Dark Horse Comics (and Books and Media too) sold to a big Swedish gaming company

Sure you have heard of this news which came just before Christmas, I was surprised when I read that Dark Horse has agreed to be sold to this Embracer Group but, maybe, founder and CEO Mike Richardson was simply tired, after co-founder and COO Randy Stradley left the company some months ago and wanted to retire (not immediately, but probably in a couple of months...) with a good bunch of money....

So here's the news:
Dark Horse Comics properties such as Hellboy and The Umbrella Academy are finding a new home. The indie comics publisher has agreed to be sold to Embracer Group, the Swedish video game conglomerate. The deal is expected to close in early 2022.

The publisher’s new owner, which has 9,000 employees globally, is touting the untapped potential of the Dark Horse library, noting that 159 of its 170 of its owned properties have yet to be optioned for film and TV shows. Dark Horse has a first-look deal with Netflix, which produces the popular Umbrella Academy adaptation, currently preparing for a 2022 season three. The publisher has projects at various stages of development at Universal, Warner Bros., Paramount, Sony, Amazon and AMC.

Dark Horse says it has 300 IPs to mine, including properties such as The Mask and Timecop, which became movies in the 1990s. Hellboy was adapted into two Guillermo Del Toro-directed films in the 2000s, as well as a 2019 reboot starring David Harbour that disappointed at the box office. The sale comes as indie publishers work to mine their properties for film and television, and giants such as Netflix have shelled out millions to acquire the rights to the work of creators such as Jupiter’s Legacy writer Mark Millar.

Dark Horse CEO Mike Richardson, who founded the company in 1986, will remain at the helm along with current management, the companies said. Dark Horse has 181 employees and has offices in Milwaukie, Oregon and Los Angeles. In addition to the publishing side, it is home to Dark Horse Entertainment, which oversees its film and television businesses, and the merchandising arm, Things From Another World.

“The synergies that exist with the Embracer network of companies promise exciting new opportunities not only for Dark Horse, but also for the creators and companies we work with,” Richardson said in a statement. “I’ve had a number of compelling conversations with Embracer CEO Lars Wingefors and I’m very impressed with him and what he and his team have built. I have to say, the future for our company has never looked brighter.”

The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed...

Taken from: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/dark-horse-comics-embracer-group-1235066022/

Yeah, we have to see where this all leads to and if/how it has any noticeable impact on the comic books themselves.  Could just wind up being nothing that we the readers will notice in relation to what books from Dark Horse we currently read.

In the case of Mike Mignola's Hellboy stuff, I believe all that is owned by Mignola, not Dark Horse itself.

Yes, I think so, after all Hellboy was also (a big) part of that Legend imprint, I remember they were all creator owned comics, like Sin City, John Byrne Next Men, Monkeyman and O' Brien, btw do you remember those many Dark Horse imprints of the past?

Barry_Allen wrote:Yes, I think so, after all Hellboy was also (a big) part of that Legend imprint, I remember they were all creator owned comics, like Sin City, John Byrne Next Men, Monkeyman and O' Brien, btw do you remember those many Dark Horse imprints of the past?

Not really.

"Legend" and the "Comics' Greatest World" lines are what I remember, but I had also taken a break from regularly following comic books between roughly 1995 and 2010.

I remember that Peter David written comic book, Spyboy, whose imprint was called Rocket Comics and included also Fused! by Steve Niles, they both had complete italian editions by small local publisher Free Books (!)    and the Maverick imprint which, for a while, included Sin City (the Legend imprint had been discontinued before), Harvey Pekar's American Splendor, but also Grendel, Groo   and some Hellboy too!

I have remembered that the first ever Italian edition (of many) of "Sin City: a dame to kill for", sold on newstands, was published as a Legend title.  See below the cover of the first issue:

the second issue:

and of the fifth issue:

All issues were then collected in a special format paperback, called "Raccolta" (Collected),  now almost disappeared, which was very popular in Italy during the Eighties and the Nineties, which included also the original covers; basically they consisted of the original newsstand issues, glued together under a new cover with, often, a new article on the inside cover.
Here's the cover to the "raccolta" of that Sin City series, also sold newstands at time, without the Legend logo :