{"id":44264,"date":"2025-05-27T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-27T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/?p=44264"},"modified":"2025-05-22T14:57:19","modified_gmt":"2025-05-22T21:57:19","slug":"aliens-30th-anniversary-what-am-i-doing-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/aliens-30th-anniversary-what-am-i-doing-here\/","title":{"rendered":"Aliens 30th Anniversary \/ What Am I Doing Here?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

ALIENS 30TH ANNIVERSARY: THE ORIGINAL COMIC SERIES<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Aliens 30th Anniversary: The Original Comic Series<\/em>
by Mark Verheiden (author) and Mark A. Nelson (illustrator)
Dark Horse\u00a0Books
2016, 184 pages, 8.3 x 12.4 x 1 inches (hardback)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buy on Amazon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aliens<\/em> is one of my all-time favorite movies. A perfect mix of action, sci-fi and horror, which I would argue hasn\u2019t been replicated. Then there\u2019s Alien 3<\/em>, and everything that came after it. I don\u2019t like to talk about that. But, in 1988 after Aliens<\/em> came and four years before the next movie would come out, this comic series ran which gave me the followup story I wanted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The series has been published as Aliens: Book One<\/em>, Aliens: Outbreak<\/em>, and in novel form as Aliens: Earth Hive<\/em> (a lot to keep track of), but since these publications were made after Alien 3<\/em> came out, names were changed to avoid confusion from the films continuation of the story. So Wilcks = Hicks and Billie = Newt. Thankfully this comic doesn\u2019t do that. This printing features the comic as it was intended to be read with the characters we\u2019re familiar with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story picks up a few years after the film ended. An adult Newt and aged Hicks are struggling to deal with the horrors they witnessed, and Ripley is ominously missing. The black-and-white comics really capture the gritty world that the movies take place in, expanding on it in the best way. Although the comic ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, the story is continued in Aliens: Nightmare Asylum<\/em>, but you will have to deal with the name change of the main characters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book itself is beautiful. And black. Very black. It feels like something that was designed by H.R. Giger himself. Why I\u2019m most excited about this rerun of the series is because it gives me some hope at seeing a movie that truly succeeds Aliens<\/em>. There\u2019s been a lot of back and forth, but Sigourney Weaver, Ellen Ripley herself, has been in talks with Neill Blomkamp (director ofDistrict 9<\/em>), and the two are championing a new Alien<\/em> movie. One which might retcon everything that happened in the later movies. This would mean that the cinematic world might very well line up with these comics. It\u2019s a stretch, and might never happen, but I like to dream. Aliens<\/em> fans will definitely appreciate this one. \u2013 JP LeRoux<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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WHAT AM I DOING HERE? EXISTENTIAL ABSURDIST CARTOONS FROM THE 1940S<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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What Am I Doing Here?<\/em>
by Abner Dean
New York Review Comics
2016, 168 pages, 7 x 0.75 x 9.5 inches<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buy on Amazon<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 1930s and 1940s, Abner Dean was a highly sought-after illustrator who drew covers, cartoons, and illustrations for The New Yorker, Esquire, Time, Life<\/em>, and Newsweek<\/em>, as well as advertising illustrations for insurance companies and product manufacturers. In 1945, Dean quit his day job and drew the first of seven books that have been described as \u201cexistential gag cartoons.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Am I Doing Here?<\/em> is Dean\u2019s second book, and is generally regarded as his best work. It was originally published in 1947. This facsimile edition just came out today and contains about 100 single panel drawings, rendered in India ink and graytone washes (in the classic New Yorker<\/em> style of gag cartoons).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dean\u2019s drawings look like cartoons but they aren\u2019t very funny, at least not in the traditional sense. They\u2019re absurdist and disquieting. Everyone is naked and the action takes place either in decrepit urban settings, living rooms filled with grinning desperate characters, or barren surrealistic wastelands. Each drawing features the same hapless character, a lonely youngish man who questions his role in the human race, represented by a crowd that changes its form and behavior from page to page. The people are sometimes club-swinging brutes, other times they are blinkered sleepwalkers, insincere mask-wearers, bloodthirsty mobs, hysterical celebrators, suicidal lemmings, or guru-seeking fools. They often look more like animals than people. The protagonist is at times foolhardy, delusional, disappointed, fearful, proud, insecure, ruthless, or bewildered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the introduction, Clifton Fadiman (chief editor of Simon & Schuster in the 1920s and 1930s, and editor of The New Yorker<\/em>\u2019s book review section for ten years after that) wrote:><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is pointless to try to \u201cexplain\u201d Abner Dean. His pictures are trick mirrors in which we catch sight of those absurd fragments of ourselves that we never see in the smooth glass of habit. Formulae for the art of Abner Dean are irrelevant. What is important is the fact that it jolts you into sudden awareness of your own pathos, your own plight, your own unending and gigantic laughableness.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Mark Frauenfelder<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Books That Belong On Paper<\/strong>\u00a0first appeared on the web as Wink Books and was edited by Carla Sinclair.<\/em>\u00a0Sign up here<\/a>\u00a0to get the issues a week early in your inbox.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Issue No. 68<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[31],"tags":[2398],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44264"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44264"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44277,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44264\/revisions\/44277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}