Dark Horse Comics is one of the largest "independent" American comic book publishers, behind dominant publishers Marvel Comics and DC Comics. Dark Horse published the three-issue comic book miniseries Serenity: Those Left Behind, Serenity: Better Days, and the online comic Serenity: The Other Half. In 2010, it released two more graphic novels, Serenity: Float-Out and Serenity: The Shepherd's Tale.
Mike Richardson, the owner of several comic book shops in the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area, began to publish in 1986 with an anthology series called Dark Horse Presents, investing profits from his stores into Dark Horse Comics. The publisher is based in Milwaukie, Oregon.
Overview[]
Dark Horse publishes many licensed comics, including comics based on Star Wars, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Aliens, and Who Wants to be a Superhero? Dark Horse also publishes creator-owned comics such as Frank Miller's Sin City and 300, Mike Mignola's Hellboy, Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo, Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira and Michael Chabon's The Escapist. From 1993-1996, Dark Horse published a line of superhero comics under the Comics Greatest World imprint, which was later renamed Dark Horse Heroes. After 1996, publication in this line came to a near halt, ceasing production of any books concerning the characters with the publication of the last crossover books involving Ghost, in the early 2000s. Today, the comic arm of the company flourishes despite no longer having their own universe of superpowered characters.
Dark Horse's film arm, Dark Horse Entertainment, produces films based on Dark Horse Comics, including The Mask and Hellboy.
Their DH Press imprint publishes novelizations of their more popular comic book titles, including Aliens and Predator.
List of Serenity comics, short stories, graphic novels & collections published by Dark Horse[]
Data is referenced both from the Wikipedia article on Serenity (comics) and product listings found at Dark Horse's retail website. Dark Horse's entire print run was reprinted by Boom! Studios, starting November 7, 2018 with Firefly: Legacy Edition - Book One trade paperback and concluding on July 1st, 2020 with the massive Firefly: Legacy Deluxe Edition hardcover, collecting the entire print run in a single volume. The Boom! Studios reprints are listed in the right-side columns on the table below. A Story Arc listed in quotation marks is either a short story published outside of the regular Serenity comics or a graphic novel one-shot release - published in a single volume, not as a collection of comic books.
| Story Arc/Series Title | Issue # | Comic Book Release Date | Release Notes | Writer(s) | Artist(s) | Colorist | Cover Artist(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Serenity: Those Left Behind | 1 | 07/20/2005 | Joss Whedon, Brett Matthews | Will Conrad | Laura Martin | John Cassaday (Mal), J.G. Jones (Inara), Bryan Hitch (Jayne) | |
| 2 | 08/03/2005 | Joe Quesada (Zoë), Jo Chen (Kaylee), Tim Bradstreet (Book) | |||||
| 3 | 09/09/2005 | Leinil Yu (Simon), Sean Phillips (Wash), Joshua Middleton (River) | |||||
| Serenity: Better Days | 1 | 03/12/2008 | Michelle Madsen | Adam Hughes | |||
| 2 | 04/09/2008 | ||||||
| 3 | 05/14/2008 | ||||||
| Serenity: "The Other Half" | n/a | August 2008 | Short story: MySpace Dark Horse Presents; exact release date unknown | Jim Krueger | Julius Ohta | n/a | |
| Serenity: Float Out | one-
shot |
06/02/2010 | Patton Oswalt | Patric Reynolds | Dave Stewart | Jo Chen | |
| Serenity: "Downtime" | n/a | 11/11/2010 | USA Today newspaper | Zack Whedon | Chris Samnee | n/a | |
| Serenity: The Shepherd's Tale | one-
shot |
11/3/2010 | released only as hardcover graphic novel | Joss Whedon, Zack Whedon | Steve Morris | ||
| Serenity: "It's Never Easy" | n/a | 05/05/2012 | Free Comic Book Day 2012: Star Wars/Serenity | Zack Whedon | Fábio Moon | Cris Peter | n/a |
| Serenity: Leaves on the Wind | 1 | 01/29/2014 | PENCILS: Georges Jeanty, INKS: Karl Story | Laura Martin | Dan Dos Santos, Georges Jeanty (variants) | ||
| 2 | 02/26/2014 | ||||||
| 3 | 03/26/2014 | ||||||
| 4 | 04/30/2014 | ||||||
| 5 | 05/28/2014 | ||||||
| 6 | 06/25/2014 | ||||||
| Serenity: "The Warrior and the Wind" | n/a | 05/07/2016 | Free Comic Book Day 2016: Serenity/Hellboy/Aliens | Chris Roberson | Stephen Byrne | n/a | |
| Serenity: No Power in the 'Verse | 1 | 10/26/2016 | PENCILS: Georges Jeanty, INKS: Karl Story | Wes Dzioba | Dan Dos Santos, Georges Jeanty (variants), Adam Hughes (cover of Dark Horse Presents 30th Anniversary Issue, featuring issue #1 of this series, released 10/26/2016) | ||
| 2 | 11/20/2016 | ||||||
| 3 | 12/28/2016 | ||||||
| 4 | 01/25/2017 | ||||||
| 5 | 02/22/2017 | ||||||
| 6 | 03/29/2017 | ||||||
| Story Arc/Series Title | Trade Paperback Collection | TPB Release Date | Hardcover Collection | HC Release Date | Boom! Studios Legacy Ed. TPB | Legacy TPB Release Date | Boom! Studios Legacy Deluxe Ed. HC | Legacy Deluxe Ed. HC Release Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Serenity: Those Left Behind | Serenity: Those Left Behind | 2/1/2006 | Serenity: Those Left Behind | 11/14/2007 | Firefly - Legacy Edition: Book One | 11/7/2018 | Firefly - Legacy Deluxe Edition | 7/1/2020 |
| 2nd printing: Serenity - Volume 1 Those Left Behind | 8/15/2012 | |||||||
| Serenity: Better Days | Serenity: Better Days | 10/8/2008 | Serenity - Volume 2: Better Days and Other Tales | 8/31/2011 | ||||
| Serenity: "The Other Half" | No TPB release of these story arcs under Dark Horse | |||||||
| Serenity: Float Out | ||||||||
| Serenity: "Downtime" | ||||||||
| Serenity: The Shepherd's Tale | Serenity - Volume 3: The Shepherd's Tale | 11/3/2010 | ||||||
| Serenity: "It's Never Easy" | Serenity - Volume 4: Leaves on the Wind | |||||||
| Serenity: Leaves on the Wind | Firefly - Legacy Edition: Book Two | 1/30/2019 | ||||||
| Serenity: "The Warrior and the Wind" | Serenity - Volume 5: No Power in the 'Verse | 8/8/2017 | ||||||
| Serenity: No Power in the 'Verse | ||||||||
License transfer[]
On July 2, 2018, Boom! Studios announced that they had acquired the comic book and graphic novel publishing licensing for Firely. This apparently includes titles previously released by Dark Horse Comics since the announcement also revealed details about Firefly: Legacy Edition, Book One which "collects previously released Serenity comics for the first time under one cover", listing them as "official sequels" to Firely and Serenity.[1]
Notes and references[]
- Dark Horse Comics: The First Twenty Years (by Mike Richardson, Frank Miller and others, 384 pages, Dark Horse, March 2008, ISBN 978-1-59307-608-5)
- ↑ BOOM! Studios Introduces Joss Whedon's Firefly Comics, BOOM! Studios, July 2, 2018
External links[]
- Dark Horse Comics - Official Site
- Things From Another World - Online retailer of comics and collectibles, sister company of Dark Horse Comics