Alien Encounters | |
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Publication information | |
Publisher | FantaCo Enterprises [1] Eclipse Comics [2] |
Format | Ongoing anthology while in publication. |
Genre | |
Publication date | FantaCo, 1981 Eclipse, June 1985 - August 1987 |
No. of issues | 15 in total |
Editor(s) | Catherine Yronwode |
Alien Encounters is an American science fiction anthology comic book published by FantaCo Enterprises and then Eclipse Comics. The comic debuted with FantaCo in 1981, and in 1985 was revived by Eclipse, where (starting over from issue 1) it ran for fourteen issues until 1987. [3] [4] Eclipse began publishing the title soon after the cancellation of Alien Worlds , a similar science-fiction themed anthology.
Creators who worked on the series include Ray Bradbury [5] Stephen R. Bissette, [6] John Bolton, Joe Chiodo, Richard Corben, Howard Cruse, Chuck Dixon, Rick Geary, Bruce Jones, Peter Ledger, David Lloyd, David Mazzucchelli, Gray Morrow, Ray Nelson, Timothy Truman, Thomas Yeates, Doug Wheeler and Mike Zeck. [2] [3]
Catherine Yronwode edited the series. Alien Encounters featured pulp magazine-inspired covers, and was sometimes criticized for featuring gratuitous nude scenes. [2]
The story "Nada" by Ray Nelson and Bill Wray, from Alien Encounters #6 (April 1986), was an adaptation of the story "Eight O'Clock in the Morning" by Nelson that was the inspiration for the 1988 John Carpenter film They Live . [7]
William Francis Nolan was an American author who wrote hundreds of stories in the science fiction, fantasy, horror, and crime fiction genres.
They Live is a 1988 American science fiction action horror film written and directed by John Carpenter, based on the 1963 short story "Eight O'Clock in the Morning" by Ray Nelson. Starring Roddy Piper, Keith David, and Meg Foster, the film follows an unnamed drifter who discovers through special sunglasses that the ruling class are aliens concealing their appearance and manipulating people to consume, breed, and conform to the status quo via subliminal messages in mass media.
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Eclipse Comics was an American comic book publisher, one of several independent publishers during the 1980s and early 1990s. In 1978, it published the first graphic novel intended for the newly created comic book specialty store market. It was one of the first to offer royalties and creator ownership of rights, and it was the first comics company to publish trading cards.
Radell Faraday Nelson was an American science fiction author and cartoonist most famous for his 1963 short story "Eight O'Clock in the Morning", which was later used by John Carpenter as the basis for his 1988 film They Live.
Stephen R. Bissette is an American comic book artist, editor, and publisher with a focus on the horror genre. He is known for working with writer Alan Moore and inker John Totleben on the DC Comics series Swamp Thing in the 1980s.
John Thomas Totleben is an American illustrator working mostly in comic books.
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Taboo is a comics anthology edited by Steve Bissette that was designed to feature edgier and more adult comics than could be published through mainstream publishers. The series began as a horror anthology, but soon branched out into other genres as well. It was published by various imprints from 1988 to 1995.
FantaCo Enterprises was an American comic book store and publishing company founded and created by Thomas Skulan and based in Albany, New York. As a publisher, FantaCo was known for its idiosyncratic line-up of mostly black-and-white titles, including the humorous Hembeck Series and the horror title Gore Shriek. FantaCo also published "The Chronicles Series", which cataloged top-selling Marvel Comics titles. In its later years, FantaCo published mostly horror comics and a small number of "good girl art".
Horror comics are comic books, graphic novels, black-and-white comics magazines, and manga focusing on horror fiction. In the US market, horror comic books reached a peak in the late 1940s through the mid-1950s, when concern over content and the imposition of the self-censorship Comics Code Authority contributed to the demise of many titles and the toning down of others. Black-and-white horror-comics magazines, which did not fall under the Code, flourished from the mid-1960s through the early 1980s from a variety of publishers. Mainstream American color comic books experienced a horror resurgence in the 1970s, following a loosening of the Code. While the genre has had greater and lesser periods of popularity, it occupies a firm niche in comics as of the 2010s.
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