Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, everybody! Hopefully many of you are enjoying a day off from work and thinking about the great strides Dr. King made for social equality in our nation. Take a little time to think about how, in the spirit of Dr. King, we can make this country even greater—that'd be a postal holiday well spent!

However, if you need a break from deep thoughts, why not take a look at the top Dark Horse-related stories from last week's news cycle? I'm Dark Horse Publicity Coordinator Jim Gibbons and these are the headlines.

Great Graphic Novels For Teens
Each year, YALSA (a.k.a. the Young Adult Library Services Association) releases a list of their picks for the best graphic novels for teens. Beasts of Burden: Animal Rites, The Amazing Screw-On Head and Other Curious Objects and Grandville were all chosen for this year's distinguished list! A big congrats and a pat on the back to everyone who worked on these titles.

If you haven't read these three, well… get on that!

Star Wars: Darth Vader and The Lost Command
Last week, our upcoming Darth Vader book made a big splash online. Mixing my metaphors here, the preview that made waves last week had an aftershock effect this week and was linked all over the place all over again. IGN, ComicAttack.net, Big Shiny Robot, Pop Culture Zoo and Geeks of Doom all showcased the first five pages of the W. Haden Blackman and Rick Leonardi series. It seems these are the pages people are looking for!

B.P.R.D.
The next chapter in the B.P.R.D. saga from Mike Mignola, John Arcudi and Guy Davis premiered last week and B.P.R.D. Hell On Earth: Gods #1 was a big hit with critics. MTV Geek, iFanboy and Panels On Pages all raved about the first issue. Here's a snippet from the MTV Geek review…
"Guy Davis continues the good work of previous B.P.R.D. series along with colors by Dave Stewart. I'm not sure how many more ways I can speak effusively about their combined effort, but I'll try here. In one of the best panels of the book, Davis goes in close on Fenix's face. Take it in for a second: she's really young, with pink dyed hair and piercings, and wide, tired green eyes. Her face isn't yet gaunt from illness and being on the road, but it's on its way. In that one panel, Davis captures what this character is about and reflects what most of the refugees are probably going through in one way or another with the added bonus of unexpected and likely unwanted leadership. Yes, it's very good work."
Also, check out this rad B.P.R.D. fan art from Mike Maihack!



Buffy
Season 8 of the everybody's favorite vampire slayer's adventures comes to a close this week with the highly anticipated issue #40 by Joss Whedon and Georges Jeanty. Take a look at the issue over at Tor.com and peruse the list of Buffy Birthday/End of Season 8 parties across the country!

Season 8 writer and New York Times Bestselling author Brad Meltzer's new novel came out last week. The scribe chatted with iFanboy about his new tale of intrigue and working on Buffy during the site's popular podcast. Go give it a listen!

Motel Art Improvement Service
Jason Little's bubblegum noir story Motel Art Improvement Service was published last year and has certainly been getting a nice amount of press, but that didn't stop when 2010 ended. Newsarama chatted with Little last week and Panels On Pages wrote a rave review of the book: "Jason Little's style is fun, cute, and quirky; simple, yet with a fantastic attention to detail. It would fit perfectly in a Mad Magazine but more importantly it fits perfectly here. His characters are all immediately identifiable, his faces impressively expressive, his page layouts provide an excellent narrative flow, and the titular improved motel art is, while really little more than a MacGuffin, a joy to behold!"

Also, Motel Art Improvement Service editor and all-around comics guru Diana Schutz was recently interviewed by the Portland Comics blog. Go give that a read!

Previews
    -Comics Alliance gives readers a first look at Hellboy: The Sleeping and The Dead #2.

    -Artist Mike Hawthorne shows off some Fear Agent pencils on his blog. (Mr. Hawthorne also has some original Conan: Road of Kings art for sale if you're interested.

    -Newsarama premiered the first look at Magnus, Robot Fighter #3.

    -BioWare's new teaser trailer for Mass Effect 2 on the PS3 is awesome! It also teases the interactive backstory comic from Dark Horse!

    -John Struan over at Super Punch liked a recent Witchfinder cover so much that he made it a desktop wallpaper.


Reviews
    -Graphic NYC took a look at Frank Miller and Dave Gibbons' The Life and Times of Martha Washington and wrote an extensive review on the book. "The Life and Times of Martha Washington in the 21st Century is every bit of awesome. Great artwork from Dave Gibbons. His dinosaurs are sweet and his spaceships are tight lined monoliths of dignified beauty. His compositions, as always, are perfectly framed narratives. Between that and a solid script by Frank Miller, we got comics royalty clocking in and making magic on almost every page." (Speaking of Mr. Miller, CBR's Robot 6 ran down other possible movies from the legendary creator's catalogue. Which one do you want to see hit the big screen next?)(And speaking of movies, David Fincher chatted a bit about the Goon movie with Ain't It Cool News… somebody get that man 55 million bucks, stat!)

    -Fangoria listed the Creepy and Eerie archives among the top ten horror comics of 2010: "2010 saw Dark Horse's continued release of a fright fan's wet dream—their stunningly crafted Creepy and Eerie archives. Seven hardcover volumes were released this year (four Creepy and three Eerie), and although $49.95 a pop may seem steep, it's peanuts when considering the historical significance of these intelligently written and exceptionally illustrated tales that marked the first resurgence of horror comics. No comic (let alone horror comic) aficionado should be caught without these in their collection."

    -ComicAttack.net raved about CLAMP's Cardcaptor Sakura: "This charming manga is a clear example of why CLAMP is so popular with fans. Darling artwork, lovable characters, excellent story telling; everything is lovingly well crafted."

    -Manga Maniac Cafe took a look at both Gantz Vol. 13 and Troublemaker Book 2.

    -The Schulz Library Blog from the Center for Cartoon Studies reviewed Yahtzee Croshaw's novel Mogworld and seemed to really enjoy it! "I’ll happily admit to reading this book more than once. Croshaw's casual turns of phrase quickly turn into a paragraph of tangent making you gasp for air. Each character from the knife-happy Mr. Wonderful to the achingly-street-corner-pious Thaddeus leaves you fist-pumping the air and sometimes cackling maniacally, horrifying those other airline passengers around you."

    -Dark Horse got some nice local press when the Portland Mercury blogged about our digital comics contest. (Ok, it's not really a review, sorry! Still a nice link, though!)


That's it for this week, folks! Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed the links. Here's Dr. King's "I Have A Dream" speech backed by a beat from hip hop legend Pete Rock (Hat Tip to @Agent_M). Give it a listen and think about all you can do to help quash the social injustice that still resides in the U.S.A. It may be less, but it ain't gone yet—don't get complacent, folks!

---Jim Gibbons