Prison Ship by Esteban Maroto

Prison Ship
by Esteban Maroto (art) and Bruce Jones (story)
IDW, April 2018

Issue 24 of the Warren magazine 1994, with an April 1982 cover date, debuted a new series written by Bruce Jones and illustrated by Esteban Maroto, titled 'Diana Jacklighter, Manhuntress !' 

The plot was relatively simple: Diana (renamed Faye in the graphic novel) is an intergalactic bounty hunter, who has all manner of adventures on alien worlds as she sets forth to capture the escapees from the titular prison ship.

The series would go on for another four issues.

The story's cheesy title and concept were in keeping with the effort by 1994 editor Bill Dubay to lure the same readership of Heavy Metal magazine. The emphasis with 'Diana Jacklighter' was on fun, and T & A, rather than deep explorations of Weighty Themes. Needless to say, artist Maroto was quite capable of catering to the HM crowd with his choice depictions of Diana wearing little, if any, clothing:

As part of its efforts to compile classic comics from Esteban Maroto, publisher IDW has packaged the 1994 strips under the less..... exploitative...... title of Prison Ship. Like the other volume in this series, Lovecraft: The Myth of Cthulhu, this is a hardback graphic novel printed on a high grade of paper. 

It's unclear if the contents are scanned from the original artwork - in his Introduction to Prison Ship, Maroto states that many of the original art pages he sent to Warren 'disappeared under mysterious circumstances'. But the reproductions of scanned pages (if that's what they are) come across reasonably well here.

Maroto's artwork for 'Diana Jackson' / Prison Ship show him in top form. For all of its cheesy nature, I find it superior to many of the sci-fi comics (like the grossly overpraised Saga, as well as Black Science, Descender, and ODY-C) found nowadays on the store shelves. 

I've posted a scan of the initial episodes below. Whether you're a fan of Maroto's art, or the sci-fi comics of the early 80s, getting a copy of the book from your usual online vendors is recommended.