Aliens: Tourist Season is a comic book short story that was first published by Dark Horse Comics in Dark Horse Presents Annual 1997 in February 1998. Originally published in black and white, the story was written by Beau Smith, illustrated and inked by Gray Morrow, colored by Bob Schreck, lettered by John Costanza and edited by Jamie S. Rich.
In the Aliens comics line, Aliens: Tourist Season was preceded by Aliens: Alchemy, published concurrently with Aliens: Kidnapped and Aliens: Survival, and was followed by Aliens: Glass Corridor.
Publisher's Summary
On a "theme" planet designed to mimic life in the old West, a frontier town is beset by a horror unimagined in the days of cowboys and outlaws. Limited by 19th century technology and weapons, the play-acting tourists will learn the Code of the West... or die.
Plot
Entertainment conglomerate, Remmington Corporation, runs Franchise Planet #1889. Red Rock. A Western-themed human colony part of a multiplex-system of theme planets run for the amusement of well-to-do tourists and the revenues of Remmington Corp. Recent excavations done to simulate a new mining town have unearthed age-old artifacts that turn out to be hibernating Xenomorphs.
Sheriff Tom Siringo, the Range Foreman in this particular section of Red Rock, a man time cut from a period long gone, is the one man standing between the few remaining tourists and an angry hoard of Xenomorphs. With the help of the tourists, Siringo fights against the onslaught of Aliens and, just like the cavalry in ancient earth movies, the Remmington Security Squad arrives after the fact.
Reprint History
Tourist Season was eventually collected as part of Aliens Omnibus: Volume 6 in December 2008.
The comic was released digitally through Dark Horse Digital on July 31, 2013, collected with Aliens: Headhunters and reusing Duncan Fegredo's cover art from Dark Horse Presents, Vol. 1 #117.
Behind the Scenes
Tourist Season is notably one of seven black and white Aliens comics from Dark Horse that have never been reprinted in color, the others being Aliens: Countdown, Aliens: Headhunters, Aliens: Border Lines, Aliens: 45 Seconds, Aliens: Elder Gods and Aliens: Once in a Lifetime.
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