Bruce Zick has a 1990’s revival in glorious black and white.
Back in February 2016, Bruce’s 1990’s revival began when Dark Horse Comics published all new stories of his 1992 book, The Zone Continuum. Now, this November, Dark Horse publishes a follow up companion book, The Zone Continuum Legacy, a reprinting of all four original Zone Continuum books, first printed in 1992 by Caliber Comics. Next January 2017, Caliber Comics will publish a graphic novel of the original series, Terminal Point, first printed in 1993 by Dark Horse Comics – all in glorious black and white.
Why the sudden interest in old material? It could be because there has been an explosion of new comic art by Bruce in the last two years. In 2014, Dark Horse published The Atomic Legion, a 226 page oversized graphic novel, written by Dark Horse publisher, Mike Richardson. Dark Horse also published the graphic novel, Mandala, with over 200 pages of new art, written by Stuart Moore. Add to that 100 pages of new art from February’s all new Zone Continuum.
Now people are starting to take a second look at Bruce’s comic career, which started in the nineties first with Argosy, at Dark Horse, and then Pirates of Darkwater, Sleepwalker, Toxic Avenger, and Thor–all at Marvel.
The Zone Continuum and Terminal Point were printed in black and white and used a peculiar Duo-Shade paper, which in addition to showing the inked line art, also produced two shades of grey. It had been used in the mid-20th Century, most notably by the Mad Magazine artists like Wally Wood, Jack Davis, and Will Elder. Bruce used this process to good effect, producing rich and detailed artwork which is really hard to equal today because of the intensive labor involved.
That was a special time for the artist. “I was really trying to get established in the comic field and I poured my heart and soul into these two projects”, Bruce says. “I like my newer, more simple and graphic style now, but I’m incredulous at the amount of work I poured into those older Duo-Shade pages.
Bruce is most eager to see these new books since the printing technology back then used brownish newsprint paper and printed grayish blacks. The two upcoming books are a sort of re-mastered Criterion Edition of comics, showcasing sparkling whites and rich deep blacks – and two shades of gray.
