R.I.P. Dark Horse Star Wars

shaneb

After hearing the mention that they were pulling the Dark Horse Star Wars titles on the show, and that they were selling the entire catalog for $300 digitally, I actually went down to my comic shop to inquire. I am in Portland, Oregon, and go to Things From Another World, which is owned by Mike Richardson and Dark Horse comics(Dark Horse is practically physically attached to one of their locations). I talked to the manager there and he confirmed that not only are they obviously not having them anymore since the Marvel titles are coming out, but they literally are going to have to pull all issues that are for sale. This will include back issues and all trades, all of which will be unavailable for sale on the direct market. Marvel may have the option to reprint, but since Disney has declared that they are non-canonical, it is unlikely.

I have never been the hugest Star Wars comics fan, except for Brian Wood's newish series, and now I am kicking myself for not holding on to the several dozen Star Wars comics I had ended up with over the years. Something tells me that these may actually be a hot item now that they will be perpetually out of print...

kiwijase

I have all the Al Williamson Archie Goodwin reprints. They're a lot of fun. It's a shame they won't be in circulation any more.

nweathington

I'm sure Disney/Marvel will be focused on their own output for the next few months, but if they think they can make money on any of the Dark Horse material or anything that came before, I'm equally sure they'll reprint it eventually.

The newspaper strips have been reprinted a few times now, so they may let them rest a while, but I wouldn't be surprised to see them in print again in a few years.

mwhitt80

There should be a trade of darkhorse material in the marvel section in the jan. Previews.

bralinator

nweathington said:

I'm sure Disney/Marvel will be focused on their own output for the next few months, but if they think they can make money on any of the Dark Horse material or anything that came before, I'm equally sure they'll reprint it eventually.

The newspaper strips have been reprinted a few times now, so they may let them rest a while, but I wouldn't be surprised to see them in print again in a few years.

You're right @nweathington‌ - Marvel is reprinting all of the Dark Horse material under their "Legends" banner. Discussed in the recent episode 1526 talkback here.

TheHotWindBlowing

I'm confused.

Marvel owns the Star Wars franchise now?

Why is Dark Horse doing this?

hauberk

Disney owns Marvel and LucasFilms. As a result Marvel has regained publication rights.

Only thing that really puzzles me is the notion of not being able to sell back issues.

David_D

@shaneb‌ did your store owner really think they have to pull and return the Dark Horse Star Wars material they have bought and have in the store? If so, I think they have been misinformed.

ctowner1

I think it's just that Dark Horse no longer has the rights to publish any Star Wars material b/c Disney/Marvel owns those rights. I don't think that comic shops are robbed of their rights to sell copies of books that they already purchased and own. Unless perhaps they signed something when they originally bought them limiting their resale rights.

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shaneb

@David_D, yes, he said that they literally had to pull them. And his direction actually comes from Mike Richardson himself, since he owns the store. I'm happy to hear that Marvel will reprint them under the Legends banner, that makes perfect sense. I'm wondering if the old Dark Horse comics and trades will become hot items. I know there are a lot of Star Wars fans who are tied really hard to the old continuity. I am mainly happy that the Brian Wood series will continue to be accessible, since that was such an amazing contribution.

bralinator

shaneb said:

I am mainly happy that the Brian Wood series will continue to be accessible, since that was such an amazing contribution.

Ditto

CageNarleigh

The only Star Wars comic I can remember reading in recent years was that one about the origin of the Force. Did that ever get traded?

David_D

shaneb said:

@David_D, yes, he said that they literally had to pull them. And his direction actually comes from Mike Richardson himself, since he owns the store. I'm happy to hear that Marvel will reprint them under the Legends banner, that makes perfect sense. I'm wondering if the old Dark Horse comics and trades will become hot items. I know there are a lot of Star Wars fans who are tied really hard to the old continuity. I am mainly happy that the Brian Wood series will continue to be accessible, since that was such an amazing contribution.

