The original FantaCo
Alien Encounters was a 36-page 1981
one-shot black-and-white comic containing short, self-contained stories by
Steve Bissette,
Steve Stiles,
Fred Hembeck,
Mike Zeck and
Howard Cruse, among others. After
Pacific Comics went bankrupt in 1984, their titles were taken over by Eclipse Comics, including
Bruce Jones'
Alien Worlds, a similar science fiction-themed anthology. They decided to replace
Alien Worlds with a new title that would feature a wider range of creators, and purchased the rights to the
Alien Encounters title from FantaCo, with
Ken Steacy designing the new series' logo. Eclipse's version was a similarly sized
bimonthly ongoing series edited by
Cat Yronwode, and would run for 14 issues from June 1985 to August 1987; it was effectively replaced by a short-lived irregular revival of
Alien Worlds. Creators who worked on the Eclipse series included Bissette, Cruse, Jones, Zeck,
Ray Bradbury,
John Bolton,
Chuck Dixon,
Gardner F. Fox,
Rick Geary,
Peter Ledger,
David Lloyd,
David Mazzucchelli,
Gray Morrow,
Ray Nelson,
Timothy Truman and
Thomas Yeates. The title featured painted
pulp magazine-inspired covers by a variety of artists. ==Reception==