A character published by
Dark Horse Comics. Created by
Mike Richardson,
Randy Stradley and
James Dean Smith,
Boris the Bear first appeared
in
Boris the Bear #1 in 1986.
The time is the mid-80's and the popular trend (apart from X-Books) is
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The popularity of the title caused
an explosion of new titles featuring animal characters in the title
roles combined with violence. Soon, comics shops were filled with such
titles, generally in black and white and poorly drawn. As expected,
soon there was a backlash against such comics and Dark Horse Comics
weighed in with its opinion through Boris the Bear.
Boris was a Teddy Ruxpin look alike with a mind for violence.
Insensed by the amount of sub-standard characters being produced,
Boris decided to do something about it. Armed with a samuri sword and
an uzi, Boris began to track down and kill characters that were thinly-veiled
knock-offs of then popular characters. The first issue of Boris the
Bear was filled with lots of blood-shed and was immensely popular.
As the series progressed, Boris acquired an owner, a teenage boy, and his scientist
grandfather. Boris is revealed in later issues to be a robot with
a personality. He has a stuffed bunny as a companion, a love of
comic books, and a penchant for making long distance phone calls.
The writers used Boris to send up (or tear down as the case may be) many
of the popular items of the comic book world. Robots, Marvel's the
New Universe, the Dark Knight, Swamp Thing, G.I. Joe, the
Punisher, Marvel's claim on all of the works of Jack Kirby, and
Blackhawk were just a few of the subjects that were skewered in the
pages of this comic during its run.