Mike Richardson (publisher)

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Mike Richardson
Richardson at the New York Comic Con
Born	(1950-06-29) June 29, 1950 (age 73) Portland, Oregon, U.S.
Nationality	American
Area(s)	Writer, Publisher
Notable works	Dark Horse Comics The Mask Timecop The Legend of Tarzan
Awards	Emmy Award Eisner Awards Hugo Awards Inkpot Award[1] Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide Hall of Fame
www.darkhorse.com

Mike Richardson (born June 29, 1950) is an American publisher, writer, and producer. In 1986, he founded Dark Horse Comics, an international publishing house located in Milwaukie, Oregon.^[2] Richardson is also the founder and President of the Things From Another World retail chain and president of Dark Horse Entertainment,^[3] which has developed and produced numerous projects for film and television based on Dark Horse properties or licensed properties.^[4]

In addition, he has written numerous graphic novels and comics series, including: The Secret, Living with the Dead, and Cut as well as co-authoring two non-fiction books: Comics Between the Panels and Blast Off!.^[5]

Early life[edit]

Mike Richardson was born on June 29, 1950, in Portland, Oregon. His family moved to Milwaukie, a suburb of Portland, in 1955. He is a graduate of Portland State University, where he majored in art and played for the university basketball team.^[6]

Career[edit]

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While in college, Richardson built a list of clients as a freelance artist and had planned on starting an art agency under the name Dark Horse Graphics. In 1980, Richardson quit his job producing art and designing products for a furniture company located in Portland and moved to Bend, Oregon, with his wife, Karie, and their newborn daughter, Michelle. He used a credit card with a $2,500.00 limit to open a small, pop culture retail store. The store’s name, Pegasus Fantasy Books, was chosen off a list of twenty suggestions he submitted to the State of Oregon when applying for a DBA registration. The store opened for business on January 1, 1980. After a name change to Things From Another World in 1993, the original store grew into a chain with as many as eleven locations in three states, including Universal Studio’s CityWalk in Los Angeles and Sony’s Metreon in San Francisco.^[7] The success of the on-line TFAW retail site led to a decision to limit expansion plans and, reduce the number of brick-and-mortar locations, in favour of increased emphasis toward online sales.

Dark Horse Comics[edit]

Richardson frequently hosted writers and artists at signings in his retail stores. He repeatedly heard these creators complain that they did not own or control the characters they created, a general practice continued from the industry’s earliest days. He began envisioning a comics publishing company that offered intellectual property rights to comics creators. Dark Horse Comics was born, and with the help of Richardson's friend and writer Randy Stradley, released its first publication, Dark Horse Presents #1, in July 1986. Richardson paid 100% of the book’s profits to the creators featured in the book. Hoping to sell 10,000 copies in order to break even, DHP #1 topped the 50,000 sales mark. The company quickly grew from there. Paul Chadwick’s Concrete graduated from the pages of DHP into its own title and became a critical, as well as financial, success. Many of the titles and characters created in the early days of Dark Horse were created, written, or plotted by Richardson and Stradley.

Over the years, Dark Horse published creator-owned projects such as Frank Miller and Geof Darrow’s Hard Boiled, Miller’s Sin City and 300, Mike Mignola's Hellboy, and Eric Powell’s The Goon. Richardson’s interest in Japanese pop culture led to Dark Horse’s early entry into the American manga scene. The company achieved success with major Japanese titles, including Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima's Lone Wolf and Cub, Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira, and Masamune Shirow's Ghost in the Shell. Following these successes, Dark Horse imported Hiroaki Samura's Blade of the Immortal and Kosuke Fujishima's Oh My Goddess! to the United States, where the series have become two of the longest-running Japanese manga titles in the country.

In 1988, Dark Horse introduced a series based on the James Cameron film Aliens. Breaking from comic tradition, the series was presented as a direct sequel, continuing the adventures of the film's main characters and related directly to the film’s plot. This approach was repeated by Dark Horse in subsequent series based on films such as Terminator, Predator, Star Wars, and Aliens vs. Predator. This approach to film properties has become standard in the comics industry. Dark Horse is currently the largest privately owned comics company in North America.

