Dark Horse

Whether you’re a veteran ‘Critter’ or a newcomer who has just finished watching The Legend of Vox Machina on Amazon Prime, the world of Exandria is massive and complex. What began in 2015 as a group of voice actors playing Dungeons & Dragons in a living room has evolved into a multimedia empire, and this growth is most evident in their comic books.

At its heart, Critical Role is an “actual play” web series where Dungeon Master Matthew Mercer leads a cast of voice actors (including Laura Bailey, Ashley Johnson, Liam O’Brien, Taliesin Jaffe, Marisha Ray, Sam Riegel, Travis Willingham, and more) through epic, improvised stories. The show is divided into massive “Campaigns,” each following a different adventuring party across the world of Exandria.

Published by Dark Horse Comics, the Critical Role graphic novels aren’t adaptations, but canon stories, mainly prequel tales. They fill in the “missing” years of the campaigns, providing backstories that happened before the cameras ever rolled.

Read More »Critical Role Comics Reading Order (Vox Machina, Mighty Nein, Whitestone Chronicles)

Today, we toss a coin to the Witcher, the famous Geralt of Rivia and the leading man of the Witcher Franchise. Created by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski, The Witcher began as a series of novels and short stories that gained a cult following and became a cultural phenomenon in Poland.

In the English-speaking market, The Witcher became a household name through the video games and spin-offs developed by CD Projekt Red since 2007. These games revolves around Geralt’s adventures in a world of magic, political intrigue, and dangerous creatures. Players must explore, combat enemies and make difficult decisions to complete quests in this complex and immersive fantasy world. This reputation naturally grew more years later, with the Netflix television series!

While the video games act as non-canonical sequels to the books, they are often considered part of their own Universe, a canon that has expanded over time with short stories, promotional videos, and a rich library of comics.

Go beyond the books and video games to explore the world of Geralt of Rivia with our Witcher Comic Guide!

Read More »The Witcher Comics Reading Order

Not to be confused with Avatar: The Last Airbender, the ‘Avatar’ we are concerned with today was created by James Cameron for the big screen. This epic environmental tale transports us to the alien world of Pandora, a moon inhabited by tall, blue, cat-faced humanoids called the Na’vi, as well as myriad fauna and flora. The Na’vi come into conflict with the RDA (Resources Development Administration), a human organisation that has established a colony and employs both scientific and military means to extract resources.

Avatar was released in 2009 and became the highest-grossing film of all time. It was the beginning of a franchise that expanded over the next 15 years with sequels, video games, a theme park attraction, art books and several comic books!

In October 2015, publisher Dark Horse signed a 10-year partnership to publish Avatar comics, releasing their first one-shot comic set in the Avatar universe for Free Comic Book Day in 2017. This has been followed by several miniseries and a graphic novel series.

Today, we are taking a closer look at the Avatar comics published by Dark Horse that transport us to the world of Pandora through prequels, sequels and spin-offs.

Read More »James Cameron’s Avatar Comics, The Stories Beyond the Movies

Alongside The Elder Scrolls and The Witcher, Dragon Age has become one of the most influential fantasy worlds in modern gaming. Created by Canadian developer BioWare, the series is set on the fictional continent Thedas, a land shaped by magic, religion, and political conflicts, where the player steps into the role of different characters at moments of crisis.

Dragon Age: Origins, the first game in the series, was released in 2009. It was the start of a multimedia franchise that now includes multiple role-playing games, novels, comics, animated films and series, short stories, and extensive in-game lore. Together, these stories explore and expand the history of Thedas, its characters, and mythologies.

Dragon Age’s first comic was also released in 2009, and it would not be the last. The franchise would really start to expand in this format in 2012, when Dark Horse Comics started publishing stories set in Thedas, beginning with the digital-only release of The Silent Grove. Since then, the publisher has released other comics that explore events between the games.

Follow this guide to discover all the Dragon Age comics available in omnibus, hardcover, and trade paperback formats, and see how they fit into the larger Dragon Age universe.

