Dark Horse Comics

Dark Horse Comics is an American comic book and manga publishing company based in Milwaukie, Oregon. Founded in 1986 by Mike Richardson, it started out as a small comic book store in Bend, Oregon, and has since grown to become the third-largest comics publisher in the United States. Dark Horse Comics is the publisher of Critical Role ' s comic books and comic collections, starting in 2017 with Vox Machina Origins Series I.

Overview
Dark Horse Comics was started by Mike Richardson in 1980 as a comic book store called Pegasus Books in Bend, Oregon. From there, he was able to use his funds to begin his own publishing company, and in 1986, Dark Horse Comics launched with two launch titles: Dark Horse Presents and Boris the Bear. Within its first year, the company added nine new titles to its roster, including Hellboy and The Mask. By 2006, Dark Horse had become the third-largest comics publisher in the United States.

Dark Horse has the rights to make comic book adaptations of many popular films and series, including Alien, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Conan, and Star Wars.

Partnership with Critical Role
On July 17, 2017, at San Diego Comic-Con, it was announced that a comic based on Critical Role would be released later that year. Two months later, on September 6, 2017, Geek & Sundry announced that they had partnered with Dark Horse Comics to publish the series of pre-stream comics, whose title was revealed to be Critical Role: Vox Machina Origins, and that digital issues of the comics would be available on Dark Horse Digital, Dark Horse's online digital comics store, among other retailers. The first issue was released later that month. The six-issue series was later published into a collection, released in two hardcover editions on May 31, 2018 and as a trade paperback on October 15, 2019.

After the success of the first series, on March 11, 2019, it was announced that a second series spanning another six issues would be released, published by Dark Horse and continuing the Vox Machina Origins story. The first issue was released on July 10, 2019. Similar to the first series, the six issues were also collected and released in a limited edition hardcover and a trade paperback in August 2020. An omnibus hardcover edition collecting the first two volumes was announced in June 2020 and released that November. A special issue for Free Comic Book Day was released on January 1, 2020. A third series was promised in a textbox in the finale of the second series and officially revealed on in September 2020, the first issue of which was originally scheduled to be released on December 9, 2020 but was delayed until on February 21, 2021.

A second series of "origins" comics based on the Mighty Nein, titled Critical Role: The Mighty Nein Origins, was announced on November 10, 2020. The first two volumes are scheduled to be released on June 16, 2021 and July 14, 2021, respectively. On December 15, 2020, another series of comics, Critical Role: The Tales of Exandria, was announced, based on "complex NPCs and locations of Exandria". The first issue is scheduled to be released on March 17, 2021.