Dark Horse's original founder no longer retains his position

The Oregonian reported that Mike Richardson, the founder of Dark Horse in the mid-1980s, and sold ownership 5 years ago, is no longer their CEO:

Publisher and Producer Mike Richardson is no longer serving as chief executive officer of Dark Horse Comics, the media enterprise he started from a single comic book store in Bend, Oregon.

Embracer, the Swedish video game holding corporation that acquired Dark Horse in 2022, has announced gaming executive Jay Komas as interim chief executive officer. Richardson had continued as chief executive officer following the acquisition.

Embracer declared the leadership transition in a statement that went out to business partners and creators according to Popverse, a pop culture news site.

“As part of our long-term strategy to better align Dark Horse within a more interconnected and forward-thinking group structure, we are enacting modifications to modernize the enterprise and enhance collaboration across publishing, gaming, film, merchandise, and other essential sectors,” Embracer stated in the announcement.

Well even before this, Dark Horse was already showing signs of deterioration in the past decade, from political correctness, and they once employed an editor named Scott Allie who was accused of sexual assault, but it took a while until they finally threw him out. And he was quite a wokester, based on what politics he emphasized, no doubt for virtue signaling to obscure his real characteristics. So Dark Horse isn't so clean, and lurching towards Orwellian tactics in writing/art does nothing to improve the situation. I think Richardson did build up an admirable business, but his failure to act against Allie back in the day dampens that impact.

He launched the publishing venture in 1986 with a focus on safeguarding creators’ rights. The move allowed him to secure some of the hottest comic book talent of that era. Dark Horse became home to creators including Frank Miller, who published “Sin City” and ”300," and Mike Mignola, who developed the Hellboy universe in the early ’90s.

The company also published licensed comics including “Alien” and “Predator,” even merging the two science fiction franchises into an “Alien vs. Predator” comic book series that eventually transitioned to the big screen in the early 2000s. [...]

Under Richardson, Dark Horse pioneered initiatives to adapt its comics for Hollywood while remaining involved as producers. Early films included “The Mask,” “Timecop,” “Dr. Giggles” and “Barb Wire.” “Hellboy” and “Sin City” both became successful movie franchises as well. Richardson most recently served as executive producer on “The Umbrella Academy,” Netflix’s adaptation of Gerard Way’s Dark Horse comic.

There are some gems that came from Dark Horse, I don't deny that. But I think a problem with a company employing the word "dark" in their name is that that's what they wound up emphasizing, if we go by what Frank Miller and Mike Mignola's GN series are about, along with the 2 aforementioned horror-themed movie franchises. But regarding creators' rights, did this ever extend to publishing agreements even with writers whose politics Richardson didn't agree with? If Richarson and company vehemently refused to publish, say, Mike Baron's Private American GN, then that's a very serious mistake right there, and exposes just the beginning of what's wrong with their MO. If Richardson and company were unwilling to show the courage to platform a product like that and prove they won't let "controversy" get in the way of something building on a right-wing angle, that only compounds what went wrong when they failed to fire Allie for his offensive behavior.

As for Hellboy and Sin City becoming "successful" film franchises, the former may have had 4 films, but the latter only 2, and the second was a failure. Also, IIRC, it was co-produced by the Weinstein Company, which collapsed out of business mighty fast after Harvey W's sexual abuse scandal came to light. And not all of DH's movie ventures were successful, recalling Barb Wire was a failure, its shoestring budget at the time notwithstanding.

And then Richardson goes so far as to sell off his company, suggesting it wasn't really the huge success they claim it to be. Why else sell it if it were?

There are decent items they've published, to be sure. They once, amazingly enough, reprinted Baron and Steve Rude's Nexus from 1981-97. But like many other publishers run by apparently left-leaning ideologues, they had some serious flaws that don't look likely to be smoothed over now that Richardson's on his way out. And who knows, maybe the time's come for some creators who've worked with them to move shop.