one of the greatest artists to touch pencil to paper. Nearly forty years later, Dark Horse Comics, in the tradition of the Dark Horse Archives collections, reprints Barry Windsor-Smith's entire run on Marvel's Conan the Barbarian in two fine hardcover volumes!
The first volume of The Barry Windsor-Smith Conan Archives includes such classic tales as Rogues in the House and The Tower of the Elephant, written by Roy Thomas and fully illustrated by Barry Windsor-Smith -- now presented as they were intended, remastered using the original color palette!
This volume reprints the first half of Barry Windsor-Smith's run on Conan the Barbarian.
200 pages, $49.95, in stores on Jan. 20.
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #30Written by Jane Espenson, penciled by Georges Jeanty, inked by Andy Owens, colored by Michelle Madsen, covers by Jeanty and Adam Hughes."Retreat," part 5 of 5. The war between Twilight's minions and Buffy's army rages in the Tibetan mountains. Bereft of their magic, the girls‹Wiccans and Slayers‹face an epic battle in which they have no hope of victory. Buffy has already done the retreat thing once, plus also put herself and her army into hiding . . . What can she do now that there is no magic to help them escape from another losing battle?
40 pages, $2.99, in stores on Nov. 4.
CREEPY TRADING CARDSKicking open the crypt door with the archival hardcover collections of macabre and unusual stories from Creepy, where the only "shaggy dog tale" to be found involves a werewolf or two.
Long esteemed by comics and horror fans for their deft art and twist endings, perhaps the single most stunning element of any issue of Creepy was its cover. Starting out with a memorable first-issue cover by Jack Davis, the magazine quickly found itself with none other than Frank Frazetta as its main cover artist, which was a move everyone found exciting. But Frazetta wasn't the only great cover painter -- he was followed by a host of others, such as Richard Corben and Ken Kelly, to name just two.
Another fun component to any issue of Creepy was the mail-order ads for odd merchandise from a variety of sources. These goofy ads still give one a nostalgic chuckle.
Boxed in a set of 50 cards (42 cover cards and 8 ad cards), $14.95, in stores on Jan. 27
DR. HORRIBLEWritten by Zack Whedon, penciled by Joelle Jones, colored by Dan Jackson, covers by Kristian Donaldson.From the Joss Whedon-helmed webmovie Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog comes the origin story of the next greatest supervillain of all time . . . Dr. Horrible!
In this one-shot comic, Zack Whedon and artist Joëlle Jones (Token) establish how a young, impressionable, but brilliant Dr. Horrible was drawn into a world of crime. Readers are reacquainted with the charming, brawny, crime-fighting superhero extraordinaire Captain Hammer when Dr. Horrible crosses paths with his greatest enemy in an all-out showdown of immeasurable proportions. Special guest appearances include Dr. Horrible's love interest, Penny; his sidekick, Moist; and a meter man.
40 pages, $3.50, in stores on Nov. 18.
UNCLE SCROOGE CLASSIC CHARACTER #6: BEAGLE BOY
Giving one of the comic-book medium's most revered casts of characters the Syroco-style treatment in this series of statuettes based on the classic Uncle Scrooge comics. Our sixth and final character in this series is Beagle Boy. The Beagle Boys were a gang of buffoonish criminals, only identifiable by the prison number plates on their chests. They were a constant threat to Scrooge's riches, and are probably still trying to pull the perfect heist to this very day.
Packaged in a special litho-printed, full-color tin box with a vintage-style pin-back button and booklet, limited edition of 650 numbered pieces, $49.95, in stores on Jan. 20