Read More »Dragon Age Comics – A Guide to the Stories Beyond the Games

Black Hammer is an American comic book series created by writer Jeff Lemire and artist Dean Ormston, published by Dark Horse Comics. It tells a different kind of superhero story, mixing mythology with elements of mystery and rural drama in a way that explores the psychological and emotional consequences of heroism. A very Twilight Zone take on the genre.

The story begins a decade after an epic battle in which the legendary hero Black Hammer and the other costumed champions of Spiral City, known as the Parazone Defenders, defeated the cosmic entity Anti-God. Despite their victory, the heroes vanished in the aftermath of the fight. To the outside world, they were presumed dead.

In reality, the group became inexplicably trapped in the small, timeless town of Rockwood, a rural community isolated from the rest of existence. Any attempt to leave is met with failure. As a matter of fact, Black Hammer himself died trying. Without a way to escape their confinement, Abraham Slam, Golden Gail, Colonel Weird, Madame Dragonfly, and Barbalien adopt new identities and attempt to lead ordinary lives, struggling with their fading memories, growing despair, and uncertainty about the nature of their imprisonment.

Launched in 2016, the original critically acclaimed Black Hammer comic book series has since expanded into a shared universe through numerous spin-offs and companion series, collectively known as The Hammerverse.

Read More »Black Hammer Reading Order by Jeff Lemire and Dean Ormston

Since the release of the original Tomb Raider in 1996, British archaeologist Lara Croft has become one of the most recognizable heroines in the video game industry. She has lived many adventures in video games, comic books, novels, theme parks, and films. 

But not all of her stories take place within the same continuity. The Tomb Raider franchise has been rebooted more than once since American developer Crystal Dynamics took over from Core Design. The most recent reboot happened in 2013, with the release of a new Tomb Raider game that serves as a start of what is known as the Survivor timeline. In this continuity, Lara Croft is a young British archaeologist graduate searching for meaning and direction in her life. She is the driven force behind an expedition to find the lost kingdom of Yamatai. Things go as planned and Lara found herself stranded on the island, forced to adapt in order to survive.

From there, she will go on to live other globetrotting adventures in video games, as well as in print! While the previous Tomb Raider comics were independent of the video games, the new stories published by Dark Horse are expanding the timeline with tie-ins set between her video game adventures. 

Follow our guide to discover the latest adventures of Lara Croft at Dark Horse Comics, and where those stories fit within this particular chronology!

Read More »Tomb Raider Reading Order, the Dark Horse Comics

Making his first official appearance in 1998 in the pages of Avatar Illustrated, The Goon has since moved to other publishers (going back and forth between Albatross Funnybooks and Dark Horse Comics), completed a full run, had a few one-shots, a graphic novel, and eventually came back for a new run. It certainly is a tumultuous adventure in comics publishing, but it’s nothing compared to the craziness of The Goon and Franky’s daily life!

We first meet The Goon when he is working as an enforcer for a gangster named Labrazio. He is a hulking, rough-edged enforcer with a tragic past who runs his operation by collecting money, killing deadbeats and generally being violent, with the help of his best friend and foul-mouthed, wisecracking (and equally violent) sidekick, Franky.

We are in Lonely Street, a crumbling American town filled with zombies, mutant creatures, ghostly priests, fishmen, mad scientists, hobos, and monstrous babies, a grotesque caricature of 1930s-50s pulp Americana, with everything from dingy alleys to dilapidated carnivals.

The Goon and Franky must deal with any sort of craziness, taking us on a journey going from absurd comedy one day to grim tragedy the other. It’s a very violent life and, even drawn in a gorgeously painted and cartoonish manner, it’s a gory one, a dark comedy with a sad heart and an affinity for anarchy, mixing noir-style crime fiction, horror, slapstick humor, and supernatural. Definitely, it’s for a mature audience. 

Read More »The Goon Reading Order