Dark Horse Comics' 40th Anniversary (Patreon)

Posting this in case folks hadn't seen this piece DHC commissioned from artist David Rubin. If you look through it you'll find some of the beasts of Burden Hill along with some dairy products gone bad.

But while I'm here...

I've been associated with Dark Horse since 1991, when I penciled the Predator: Big Game series for them. How I got that job is a series of anecdotes, most of which I've told before. When I have time maybe I'll assemble them all in one place, or in one video. That year I managed to break into making comics full-time, between the Predator series, Bill and Ted's Excellent Comics at Marvel and Milk & Cheese #1 from SLG Publishing. I got my first royalty check from Dark Horse, over six grand for the first issue of Predator: Big Game. I used part of it to replace my old, broken stereo and buy the largest television I could find at the time, a 35" monster that was ridiculously heavy (and almost injured a friend of mine when they helped move it some years later). Man, I loved that TV.

During my time freelancing for DHC I've written a Predator series, a Mask series, an issue of Eric Powell's The Goon and a Bill and Ted series. I contributed a Roger the Homunculus story to the Hellboy: Weird Tales anthology.

I placed work in every iteration of Dark Horse Presents, including the Myspace digital version. A number of Milk & Cheese comics first appeared in DHC anthologies like DHP and Deadline USA, I did a strip in the Urban Legends comic which later showed up in Dork and the Eltingville Club first appeared in Instant Piano, the five-cartoonist anthology DHC found themselves stuck with.

I co-created Beasts of Burden with Jill Thompson for the Dark Horse Book of Hauntings and we contributed new stories for the later DHC Horror books.

DHC was always my second home in comics. They never tried to break up my situation with SLG (until many years later, when I wasn't actually putting anything out with SLG). For years they were happy to publish Milk & Cheese and even Hectic Planet stories, knowing the work would end up reprinted and collected at SLG.

They even produced a Milk & Cheese lunchbox even though they weren't publishing the series. This pissed off SLG publisher Dan Vado, even though he didn't have the means at the time to do anything like that. I don't have time here to get into any of that stuff. So I'll leave it at that.

Since leaving SLG to make DHC my home publisher we've turned Beasts of Burden into a continuing series (and we got to do a Hellboy crossover). I started Blackwood with Veronica Fish, collected in a fancy oversized library edition.

I brought back The Murder Family, M&C, Eltingville and other characters from Dork for Dark Horse Presents, which was collected as the House of Fun one-shot. Basically Dork #12.

DHC published the Calla Cthulhu series Sarah and I co-created with Erin Humiston. And I finally finished up The Eltingville Club with a two issue series. Eltingville, Milk & Cheese and Dork have been collected in hardcover, and have recently been reprinted in the Nerd Inferno omnibus.

And over the years I've won six Eisner Awards for work published by Dark Horse (four for Beasts of Burden (which also won four shared Eisner's for Jill's painted artwork), one for Instant Piano/The Eltingville Club and one for the Milk & Cheese collection). Yes, I went and counted them. Yes, I took a picture of the ones on my desk for this post.

Look how inconsistent they are. Just like all the inconsistent trade dresses on so many comic collections. Silly comics industry.

I have a lot of fond memories of working with the company, and not too many unhappy memories, to be honest. I owe a lot of that to the people at DHC, from past to present. Co-founders Mike Richardson and Randy Stradley were very supportive of my work, as was David Scroggy in the merchandise department. Diana Schutz and Bob Schreck were super-supportive and brought me into the freelance fold back in 1991, with Diana hiring me to replace the artist who ghosted her on Predator: Big Game (Diana also asked Sarah to join DHC as an editor at one point. In an alternative universe we moved to Portland and took our chances). Chris Warner gave me a chance to write a non-humor genre comic after I pitched Predator: Bad Blood to him. Sierra Hahn worked very hard to keep Beasts of Burden going. Daniel Chabon has been my editor for years now, he got the omnibus editions out and helped me bang my Blackwood pitch into shape and is my lifeline there, especially now that Mike Richardson is no longer there.

And while it's difficult to mention Scott Allie because of the behavior that got him expunged from the industry, he was instrumental in bringing me over to DHC. Beasts of Burden wouldn't have come together if it wasn't for his offering me an opportunity to write a horror story. So, I feel that's worth mentioning, only with a big asterisk after the name.

I wish I could also list all the assistant editors, designers and folks in marketing who have been helpful and enthusiastic about working with us on Beasts of Burden and the Nerd Inferno material, et al. But I can't. This post spun out of control enough as it is.

So, yeah. I've been fortunate in my relationship with Dark Horse, bumpy at times as with any company, but overall, I've been happy there. And I have some good memories from SDCC and other events I've done where Dark Horse was present. And some stories.

Sometimes it feels weird because I feel like I should have had more issues dealing with them. I'm not going to say I've agreed with everything they've done (Allie should have been dumped as soon as things were known, I don't know what's going on with the union situation at the moment and I wouldn't have published Bob Burden after the millenium and told Mike so at NYCC one year). But I've managed to escape any real drama (on the whole), and definitely benefited because of Mike Richardson's support of my work. He liked having me there, and suggested me for a few freelancing gigs (that didn't work out/go anywhere, but it's good to get the call/e-mail). Not having him there certainly makes me wonder how things will play out down the line. I don't know where the company is heading in the years to come with the recent changes. I hope the emphasis on comics doesn't change. And I hope to get back to writing Beasts of Burden as soon as I can get my schedule under control (as well as Blackwood, if possible).

Anyway, there's a nostalgia dump in regards to Dark Hors Comics' 40th anniversary. And my 35th year anniversary working with them.

Pretty crazy.