[SDCC] INDIANA JONES BACK AT DARK HORSE
WIZARD EXCLUSIVE: Publisher Mike Richardson reveals that the company will relaunch the property to coincide with the 4th film
By Andy Serwin
Posted July 25, 2007 11:45 AM
The long-dormant Indiana Jones franchise isn’t just being revived on the big screen with next year’s eagerly awaited fourth film—Dark Horse Comics has received the go-ahead from George Lucas’ production company to bring Indy back to the comics page as well. Dark Horse has enjoyed a long relationship with Lucasfilm thanks to its Star Wars comics line and published the last Indiana Jones comic, Indiana Jones and the Sargasso Pirates, a miniseries that concluded in 1996. Here Richardson talks about how the deal came about and the possibility of re-releasing out-of-print trades.
WIZARD: Tell us a little bit about how this new agreement came about.
RICHARDSON: We published the series a number of years ago and then Lucasfilm sort of pulled it back and put it on the shelf for a while, while they decided what they wanted to do. So we pursued it for some time and finally when they decided when and how they were going to release the new movie and what it was going to be about they finally let us start planning to relaunch the series.
And I guess that you guys were sort of the natural outlet for that then since you had that previous relationship with them?
RICHARDSON: Well, I think that we have such a great relationship with the people at Lucasfilm that I think we like to be their comic partner in all things Lucas.
I understand that part of the plan is you’re going to reprint a lot of the old Marvel material as well?
RICHARDSON: Well, we might do that. Really what we’re going to do is re-release the trades we did that have been out of print for some time. Then Marvel will probably be releasing a big omnibus calling it Classic Indie, just like we did with the Star Wars material.
Have you determined yet what format you’re going to do the Indiana Jones stuff in, and will it be an ongoing book? Will it be a series or miniseries?
RICHARDSON: It’s not decided yet.
I know it’s still very early, but I imagine that you guys are working on putting together a creative team at this point?
RICHARDSON: I have no announcements yet. Honestly, we don’t know yet. We go through a process and find out who’s interested and who’s available, what their ideas are. We sit down with the writers and we flesh out the long-range story ideas and we want to have a certain continuity to the connecting—whether it be an ongoing series or a series or miniseries, we want to have continuity through all of it.
What’s the timeframe for getting the book out? I know it’s still early in the game, but is it timed to coincide with the movie or maybe a bit before the movie?
RICHARDSON: Well, I think that the adaptation of the movie will be somewhere around the movie, whenever Lucasfilm wants us to or allows us to put it out. In the meantime we’ll be putting together our own continuity based on whatever we can use, whatever we can lead up to. Again, we’re very early on this. We’re going to work a lot in the same way we did with Lucasfilm on the Star Wars stuff. It’ll be a combination of what they would like us to do, what we’d like to do and what we’re able to do because they’re going to be protective of the movie and they’re not going to want us to get too close to it until they’re ready.
