I found myself looking up a list of all the films based originally on comics for an article I was going to do for another site. The obvious Marvel and DC canon majority aside, I learned that there were a few titles that had found a way to distance themselves from their comic origin; works like my childhood favorite The Men in Black and the so odd that it must be true A History of Violence are both examples. One could say that Ghost World fits a similar bill, but I tend to hear that film brought up exclusively as a comic adaption more often than not. But now is not the time to prattle on about film, for I have a comic to review; you folks might have caught on that I have in hand 1991’s The Mask.

To find the origin of the Mask, I dug up that Dark Horse founder Mike Richardson created the idea of what would later become known as The Masque in the pages of Dark Horse Presents in the mid-80. Time passed and the most recognizable (and what is currently receiving my spot light focus) is its true start in 1991, this time written by John Arcudi and drawn by Doug Mahnke, creators of the tonally similar Major Bummer. I felt the need to limit this review to what is collected in the first omnibus volume (containing The Mask, The Mask Returns, and The Mask Strikes Back), so I will list off the various colorists and inkers later down the line.

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