Happy New Year, Dark Horse Nation! As always, I'm Publicity Coordinator Jim Gibbons and I'm here to gaze deeply into the interwebs and relay what's the what in Dark Horse-related linkage from the last week in 2010. Let's see which of our titles from 2010 garner rave reviews in everyone's end-of-year lists and take a peek into the bright future of 2011, shall we?

Dark Horse Presents
This year, Dark Horse celebrates its 25th anniversary and its 20th anniversary publishing Star Wars comics. In honor of these two momentous landmarks, and because we've got a knack for publishing great anthology comics, Dark Horse President and Publisher Mike Richardson is bringing Dark Horse Presents back to print. Edited by the man himself, the mountain-like Mr. Richardson, DHP will be an 80-page, ad-free anthology featuring A-List, all-star creators like Paul Chadwick, Frank Miller, Neal Adams, Howard Chaykin and many, many more. But then, you'd already know that if you saw the flurry of fantastic teaser images that bombarded the media last week.

Both the Concrete and Xerxes cover to DHP #1—not too mention teaser images of Chadwick's Concrete story, Chaykin's "Marked Man" and Neal Adams' "Blood"—were displayed on…

The week in DHP news, teaser images and preview pages culminated with a big interview with the monstrously tall Mike Richardson conducted by Shaun Manning for CBR that announced the entire creative lineup for DHP #1 and displayed exclusive sneak peeks at the return of Michael T. Gilbert's "Mr. Monster," David Chelsea's "Snow Angel" and Richard Corben's "Murky World," all of which are slated for issue #1. Get the full scoop on DHP now!

Best of 2010
Everyone and their mothers are making "Best of 2010" lists. Many of these bloggers, writers and reviewers (and some of their mothers) have remembered Dark Horse when making their lists.
  • National Public Radio ranked Axe Cop as one of its best debuts and Blacksad as one of its best reprint collections.
  • CBR ran down their Top 100 comics of 2010. Beasts of Burden/Hellboy: Sacrifice, Blacksad, Axe Cop and Usagi Yojimbo all made the list.
  • Jill Thompson made Jezebel's list of top female creators in 2010 for her work on Beasts of Burden, Scary Godmother and work she did for some company called Marvel.
  • Comixology listed their top picks from 2010 and included both Bryan Talbot's Grandville Mon Amour and Hellboy: The Storm among the best of the best from this past year.
  • Manga Worth Reading dubbed Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service one of it's "Best Continuing Manga" of 2010, as well!
More "Best Of" lists are cropping up even as I type this, so this list will definitely grow next week. Check back then for more!

Previews
Known for their excellent coverage of all things science fiction, io9.com ran two exclusive previews of some upcoming and exciting space-tastic books from the ol' DH. First, io9 showcased the first preview of Mac Walters, John Jackson Miller and Omar Francia's highly-anticipated Mass Effect: Evolution. Less than 24 hours later, the superb site gave fans a look at John Carter of Mars: Weird Worlds. Happy New Year, sci-fi fans!

Reviews

  • Booklist Online showcased their look at Jill Thompson's Scary Godmother: "It's not every day you see a work that manages to capture universal themes and imagery in a distinct and wonderfully sophisticated style, and that reinvents the familiar in a wild crackle of creative energy. But you'll see it four times over in this new collection compiling all four of Thompson's original cary Godmother stories plus extra goodies."
  • CBR raved about Robert E. Howard's Savage Sword #1: "Savage Sword is a near-perfect collection of what makes Robert E. Howard a master creator in his field and his creations the perfect fodder for atmospheric and brutal comics. This captures the nostalgia of what made these old magazines define childhood discovery, but it also updates and makes this collection something that you must own if you are a fan of the genre. The gamble has worked and will pay off for us all as we see a new dawn of savage tales of our favorite barbarians and warriors."
  • Via MTV Geek, Emmy Award winner and comic artist Dean Haspiel listed Jason Little's Motel Art Improvement Service as one of his favorite books of 2010: "Jason Little is the unheralded promise of my generation of cartoonists. I've been waiting seven years for his bubblegum pop-noir to finally come into fruition, majestically capping off an exciting decade of comix aughts."
  • Panels On Pages loved Hellboy: The Sleeping and The Dead.
  • And finally, Weekly Crisis enjoyed the first issue of Conan: Road of Kings. Speaking of the burly Cimmerian's new book…

    • Conan: Road of Kings
    Newsarama ran a preview of the upcoming second issue of Conan: RoK last week. After they posted the killer preview, penciller Mike Hawthorne posted the original, unedited pages on his blog. Conan completists, art fans and people who love a little Behind-The-Scenes action should definitely give these a gander.

    Buffy
    As part of their "11 for '11" series, Newsarama ran down the new series and graphic novels they're looking forward to in the new year. The short version? They're psyched about Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Season 9! Guess what? Us too!

    Weekly blog columns for 2011: One down, 51 more to go. My resolution? Over the course of 2011, I come up with new nicknames for all Dark Horse staff members I mention in the column and work many more mostly unnecessary pop culture references into the blog's outro. Till next time, folks… Good night and good luck!

      ---Jim Gibbons