{"id":22330,"date":"2012-10-05T06:18:10","date_gmt":"2012-10-05T10:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/?p=22330"},"modified":"2012-10-04T17:42:51","modified_gmt":"2012-10-04T21:42:51","slug":"history-of-the-comic-book-film-dark-horse-running","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/2012\/10\/05\/history-of-the-comic-book-film-dark-horse-running\/","title":{"rendered":"HISTORY OF THE COMIC BOOK FILM: Dark Horse Running"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a multi-part series, Comic Book Film Editor William Gatevackes will be tracing the history of comic book movies from the earliest days of the film serials to today\u2019s big blockbusters and beyond. Along with the history lesson, Bill will be covering some of the most prominent comic book films over the years and why they were so special. This time, we\u2019ll continue our look at the comic book film adaptations of Dark Horse Comics titles in the 1990s.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Dark Horse Comics came into being in 1986, right at the tail end of the same black and white boom that gave the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles their start. As a matter of fact, one of the two Dark Horse books at start up was Boris the Bear<\/strong>, a satire on the Turtles and all their imitators. The other book was Dark Horse Presents<\/strong>, an anthology which would go on to become one of their longest running titles. From the very start, Dark Horse showed itself to be a home for intriguing stories done by talented creators.<\/p>\n

But doing good work was not enough to guarantee longevity, as many black and white publishers such as Eternity, Aircel, and Blackthorne were forced out of business as the boom went bust. Dark Horse was able to survive long enough to become one of the big four comic publishers today due to the savvy way they tapped the licensed comic book market.<\/p>\n

Printing licensed comic books is a risky proposition for smaller comic book publishers. While a popular property will bring in readers, the rights are typically expensive. You\u2019d have to pick up the right license to make sure it generated enough sales to make the fees you\u2019d pay be worthwhile. Dark Horse played this market superbly, by licensing a number of film properties that others overlooked and doing things with them that no one had ever thought of before.<\/p>\n

Dark Horse picked up the license for Aliens<\/strong>, Predator<\/strong>, Terminator<\/strong>, and RoboCop<\/strong> fairly early in its history. While all these properties spawned successful series that filled Dark Horse\u2019s coffers, the company\u2019s genius decision to pair the properties off with one another is what launched the company into the stratosphere. At the time, the idea that the half-man, half-robot RoboCop could face off against the human-looking killer robot Terminators would have only existed in the world of fanboy fantasy. Dark Horse made the idea a reality, and one of its combos, Alien vs. Predator<\/strong>, inspired a pair of feature films that we\u2019ll cover later on.<\/p>\n

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The success of the above licenses allowed Dark Horse to pick up one of the most expensive, yet most lucrative, licenses around\u2014the Star Wars <\/strong>license. What\u2019s more, the comic book company was granted the honor by Lucasfilms to have all of the comics they published to be in the official Star Wars <\/strong>canon. This made the comics more attractive to the rabid Star Wars<\/strong> fan base, which improved sales and Dark Horse\u2019s bottom line. It\u2019s fairly safe to say that Dark Horse would not be the industry player it is today without the smart way they pursued its film licenses.<\/p>\n

The journey between films and comics for Dark Horse worked both ways. Starting in 1994, Dark Horse became a presence on the big screen. Its first entry was The Mask<\/strong>, which we spoke about last time. That film was followed later in the year by Timecop<\/strong>.<\/p>\n