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Dark Horse Comics history
Dark Horse Comics company history timeline
Dark Horse Comics, American comic book publisher founded in 1986 by comics retailer Mike Richardson.
Richardson had a strong interest in manga and jumped ahead of market trends by publishing Dark Horse’s first manga series, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, in 1987.
In 1988, Dark Horse revolutionized comics based on popular films with the release of its hit series Aliens, with Predator following soon after.
In 1990, Dark Horse startled the entire industry by teaming up its two hot Fox movie franchises in one comic.
His first version of Hellboy appeared in a 1991 sketch, and Mignola spent subsequent years developing the character further.
In 1992 John Byrne, a fan favourite from his work on The Uncanny X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Superman, approached Dark Horse with his original superhero concept The Next Men.
Dark Horse Entertainment, the company’s film and television production division, was established in 1992.
2 (August 1993), published by Dark Horse Comics.
1993 saw Dark Horse return to its roots, and a new corporation was formed to establish a retail presence at the Universal Studios CityWalk in Los Angeles.
Dark Horse published the first Hellboy comic in early 1994, featuring a script by Byrne and art by Mignola.
Named Things From Another World, Inc., the corporation’s flagship retail operation, opened in 1994, was designed with a crashed spaceship embedded in the building.
The first story, later collected in the graphic novel Seed of Destruction (1997), set the tone for succeeding tales with its collection of monsters, vampires, haunted houses, and otherworldly threats.
Mignola’s comic universe was brought to the big screen by director Guillermo del Toro in Hellboy (2004). The live-action feature film starred Ron Perlman as the title hero, and it was well received by fans and critics alike.
A prose imprint was created in 2004 to capitalize on Dark Horse’s expanded distribution into bookstores.
Warmth: The Don Rickles Project (2007).
In 2007, Dark Horse again revolutionized licensed comics with the launch of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8, which picked up where the hit television series left off.
2008 saw the release of Hellboy II: The Golden Army, helmed by acclaimed director Guillermo del Toro.
In 2009, best-selling author Janet Evanovich teamed up with Dark Horse for the release of Troublemaker, the author’s first-ever graphic novel and the newest volume in her best-selling Alex Barnaby series.
In 2010, Dark Horse began a new partnership with superstar Japanese manga creators CLAMP, collecting such best-selling titles as Clover, Chobits, and Magic Knight Rayearth.
2011 will see the release of Gate 7, CLAMP’s brand-new manga series.
In 2011, the company celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary in style, with the launch of an all-new proprietary digital-comics app, boasting hundreds of titles for download through both the iTunes store and the Dark Horse Digital storefront at Digital.DarkHorse.com.
The latter half of the year saw the announcement of the 2014 return of other popular titles from Dark Horse's publishing history: Aliens, Predator, and Alien vs.
Dark Horse entered the Year of the Horse in 2014 with predictions of the biggest year on record, with Serenity: Leaves on the Wind, Tomb Raider, and Greg Rucka's Veil launching in the first three months of the year.
Perhaps the biggest triumph of 2015 was Chuck Palahniuk’s expansion of his chaotic fictional world in Fight Club 2.
In 2016, Dark Horse celebrated its thirtieth anniversary with many new and exciting projects.
Video game art books were huge in 2016 as Dark Horse released many best-sellers! Teaming up with Blizzard Entertainment, Dark Horse released World of Warcraft: Chronicle Volume 1, the first of three volumes exploring the lore of the massively popular game.
2017 was a year of continued success as Dark Horse took home multiple Eisner Awards, including Best New Series for Jeff Lemire and Dean Ormston’s Black Hammer.
Dark Horse and Netflix joined forces in 2018 with the announcement of Stranger Things, a new series based on the hit Netflix series.
Also in 2019, Netflix premiered the new film Polar based on the Dark Horse graphic novel by Victory Santos, starring Mads Mikkelsen and Vanessa Hudgens.
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Dark Horse Comics competitors
| Company name | Founded date | Revenue | Employee size | Job openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DC Comics | 1934 | $160.0M | 1,197 | - |
| Image Comics | 1992 | $5.0M | 18 | - |
| Oni Press | 1997 | $15.0M | 70 | - |
| BOOM! Studios | 2005 | $5.0M | 82 | 1 |
| Bongo Comics | 1993 | $1.6M | 30 | - |
| Dynamite Entertainment | 2004 | $1.6M | 30 | - |
| Undercurrent | 1975 | $720,000 | 10 | - |
| POP | 1996 | $106.8M | 1,250 | - |
| SMUGGLER | 2002 | $1.6M | 30 | - |
| Big Mouth Talent | - | $3.1M | 113 | - |
Dark Horse Comics history FAQs
Zippia gives an in-depth look into the details of Dark Horse Comics, including salaries, political affiliations, employee data, and more, in order to inform job seekers about Dark Horse Comics. The employee data is based on information from people who have self-reported their past or current employments at Dark Horse Comics. The data on this page is also based on data sources collected from public and open data sources on the Internet and other locations, as well as proprietary data we licensed from other companies. Sources of data may include, but are not limited to, the BLS, company filings, estimates based on those filings, H1B filings, and other public and private datasets. While we have made attempts to ensure that the information displayed are correct, Zippia is not responsible for any errors or omissions or for the results obtained from the use of this information. None of the information on this page has been provided or approved by Dark Horse Comics. The data presented on this page does not represent the view of Dark Horse Comics and its employees or that of Zippia.
Dark Horse Comics may also be known as or be related to Dark Horse Comics and Dark Horse Comics, Inc.