Bissette Aliens Art! from Aliens: Havoc #2 (Dark Horse)
Aliens.
I wrote the novella Aliens: Tribes for Dark Horse Comics back in the early 1990s.
But I never, ever drew ’em for Dark Horse or anybody, outside of fan sketches.
Then, in 1997, someone at Dark Horse (Randy Stradley? Phil Amara? Scott Allie? I know it wasn’t Diana Schutz, my fave DH person; otherwise, I can’t recall) rang me up out of the blue to see if I could pinch-hit for an artist who pulled out of a round-robin collaborative Aliens comic sequence or project, and draw just two panels of art for the comic. But they needed them quick. There was a loose script read to me over the phone, I took notes, and I banged these two panels out.
Thanks to Bob Heer, I can fully identify what this was for. The published story page appears above, scan provided by Bob Heer. The top four panels of art by David Lloyd, bottom two panels by Moebius; my two panels were intended for that lower tier. Bob writes:
“It was ALIENS: HAVOC #2, written by Mark Schultz and with various artists. Your art appears in the back pages, with a note saying that they were “intended at one point for use as design elements on the inside front covers”, which might be technically true, but they also seem to have been earlier intended as the half-page inside the story that were drawn by Moebius (Jean Giraud). This page. I wonder if Moebius was the original artist planned, and they ended up getting the pages from him after giving up hope?”
That pretty much jives and jogs my memory, too. I said ‘yes’ to the gig because it meant working with Mark Schultz material, however fleeting the association, and have my art on the same page with David Lloyd, with whom I collaborated on a Tales of Terror story “Remembering Rene” (my script, David‘s art, and still a personal favorite of mine).
As far as this Aliens: Havoc thingie, I still prefer my version of the sequence, and do remember once it all saw print thinking, ‘well, shit, that’s not what happened at all’ as far as the editor’s statement about my art was concerned. Still, the editor was straight with me and I was paid.
Nevertheless, it was, along with the Species scripting gig and later Tarzan “The Soft Parade” script for Tom Yeates, another reason to cease doing much of anything with/for Dark Horse. I made all those deadlines and those jobs still went to shit over one thing or another — so, I knew it wasn’t me, at least. No matter; it was at most a 26-hour cycle of events, two phone calls tops, and all pretty frustrating at that, and this was turned in and then forgotten.
This Aliens: Havoc sequence measures 7″ x 9″ (image area) on a larger sheet of one-ply white paper, drawn with brush marker and pen with correctional white pen and fluid for final touches and cleanup. Per usual, you’ll have to take care displaying this original art: markers will fade from long exposure to sunlight and other kinds of light. UV protective glass is strongly recommended in framing.
You can feed the Alien for just $175 plus shipping — first to email me at msbissette@yahoo.com wanting to buy wins it.
[Sold! Sept. 3rd, 2009, and with a fine Aliens collector — a happy home for this rarity!]
This art is also posted on
It was ALIENS: HAVOC #2, written by Mark Schultz and with various artists. Your art appears in the back pages, with a note saying that they were “intended at one point for use as design elements on the inside front covers”, which might be technically true, but they also seem to have been earlier intended as the half-page inside the story that were drawn by Moebius (Jean Giraud). This page. I wonder if Moebius was the original artist planned, and they ended up getting the pages from him after giving up hope?
The link to the scan didn’t show up, I e-mailed you a copy.
THANKS, Bob — the scan came through fine! Thank you on that, too!
I will revise the post and credit you fully for sorting this out. It was indeed Moebius — you’ve refreshed my memory there — and I do recall briefly looking at (a) the sequence my panels were intended for and (b) reading the bullshit written about my two panels, and then simply putting the whole thing out of mind. Reckon I accomplished that; thanks for the research and refresher.
No problem. Anyway, your two panels do fit the story much better. The Moebius ones, the first one is just some abstract thing and the second is just a generic Alien (® and ©), though a nice enough quick rendition (I don’t know that any example of Moebius doing non-Moebius characters ever lived up to the idea of Moebius doing those characters). Your two panels are genuinely scary as well as fitting the story.
the only good example of Moebius doing non-Moebius characters is when he did the Silver Surfer mini series with Stan Lee. That was some awesome stuff that totally influenced me!
oh, and, WOW STEVE! Your Alien drawings are AMAZING!!!