Dark Horse Comics
| Dark Horse Comics Inc.
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|---|---|
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| legal form | Incorporated |
| founding | 1986 |
| Seat | Milwaukie , United States |
| Branch | Publishing |
| Website | www.darkhorse.com |
Dark Horse Comics Inc. is an American comic book publisher based in Milwaukie , Oregon , which was founded in 1986 by Mike Richardson . In addition to American comics and licensed comics for TV series and films, Dark Horse also publishes translations of Japanese manga . Unlike the two largest American comic publishers, Marvel Comics and DC Comics , Dark Horse also publishes "creator-owned" series, in which the rights to characters and stories lie with the respective authors and illustrators and not with the publisher.
Company history
In July 1986 Dark Horse Presents # 1 appeared, the new publisher's first comic. Dark Horse Presents was an anthology series that made 157 issues before being discontinued in 2000. In 1987 Dark Horse began releasing Paul Chadwick's Concrete , a very successful series that would win a total of 26 Eisner Awards .
In addition to creator-owned series, Dark Horse soon began to acquire licenses for popular film and TV series and to produce comics based on them. In July 1988 Aliens was released based on the Alien films starring Sigourney Weaver . A year later Alien vs. Predator , which was released as a film in 2004.
In the early 1990s, Dark Horse was able to engage some of the most famous comic makers, Frank Miller and Dave Gibbons published Martha Washington: Give Me Liberty at Dark Horse, Miller and Geof Darrow created Hard Boiled and Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot and Miller was solely responsible for Sin City . Furthermore, Matt Wagner brought his successful comic Grendel to Dark Horse and Mike Mignola started Hellboy in 1993 . The well-known draftsman John Byrne published on Dark Horse. Byrne's Next Men series had 30 issues.
In December 1991 Dark Horse was able to win the licenses for the comic versions of the popular Star Wars franchise and has been publishing Star Wars comics ever since. In addition to American comics, Dark Horse also publishes many English translations of popular manga , such as Akira , Astro Boy , Blade of the Immortal , Ghost in the Shell , Lone Wolf & Cub and Oh My Goddess! .
The first film adaptations of Dark Horse Comics appeared in 1994. The mask with Jim Carrey and Timecop with Jean-Claude Van Damme were both quite successful.
In the second half of the 1990s, Dark Horse signed other comic book greats such as Stan Sakai , Sergio Aragonés and Art Adams . In 1998 Frank Miller's 300 was published , a retelling of the struggle of 300 Spartans against a huge Persian army near Thermopylae. In the same year, Dark Horse acquired the license for Joss Whedon's Buffy and has since published comics for the series. Whedon himself wrote an eight-part miniseries called Fray for Dark Horse in 2001 , which was set in the future of the Buffy universe and is currently working with other writers on an eighth Buffy season in comic form.
In addition to the Star Wars series, which has been running since 1998, Dark Horse reissued the old Star Wars comics that were published by Marvel Comics in the 1980s . In the same year, Dark Horse started a horror comic series called Devil's Footprint . Hellboy was filmed in 2004 , and Sin City was released in theaters in 2005 . In 2007 300 was shown successfully in the cinema.
In 2014 Dark Horse published the graphic novel 47 Rōnin - The Tale of the Loyal Retainers (originally published as a five-part mini-series), using the script by Mike Richardson, the drawings by the creator Usagi Yojimbos Stan Sakai, the coloring by Lovern Kindzierski and the inscription comes from L. Lois Buhalis and Tom Orzechowski. The comic tells the historical story of a bloody vengeance, which is one of the national myths of Japan, from the point of view of a man who had scolded and humiliated one of the heroes in ignorance of the situation and now visits the graves of the Rōnin out of remorse.
Publications in German
Dark Horse Comics' publications in German are incomplete and have been published by various publishers.
Buffy Comics was published by Carlsen Comics up to # 30 . Star Wars is released by Dino Comics , which is now part of Panini Comics . Hellboy has already been published by a number of German publishers, after Carlsen and EEE , whose attempts failed, Cross Cult recently brought out a black and white hardcover edition of the Hellboy anthologies at the start of the film . Sin City also appeared in extracts from Carlsen, then from Schreiber & Leser . Usagi Yojimbo by Stan Sakai was started by Carlsen, but finished after a few volumes and given to the Schwarzer Turm publishing house . A new edition followed at Cross Cult. Usagi Yojimbo has been published in a new translation by Dantes Verlag since 2017 . Also 300 , published previously in Schreiber & Leser, appears in the summer of 2006 at Cross Cult. Several volumes from Matt Wagner's Grendel Universe have been published by Speed Comics . Martha Washington by Frank Miller and Dave Gibbons was published by Carlsen, Hard Boiled by Frank Miller & Geoff Darrow was published by Alpha Comics .