Dark Horse Celebrates 20 Years

This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on December 12, 2006 Sign up now!

by Chris Arrant, PW Comics Week -- Publishers Weekly, 12/12/2006

Dark Horse Comics entered its 20th year in 2006 as the third largest comic book publisher in the United States. Based in Portland, Ore., the company employs a staff of about 100 spread out through its comics, film, book publishing, merchandise and retail divisions. With an estimated $30 million in revenue for 2005, Dark Horse's 20 year history as a privately owned company is especially impressive. Its hallmark has proven to be a steady balance of creator-owned works side-by-side with a pioneering approach to licensed comics properties. "It's very rare in comics for a company to last 20 years," said publisher Mike Richardson, "and our 20th year was our most successful year yet, so we're defying the odds."

Documented in the upcoming book, Dark Horse: The First 20 Years, the company was founded in July 1986 by Richardson, who decided to become a publisher after many years as a comics retailer and even more years as a comics fan. Started when the words superheroes and comics were mostly considered synonymous, Dark Horse has excelled at publishing what some comics pundits have called "an alternative to superheroes," work now considered mainstream to the broader comics audience.

Distributed in 55 countries by Diamond Book Distributors, Dark Horse has published such popular titles as Frank Miller's Sin City and 300 and Mike Mignola's Hellboy series and produced popular comic books based on Star Wars and Conan licenses. In the 1980s the house was a manga pioneer with the publication of Lone Wolf & Cub and Oh! My Goddess.

The emergence of the book trade market for comics and the growth of genres beyond superhero comics have also been good for Dark Horse. "We've been working book trade shows as early as 1988," said Richardson. "My goal has always been to convince booksellers that comic books were legitimate for book stores and not just comic shops. It's always been our intention that if you publish something that interests a variety of people, a variety of people will pick up those books."

The company's first publications were in the traditional comic book format. And while DH continues to publish comics serials, the house has always been focused on the eventual collection of serials in book format. As far back as 1988, Dark Horse planned its serials releases in page lengths that could later be collected. Richardson concedes that growing sales of comics in book format have hurt sales on individual issues: "In some ways, it does hurt our 'pamphlet' sales, but we've always been strong in graphic novel sales, and people appreciate that they can buy it as a comic book if that's their preference, but they can also buy it in book form."

Since its earliest days, Dark Horse has been a major proponent of creator's rights, a stance notable in an industry that largely remains an arena of work-for-hire agreements. By offering a progressive stance on creator-owned properties and aggressive marketing, Dark Horse successfully lured such big-name creators as Frank Miller, Dave Gibbons and Geoff Darrow to its publishing program. Richardson said he's always been excited to be able to foster emerging talent. "Watching Mike Mignola become a superstar with Hellboy was exciting for us all," Richardson said. "We have creators right now that are on the front end of that arc, such as The Goon's Eric Powell. It's terrific to watch new talent become part of that group of superstars."

Dark Horse does not limit itself to American-produced comics. The house was one of the first to reach out overseas, looking for the world's strongest comics. Dark Horse is the publisher of the U.S.'s longest-running manga series Oh! My Goddess and has released 28 volumes of the classic samurai manga series Lone Wolf & Cub series, which has sold nearly a million copies. Recently, the company has published a series of Japanese horror manga, series such as Ju-On and The Ring, as well as English-language manga adaptations of traditional Harlequin love stories that were originally turned into manga for the Japanese market. Dark Horse was even one of the earliest publishers of what is now known as OEL, or original English language manga, with Adam Warren's trailblazing work on Dirty Pair. "I thought there were great comics being produced all around the world and we wanted to bring the best comics to American readers," said Richardson.

The other sizable component to Dark Horse's publishing line are popular licensed properties that the company turns into comics. In 2007, the company welcomes the return of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer comics with exclusive stories penned by series creator Joss Whedon, which were originally intended to make up season eight of the television series. That series joins stalwart licensing franchises such as Conan the Barbarian and Star Wars, the latter of which has proven to be the standard for successfully producing a popular licensed series.

Dark Horse acquired the Star Wars license in the early 1990s, when the franchise was lagging, and made the comics one of its bestselling series. These efforts led to the revitalization of the publishing franchise, laying the groundwork for the success of the franchise's subsequent films and the popularity of the series' prose novels.

Licenses remain critical to Dark Horse. "For us there always has to be genuine enthusiasm for [a licensed] property. Our idea is to find movies we like and create sequels that we would like, but in comics form," Richardson explained. "Previous to Dark Horse, I don't know that there was a lot of thought given to movie-based comics. We really wanted to continue the adventure and make things in line with the original films and [make them] just as exciting."

From its beginnings in 1986 as a two-person comics operation, Dark Horse has transformed itself into a diversified media company but comics remain central to its publishing program.

"Starting out as a retailer who loved comics, there were certain kinds of comics I wished there were more of. When I started Dark Horse, that's what I began looking for," Richardson said. "We're looking for creators that we can help develop and create characters the public will respond to."

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