At the very least, I’d like to find out why the cockroach arms. Or legs. Whatever they are.
Seth Michaels asks, in response to my posting about Boris the Bear:
“So what are your thoughts on Roachmill, Mike?”
[FOR THOSE OF YOU IN A RUSH: “didn’t read it, sounds neat.” FOR THOSE OF YOU WITH TIME TO KILL: carry on]
Gotta say…never read it. Not even entirely sure what it was about. I remember it from when it was coming out, seeing it on the shelf and ads in comics/’zines and such, but honestly my primary memory of it was a copy of the second trade paperback pictured above (one of Dark Horse’s early thin trades with the flimsy-ish covers) that we had kicking around the former place of employment forever. Might even still be there, for all I know, haunting the shrouded corridors, a wispy ghost of comics past sending chills into passerby.
Anyway, doing research for this post (i.e. “Googling”) I was reminded that Roachmill actually started at Blackthorne Comics, a publisher perhaps better known today for the large amount of 3D comics they put out (or maybe I just think that because I recently got a bunch of those 3Ders at the store). Blackthorne published a half-dozen issues, Dark Horse ten, and I guess that was about it unless the character popped up in the Dark Horse Presents anthology.
Checking with that font of all knowledge worth knowing, Comic Sans Wikipedia, the Roachmill entry finally has clued me in to the premise of the series. I had the vague sense for all these years that he was some kind of bounty hunter, but it’s a little more complicated than that. I don’t think I knew, or remembered, that it was explicitly science fiction. Also, the Wiki entry notes that the comic’s tone easily switched “between comedy, satire and serious sci-fi” which makes it sound a little Nexus-y to me, and that has me intrigued.
Alas, there’s no really easy way to catch up on them now…as I keep typing here, I’m recalling some very distant memories of there being some minor back issue demand for Roachmill at the old shop, and issues weren’t easy to come by even then. Nearly 30 years on, it’s decidedly less easy to just happen upon them in a shop, I’d imagine, but what with the online stuff all the kids are into, it might not be too much trouble to piece together your full run of this.
Not that I’m looking to do so at this very moment, since I’m still catching up on new comics that came out back in April, but Seth, your question has me reconsidering a comic that I haven’t really thought much about for a long, long time. We’ll add Roachmill to the “get around to reading this in the few short years I have left” mental list.
Not to worry Mike, I’ll be sending out a package to you tomorrow. Dark Horse issues #1-10. No love from the Ebay on this and I had actually just cleared them from my inventory to donate. Now they’re yours.
I really enjoyed Roachmill. I missed the beginning of the series but picked them up after the initial demand died down. The art was really appealing to me & I was sure the penciler was going to be a big star.
That Roachmill cover looks like it could be a MAD fold-in. Too bad I cannot print it out to verify!