Along with his other activities, Richardson continues to write comics. In 2014, his collaboration with Stan Sakai, 47 Ronin, was placed on the American Libraries Teen Reading List.^{[citation needed]}

Dark Horse Entertainment[edit]

Early on, Dark Horse Comics received attention from the film industry, with producers and studios attempting to option the publisher's titles. From the beginning, Richardson's goal was to keep Dark Horse and its creators as involved in the development of its titles for entertainment as possible. It quickly became apparent that the only way to assure involvement was to act as a producer on those projects. In 1989, Richardson met producer Larry Gordon, who had heard about the company through his creative executive, Lloyd Levin. Gordon offered him the chance to get involved with a small horror film he was developing, As a result, Richardson set up Dark Horse Productions, later to become Dark Horse Entertainment, and received a co-producer credit on Many Cota’s Dr. Giggles. Two of Richardson's creations, The Mask and Timecop, followed in 1994 and both topped the box office charts. In 2008, Richardson received an Emmy as Producer of the John Landis directed documentary, Mr. Warmth, The Don Rickles Project. Richardson and DHE have been involved in producing more than 30 film and television projects since 1992.^{[citation needed]}

Personal life[edit]

Richardson is married with children. He names Charles Dickens and James Ellroy as his favorite writers, and The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band as his favorite album. He is also fond of basketball, guitars, and fine wine.^[8] He resides in Lake Oswego, Oregon.^{[citation needed]}

Nominations and awards[edit]

• 1997 Razzie Nomination for Barb Wire
• 1999 Eisner Awards Nominated Best Comics-Related Book – Comics Between the Panels – (author with Steve Duin)
• 2007 Emmy Nomination for Hellboy: Sword of Storms
• 2008 Emmy Award Won for Best Variety, Music, or Comedy Special – Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project (producer)
• 2010 Overstreet Hall of Fame For contributions to comic book art.
• 2010 Governors' Gold Award – State of Oregon for Contribution to the Arts
• 2012 Eisner Awards: Won for Best Anthology – Dark Horse Presents (editor)
• 2012 Harvey Awards: Won for Best Anthology – Dark Horse Presents (editor)
• 2013 Eisner Awards: Won for Best Anthology – Dark Horse Presents (editor)
• 2013 Harvey Awards: Won for Best Anthology – Dark Horse Presents (editor)
• 2014 Eisner Awards: Won for Best Anthology – Dark Horse Presents (editor)
• 2012 Harvey Awards: Won for Best Anthology – Dark Horse Presents (editor)
• 2014 Eisner Awards: Nominated for Best Limited Series – 47 Ronin (writer)
• 2015 American Library Association named Richardson's 47 Ronin to its Great Graphic Novels for Teens list

Bibliography[edit]

Comics[edit]

Books[edit]

• Comics: Between the Panels (ISBN 1-56971-344-8)
• Blast Off: Rockets, Rayguns, Robots and Rarities (ISBN 978-1-61655-009-7)

Filmography[edit]

Film[edit]

Year	Film	Writer	Producer	Executive Producer	Director	Notes
1992	Dr. Giggles		N		Manny Coto	Co-producer
1994	The Mask			N	Chuck Russell
	Timecop	N		N	Peter Hyams
1995	Enemy			N	Michael Katleman	Television film
1996	Barb Wire		N		David Hogan	Nominated — Razzie Award for Worst Picture
1999	Virus			N	John Bruno
	Mystery Men		N		Kinka Usher
2003	Timecop 2: The Berlin Decision	N			Steve Boyum	Direct-to-DVD
2004	Hellboy		N		Guillermo del Toro
	Alien vs. Predator			N	Paul W. S. Anderson
2005	Monarch Of The Moon			N	Richard Lowry
	Splinter			N	Michael Olmos
	Son of the Mask			N	Lawrence Guterman
2006	Hellboy: Sword of Storms			N	Tad Stones Phil Weinstein	Television film Nominated — Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program
	Driftwood		N		Tim Sullivan
2007	Hellboy: Blood and Iron			N	Tad Stones Phil Weinstein	Television film
	My Name Is Bruce			N	Bruce Campbell
	30 Days of Night			N	David Slade
	Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project		N		John Landis	Emmy Award winner
2008	Hellboy II: The Golden Army		N		Guillermo del Toro
2013	R.I.P.D.		N		Robert Schwentke
2016	The Legend of Tarzan			N	David Yates
2019	Polar			N	Jonas Åkerlund
	Hellboy		N		Neil Marshall
TBA	Hellboy: The Crooked Man		N		Brian Taylor

Television[edit]

Year	Series	Executive Producer	Notes
1995–1997	The Mask: Animated Series	N
1997–1998	Timecop	N
1999–2001	Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot	N
2012	Dark Horse Motion Comics	N	Internet series
2015–2017	Dark Matter	N
2019–present	The Umbrella Academy	N
2021	Coyote	N
2021–present	Resident Alien	N
2022	Samurai Rabbit: The Usagi Chronicles	N

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• Mike Richardson at IMDb
• Mike Richardson at the Grand Comics Database
• Mike Richardson at the Comic Book DB (archived from the original)