In 1980, Mike Richardson used a credit card with a two-thousand-dollar credit limit to open a comic-book store, Pegasus Books, in the small resort town of Bend, Oregon. His intention was to write and illustrate a childrens book himself while working in the store, but the business expanded, and his project was put on hold. He still plans to finish that book. As business grew, Richardson opened new retail locations in Oregon and Washington State. He soon became frustrated, however, by the lack of quality in the products he was selling, and so, using funds from his retail operation, he began his own publishing company. From the very start Dark Horse Comics was a different kind of publishing house. Writers and artists were treated as partners, an unheard-of generosity in the comic-publishing field at that time. Soon the top creators of the industry were flocking to Dark Horse, where they became involved in the publishing and marketing of their creations.

Dark Horse Comics launched with two initial titles in 1986, Dark Horse Presents and Boris the Bear. Concrete (Paul Chadwick), is about a congressional speechwriter who transforms into a two-thousand-pound cement creature, was a runaway hit and has received twenty-six industry awards and nominations to date. Within one year of its first publication, Dark Horse Comics added nine new titles to its roster, including The American, The Mark, Trekker, and Black Cross. In 1988, Dark Horse revolutionized comics based on popular films with the release of its hit series Aliens, with Predator following soon after. The launch of Star Wars in 1990 solidified Dark Horse’s domination of movie-based comics series. While licensed projects had been around for decades, most publishers devoted few resources to titles they did not own. Dark Horse took a different tack by plotting stories and using top talent to create comics series that were essentially sequels to popular films. This fresh approach met with enormous success, and sales on these popular titles sailed into the millions. Today, Dark Horse is the acknowledged industry leader in this profitable publishing niche. Current publications include Star Wars, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Mass Effect, Aliens, Predator, Conan, Serenity, Dollhouse, and many others.

Richardson had a strong interest in manga and jumped ahead of market trends by publishing the first manga series from Dark Horse, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, in 1987. More manga series followed, and by the early nineties, he was traveling regularly to Japan, where he cultivated strong relationships with top creative talent there. As a result, Dark Horse built a powerhouse manga program, including titles such as Lone Wolf and Cub, Astro Boy, Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Blade of the Immortal, Gunsmith Cats, and Trigun, as well as the longest-running American manga series, Oh My Goddess!, by Fujishima.

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, brand-new manga series from CLAMP. In 1990, Dark Horse startled the entire industry by teaming up its two hot Fox movie franchises in one comic. Aliens vs. Predator caught the comics industry by surprise, and its success spawned an industry-wide trend. Today, the comic crossover is a staple of the industry. This strategy led directly to a series of crossover projects with industry giant DC Comics. Projects such as Batman versus Predator, Superman/Aliens, and Joker/Mask have been runaway hits.That same year, Frank Miller (Batman: The Dark Knight Returns) and Dave Gibbons (Watchmen) brought Give Me Liberty to Dark Horse. Later that year, Frank teamed with artist Geof Darrow and released Hard Boiled, again through Dark Horse. The success of these titles, together with Dark Horse creator-rights platform, led to the signing of talent from the “Big Two” to Dark Horse. High-profile creators such as Mike Mignola, Art Adams, Walt Simonson, John Byrne, and Chris Claremont brought projects to a company other than Marvel and DC for the first time. As a result of this talent movement, the field was opened wide for other creators, leading directly to the formation of numerous “independent” comic-book publishers. Having achieved great success transforming film characters into comic-book stars, it was logical for Dark Horse to reverse that process and use its own original characters and stories as the basis for film and television. Richardson established Dark Horse Entertainment, Inc., in 1992 and set up shop on the lot of Twentieth Century Fox through a first-look deal with Larry Gordon and Largo Entertainment. Dark Horse Entertainment immediately went into development with a half-dozen projects, resulting in the production of four films in less than three years. Two of those productions, The Mask and Timecop, were created by Richardson and opened at number one at the box office. In the company’s first nineteen years, Dark Horse Entertainment has produced over two dozen films and television projects.

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. 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. As Dark Horse continued looking into new business opportunities, the Dark Horse Deluxe brand was initiated in 1998 with a line of merchandise that included model kits, toys, apparel, and collectibles. Initially planned to draw on Dark Horse properties, the division soon outgrew its initial vision. Successes include such collectible lines as Tim Burton’s Tragic Toys for Girls and Boys, Joss Whedon’s Serenity, and most recently, merchandise for the popular video-game franchise Mass Effect.