Alien Original Screenplay #1 cover a

Wow! Guilherme Balbi is one of the best Dark Horse Alien artists yet. Can't wait to see how fast he goes on to bigger and better things. As far as the story? Well if you've seen Alien or have even heard about it, this follows roughly the same plot points. Distress signal, woken early, alien planet, go visit, etc etc. Except that the crew is much less blue collar and much more academic in their approach to things. Sure one guy only care about the credits, while everyone else seems much more intrigued with making first contact with alien life forms. Almost none of the crew (so far) are recognizable to their movie counterparts: names and looks extremely different. Speaking of looks, that's one of my only nitpicks Guilherme's art. The designs are much too 2020 than 1970s based. Way too many shaved heads, tatoos and skin tight space suits for me to believe a 1970s script described them as such. It kept bringing me out of the story as a j-pop band was on the deck of the ship but I digress. Once our crew reaches the planet are where the main differences between film and screenplay diverge. Unlike the previous screenplay for Alien 3, I can't wait for the next issue. If you like Alien, or sci-fi in general, check it out.

Counteragree:


Dark Horse took a pretty great screenplay by William Gibson for Alien3 and turned it into a a dreary, truncated mess. Here, they take an ok at best screenplay by Dan O'Bannon and turn it into something more readable than what was on the printed page. Guilherme Balbi's art for the backgrounds, ships, space, and jockeys is heavy on the blackest of blacks, reminiscent of some of Tom Mandrake's work. The people, well, their drawn just fine but don't fit in with the other work 100% of the time.

Where they do work is not knowing who'd become Dallas, Kane, Parker, Lambert, Brett, Ash, or Ripley. That means the mystery of the story still works, and works well so far.

With Marvel aquiring the A and P licenses (which you'll all read in far greater numbers than Dark Horse and I just don't get it), there will be a January resurgence for both properties. It's nice to see them still shine where they started in 1986. I give it 7 Grahams.