Ah-- got it. I missed the connection that this is a shop that the publisher (owner?) of Dark Horse owns. So it is not orders from Marvel to shops; or an agreement between a typical shop and Dark Horse as a publisher. Rather, it sounds like an emotional gesture on the part of a specific owner. To remove from his shop items that a shop could totally choose to still sell to people that would totally buy them. And, they are his goods, so it is his right.

I don't know how he explains that move, but I won't put words in his mouth, but the optics of it aren't great, to me. If he is proud of the Star Wars work that Dark Horse published (and I would guess he is, and should be), then why not keep those copies available for customers to still find and enjoy? Why have his shop(s) be the one place where you can't go find those back issues and now out of print collections?

It comes off as a sour grapes move, and disservice to the artists and writers that worked on that material while DH was the steward of it.

Unless there is something contractual for Dark Horse as a publisher/licensee that extends to unsold stock in a Dark Horse owned shop. I suppose that is possible?

SolitaireRose

It's not sour grapes, as the contract (most likely) states that Dark Horse and its subsidiaries can no longer sell Star Wars material. Marvel had the same issue when John Carter went to Dynamite, and had to blow out the Omnibus and dump all of its trades before the deadline, or, back in the 90's, had to dump all of it's Conan stock. Dark Horse's owner owns the shop, so it's pretty easy for a lawyer to make a case that Dark Horse owns the shop.\

I've dealt with this is other areas of intellectual property (mostly videos and such) where right terminate. The fines for violating such agreements are pretty hefty. A hell of a lot more than the cost of a stack of books.

Dark Horse did an great job with the franchise, and it all comes from them picking up the rights while Marvel was working on the "Dark Empire" mini-series for the Epic line. In the 1991 Marvel Upcoming Guide to retailers we got that year, they featured Dark Empire pretty heavily. I can't think of any big missteps they had, although they made the mistake (in my mind) of going down the rabbit hole into non-movie characters like the books did, and once you do that, you kill off bringing in new readers pretty quickly.

I'm pleased with the Marvel offerings so far, and I really hope they keep the franchise prominent and put Name talent on it, and don't do like they did in the late 80's and give it to people who need a book to fill out their contract.

David_D

SolitaireRose said:

It's not sour grapes, as the contract (most likely) states that Dark Horse and its subsidiaries can no longer sell Star Wars material. Marvel had the same issue when John Carter went to Dynamite, and had to blow out the Omnibus and dump all of its trades before the deadline, or, back in the 90's, had to dump all of it's Conan stock. Dark Horse's owner owns the shop, so it's pretty easy for a lawyer to make a case that Dark Horse owns the shop.\

I've dealt with this is other areas of intellectual property (mostly videos and such) where right terminate. The fines for violating such agreements are pretty hefty. A hell of a lot more than the cost of a stack of books.

Dark Horse did an great job with the franchise, and it all comes from them picking up the rights while Marvel was working on the "Dark Empire" mini-series for the Epic line. In the 1991 Marvel Upcoming Guide to retailers we got that year, they featured Dark Empire pretty heavily. I can't think of any big missteps they had, although they made the mistake (in my mind) of going down the rabbit hole into non-movie characters like the books did, and once you do that, you kill off bringing in new readers pretty quickly.

I'm pleased with the Marvel offerings so far, and I really hope they keep the franchise prominent and put Name talent on it, and don't do like they did in the late 80's and give it to people who need a book to fill out their contract.

I get that Dark Horse (the publisher) can no longer restock shops with their Star Wars back catalog or keep soliciting unsold Star Wars stuff in Previews. As that would basically be a new transaction, and I would imagine their licensing agreement forbids that.

What I mean is I'd be surprised that any shop, even one owned by Mike Richardson, would *have* to return items that they bought. Unless that comic shop is actually wholly owned by Dark Horse Comics, and therefore basically a warehouse you can walk into, to buy unsold stock, instead of a comic book store. You know what I mean?

