It’s been a while since I’ve hit my local comic shop. Between the long hours at work, the weekends rebuilding the house after the zombie attack, and the visits from out-of-town relatives, it’s actually been like two months. I’ve been out of the comic loop. So I was more than a little surprised to see not one, but two of my favorite old RPGs show up in comic book form.
Deadlands is a series of one-shots from Image Comics. I missed the first issue, but the second two are fun, well-illustrated, yarns of the Weird West that capture the essence of the setting without overloading the stories with exposition – something licensed comics are too often prone to do. When I saw the comics on the shelf, it sparked a distant memory.
“Oh yeah. I’d read something about this coming.”
But when I saw the Kult comic from Dark Horse, it sparked nothing but confusion and wonder.
“No. Not Kult. Not the ultra-dark, Hellraiser-esque, kabbalistic horror RPG setting from the 1990s…”
But it was. It is. And while it’s a strange place for that property to show up, it actually makes sense. Kult is, after all, owned by Paradox, the same company that owns the rights to Conan and Solomon Kane, which are published in comic form by Dark Horse. Could this be the beginning of a resurrection of that beloved* property?
(*Beloved by me and four other people – hardly a fantastic fan base.)
Probably not. But the comic’s a decent read, and if you’re one of the other four fans of the RPG, I recommend checking it out.
