Overview

The Dark Horse Comic Collection at Portland State University Library provides a lasting tribute to the work of PSU alumnus Mike Richardson and the company he founded, Dark Horse Comics, Inc. This major collection also honors the importance of the comics format, while providing PSU students, faculty, and researchers access to these works. This significant gift from the personal collection of partners Mike Richardson ('77) and Neil Hankerson ('72) provides copies of each work that Dark Horse has produced, resulting in a complete and preserved collection of the Dark Horse corpus in the Portland State University Library Special Collections. It is a unique research and browsing collection of comic books, graphic novels, collected editions, related books, statues, figures, and other materials.

The Research Collection

The research collection contains one copy of every Dark Horse comic book, graphic novel, collected edition, book, print, poster, statue, figure, and all other products. The research collection is available by appointment in Special Collections for scholarly use.

The Browsing Collection

The browsing collection is available on the third (call numbers A - L) and fourth floor (call numbers M - Z) of the Library along the curved windows. There is one copy of every Dark Horse comic book, graphic novel, collected edition, and book. The collection is available for reading in the Library or for checkout. In addition, these are available for Interlibrary Loan to other libraries. Records for all of these items are in the Library catalog.

About Mike Richardson

After graduating with a degree in art from Portland State University in 1977 where he played basketball for the Vikings, in the mid-1980s, Mike Richardson established himself as a business leader in the Portland metropolitan area with a successful chain of retail comic-book shops he founded. In 1986, he invested profits from his chain of bookstores and with that money founded Dark Horse Comics, Inc. Richardson determined early on that great stories were great stories no matter the medium in which they're told. This belief led him to explore the world of film-making, and he established his own film-making company, Dark Horse Entertainment, in 1992. The company's first major film, The Mask, was a huge success. Dark Horse Entertainment is also credited with the critically and commercially successful feature film, Hellboy.

Today Dark Horse Comics, Inc. is the third largest comic-book publisher in the U.S. and is recognized as the world's leading publisher of licensed comics material. Hero Illustrated magazine named Dark Horse founder Mike Richardson "the most important person in comics." In 2006 Portland State University named Richardson as an "Outstanding Portland State University Alumnus."