I don't know, but I would guess, that basically when Dark Horse sells a comic to a shop, that shop owns that comic, and may keep or sell it onto a customer as they choose. Dark Horse has not licensed a comic to the shop. They have sold it. And therefore can't point at your back issue bin and say, 'We no longer publish those things you bought, so out they go!' It would be like someone trying to bust a shop selling old Kenner-made Star Wars figures because Kenner no longer has that license. Right?

I would have thought that a Mike Richardson-owned comic book store physical and Dark Horse Comics the publisher would be separate corporate entities (even from a liability point of view I would think that would be a good idea), and therefore the agreement to no longer restock books from the warehouse would be different from the unsold stock on hand. But I could be wrong.

SolitaireRose

All I can tell you is that in my retail experience, I have gotten notices to remove stock due to rights issue and return it to the publisher. LOTS of DVDs have been pulled from shelves due to the publisher not having the music rights they thought they had. My copy of Ed Wood on DVD is one that I was able to get before it was pulled from shelves an hour after I bought it, as it had to be pulled and then reissued with the documentary in the special features pulled.

And Richards's shop is in a legal gray area (any lawyers around?) since he owns it and Dark Horse.

David_D

SolitaireRose said:

All I can tell you is that in my retail experience, I have gotten notices to remove stock due to rights issue and return it to the publisher. LOTS of DVDs have been pulled from shelves due to the publisher not having the music rights they thought they had. My copy of Ed Wood on DVD is one that I was able to get before it was pulled from shelves an hour after I bought it, as it had to be pulled and then reissued with the documentary in the special features pulled.

And Richards's shop is in a legal gray area (any lawyers around?) since he owns it and Dark Horse.

Interesting. I would wonder, in the case of those DVDs, if the distribution system they were purchased from might be a different sort of agreement than, say, a comics a shop orders from Diamond. Which is to say, if you carry DVDs that are fully or partly returnable, then with that comes less of a control over that inventory then an unreturnable comic you end up buying stuck with, but also end up with in a way that no one can take expect to recall it, too. If you aren't allowed to return unsold stock, then there shouldn't be anyone else's right to reclaim or prevent you from selling something that you, basically, have been paying to store.

But, of course, I can only guess what the agreements actually are. Having never run a shop, I don't know what sort of potential recall kinds of agreements might be built into a Diamond account.

That said, I would be very surprised if Marvel would risk the optics of trying to enforce that shops return back issues or unsold trades of Dark Horse Star Wars. Though it may be that Richardson does so in his shop in an abundance of caution.

shaneb

Just to clarify, I was told that they were legally required to pull all backstock of Dark Horse Star Wars content. It seems bizarre to me as well, but that is what they said and that seems consistent to what has been said publicly.

playdohsrepublic

Marvel has released all of the DH Star Wars comics on Comixology today. They didn't even change the trade dress, with the exception of the "Legends" banner across the bottom. Surprisingly this includes the omnibuses for the original Marvel series, which they are releasing their own version of later this month. Smart though, considering none of these titles have been available on Comixology before and gives Marvel a wealth of content to exploit while they build up their own library of original material.

But this would lend itself to the idea that the DH backstock will be pulled. If marvel will be selling the same content I can't see them being ok with losing money over old backstock just as interest is reaching a new high.

AxelBrass

Wow. I wonder if they will be available as part of Marvel's unlimited digital offering?

David_D

playdohsrepublic said:

Marvel has released all of the DH Star Wars comics on Comixology today. They didn't even change the trade dress, with the exception of the "Legends" banner across the bottom. Surprisingly this includes the omnibuses for the original Marvel series, which they are releasing their own version of later this month. Smart though, considering none of these titles have been available on Comixology before and gives Marvel a wealth of content to exploit while they build up their own library of original material.

But this would lend itself to the idea that the DH backstock will be pulled. If marvel will be selling the same content I can't see them being ok with losing money over old backstock just as interest is reaching a new high.

