PSU Magazine Winter 1999

Stradley invited Richardson to join APA-5 , a group of comi cs enthusiasts who shared creative endeavors in order to get group critiques and support. Among its members were Paul Chadwick of Seattle, now renowned for his Dark Horse "Concrete" charac– ter, and Frank Miller of Vermont, who was the instigator of the Batman rev ival and is now a star of the comics industry. His "Sin C ity" comic, published by Dark Horse in 1991 , became the industry's top-se lling comic for older readers. In 1985, Richardson ca lled Stradley and asked him to he lp launch a comics publishing company. "Dark Horse Presents # l ," which introduced Concrete ( 1,200 pounds of living stone with the soul of a poet) and other characters, was the company's first effort. It sold 50,000 copies, doing five times better than Richardson had dared to hope. eanwhile, the word was spreading throughout the comics industry that there wa a tiny company in Oregon which , in addition to making comics fo r kids, was producing a more sophis– ticated comic designed for older teens and adults. But most important, this company allowed artists and writers to reta in the rights to their work. Such an arrangement was unheard of in an industry that had paid Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster a mere $350 for the rights to their creation, then let them go, while the company made billions off the Man of Stee l. Dark Horse's enlightened view made it an exciting new world in the comics universe, but the company didn't truly become a power to be reckoned with until Frank Mill er jumped ship. "The big, key turning po int was Frank Miller," says Richardson. "He is the Steven Spielberg of comic creators, the man who's respon ible for rev italizing Batman with one of the most important comics ever done, 'Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.' Frank Miller was the first major creator to turn his back on the big compani es and bring his work to 8 PSU MAGAZINE WINTER 1999 another publisher, Dark Horse. It started a stampede of talent away from the two major companies." ut of nowhere- well, Milwaukie, Oregon, to be exact- Dark Horse Publication became the third largest, out of about 150 comics publishers in the country. Richardson did occasional writing of comic book material, but left the artwork to the slew of top– level talent the company was attract– ing. At the same time, Richardson was fielding numerous queries from Hollywood studi os that hoped to pull their next hot character from the pages of a comic book. The idea of entering the film indus– try had never been too far from Ri chardson's mind. After all, he had been a science fi ction film fanatic since, as a small child , he aw "The Angry Red Planet." He has never stopped feeling grateful to his late father for fo rcing him to stop playing baseball one Sunday afternoon and sit down to watch "King Kong" on televi– sion. But his fa vorite childhood films were Ray Harryhausen pictures, such "The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad" and "Earth Versus the Flying Saucer ." Richardson definitely liked the idea of expanding into movies because he had always entertained the idea of someday becoming a film producer. He was more than willing to talk to the Hollywood studios, but when he brought up his plan of becoming the film producer, they all stopped listening. "When I began retail my friend told me I was crazy," says Richard on. "When I began the comic company they asked me if I knew anything about publishing. And then they really thought I was out of my mind when I sa id I was going to do films." By this time, he was used to being told that he was crazy. But something, perhaps the already enormous success of Dark Horse Productions, gave him the reassurance that sometimes his crazy notions hit paydirt. So in the face of refusa l after refusal on the part of Hollywood studios, Richardson held fast to his demand that he be allowed to produce. "We didn't get very far until I met a man named Larry Gordon, who was the former president of 20th Century Fox. And he sa id, 'You want to do movies?' I sa id, 'Yeah ,' and he said , 'Okay, we'll do movies.' And we made a deal." Their dea l resulted in "Timecop," starring Jean -Claude Van Damme. A hort time later a dea l was made with New Line C inema to produce 'The Mask." Currently, Richardson is producing hi sixth film, "The Mystery Men," starring William H. Macy, Ben Stiller, Janeane Garofalo and Greg Kinnear. In the fall, Dark Horse will have an animated TV series, titled "Big Guy." The company also produces video games and comic books based on mov ie characters ("Star Wars," "Alien ," "Robocop," "Terminator," "Indiana Jones" and others) that they have licensed . n spite of the kind of succes that would send stars spinning around the head of a comic character, Richardson has used his good fortun e to accentuate what is most important to him: his family and his home. In fact , he recently closed offi ces in London and Paris because he'd rather do business from downtown Milwaukie than be away from Karie and daugh– ters Michelle, 18; Melissa, 11 ; and Molly, 9. And to express his thanks to the town of Milwaukie for being the site of what he describes as a wonderful childhood , he is planning to create a world -class museum of comic and film art. His own large collection will form the core of the museum's holdings. So when the museum becomes a reality, the framed art that now lines Richardson's office will be taken down and relocated to the walls of the museum. And someday, perhaps another little boy or girl from the neighborhood will stand and look up at that artwork and think, "Gee, other people just might think I'm crazy, but ... " 0 (Susan Hauser, a Portland freelance writer, wrote the article "Peculiarly Portland ," which appeared in the spring 1998 PSU Magazine.)