I'm sure Marvel would be glad to replace the Dark Horse collected editions in shops with their new editions of the same material. And I am sure they will aggressively promote that material as aggressively as they promoted their Star Wars #1 to shops. And I agree that doing a big Comixology sale of this old material is a good way to reinforce the idea that Star Wars Comics again = Marvel Comics. And promoting the availability of this older and recent material might be a way to draw attention away from, say, going into a shop to look for trades or back issues of the Wood/D'Andra series.

But to actually try to get shops to pull the Dark Horse books or back issues that these shops bought from Diamond, maybe in some cases years ago, and have on the shelves? I would be very surprised if Marvel spent any energy on that. I just think that would look bad, and would distract attention away from promoting their new reprinting and formats of this material. It could actually draw attention to the availability of the Dark Horse material still on sale in shops. Especially if some shop resisted and called negative attention to it.

Could Marvel through Diamond have some sort of buyback or trade in program? Maybe. There was that thing they did in 2010 (and I thought this was poor behavior on their part) when retailers could destroy some DC comics and trade in the stripped covers for a Marvel Variant. Maybe they would do something like that to try to get old DH Star Wars out of shops. But I don't expect they would try to force it.

And unless there is some clause in contracts with Diamond that I don't know about (and would be surprised to learn of if it exists) Marvel would have no legal authority to compel shops to pull their Dark Horse trades or singles. My understanding is that comic book stores are not exhibitors of material that someone else owns. They are not selling things on consignment. They have purchased this material, likely all of it on an nonreturnable basis (or, in the case of certain promotions, with a limited returnability window). It is not like newsstand distribution. These shops risked on this product, have spent their own resources storing and displaying this unsold product, so I can't imagine Marvel would be able to order a pull. (Though, again, having never run a shop or managed a Diamond account, I could totally be wrong on that.)

David_D

AxelBrass said:

Wow. I wonder if they will be available as part of Marvel's unlimited digital offering?

Here's hoping!

playdohsrepublic

David_D said:

AxelBrass said:

Wow. I wonder if they will be available as part of Marvel's unlimited digital offering?

Here's hoping!

That would be amazing, but I'd wager only the original Marvel series and the new content will make it.

As to your point @David_D‌ I agree that there is no legal authority but to pull the old DH stock from shelves, but I would not put it past Marvel to play dirty with incentives. I'm not saying they will, just saying I could see it.

David_D

playdohsrepublic said:

David_D said:

AxelBrass said:

Wow. I wonder if they will be available as part of Marvel's unlimited digital offering?

Here's hoping!

That would be amazing, but I'd wager only the original Marvel series and the new content will make it.

As to your point @David_D‌ I agree that there is no legal authority but to pull the old DH stock from shelves, but I would not put it past Marvel to play dirty with incentives. I'm not saying they will, just saying I could see it.

I could see that, too, based on past behavior. I could see them trying use a carrot to get some trade-ins. Though I think they are smart enough to avoid the optics of using the stick. (If they even have a stick in this situation.)

fredzilla

Here's to hoping for frequent sales! Lotsa books to read.

mwhitt80

I think the reason that Mike Richardson's shop had to pull its DH Star Wars material is common ownership between the store and DH. Things From Another World acts as a store front DH, so it's a little problematic when DH isn't supposed to selling Star Wars comics anymore.

playdohsrepublic

fredzilla said:

Here's to hoping for frequent sales! Lotsa books to read.

The Comixology sales will never be as good as the DH sales though. I got 57 issues of Legacy for $35 back in November. I'm just glad the content isn't going to be lost in a deep dark vault for the rest of time like some of the other Marvel/Disney acquisitions (Muppets, Darkwing Duck, CrossGen etc.)

shaneb

This isn't the first time this issue has come up with them, and I was told that they were given a period of time to sell off all backstock(I think it was six months to a year, not sure). Anyway, their assumption now was that they were going to have to pull them and then donate them somewhere. Right now they are selling a lot of the trades at a big discount.