“Would you have mansions of gold in the sky… and live in a shack, way in the back? Would you have wings up in heaven to fly… and starve here with rags on your back?” From There is Power in a Union, written by Joe Hill.

“We are the workers that make Dark Horse a home to the unique comics, creators, and creative principles known around the world.” From the statement issued last week by the Dark Horse Workers United (DHWU).

Forty years ago comics store owner Mike Richardson decided to take some of the loot that passed through his cash registers and start up a comic book company (Dark Horse Comics). It was the thing to do in the Eighties, but Richardson became the guy who actually pulled it off.

By 1986, most of the so-called independent publishers were coughing up blood and the distribution system looked like it was designed by M.C. Escher after he took LSD. They say timing is everything, but there might not have been a worse time to enter the racket since the paper shortages of World War II.

But Mike did it right, and of the American publishers alive at that time Mike was the only new guy to make it. He did so at a time when Marvel Comics and, particularly, DC Comics were booming. They controlled about three-quarters of the market at the time. Archie Comics was still on the stands, but that was the year Charlton went blooie. Harvey Comics was still around, kind of, flickering in and out of business while changing hands a couple times. They finally gave up the ghosts in 2003. Fun fact: what’s left of Harvey is now owned by NBC/Universal.

So much for ancient history. Richardson slowly expanded the company into film and television production, bringing Dark Horse published properties such as Hellboy and The Mask to screens large and small — as well as a really solid documentary about Don Rickles. Don briefly was also a comic book character.

In March of 2022, Mike decided he had enough of tending to the tubes and wires of industry and he sold the operation to video game holding company Embracer Group, retaining (as is common) his positions as publisher and CEO. He was fired four years later — for the math-challenged, that’s nearly three months ago. Jay Komas became the interim CEO. I believe Mike was the longest-serving publisher in American comics history.

So it goes. As Jack Kirby said, “Comics will break your heart.”

Such a forced transition generates confusion down the ladder, and we don’t know where Komas is taking the company. However, to their enormous credit the staffers who actually do the work at Dark Horse these days have decided to minimize their uncertainly by forming a union, Dark Horse Workers United, which is affiliated with the the Communications Workers of America. The CWA also backs the workers’ unions at both Seven Seas Entertainment and Image Comics.

I realize that all-too-many Americans foolishly conflate unions with communists, anarchists, murders, mobsters, and Democratic Socialists. I gather they no longer lump baby rapists into that group. Unions do one thing aside from promoting the rights of their workers — they cost the 1%ers money. That’s why the present minimum wage has been $7.25 per hour since 2009. In today’s money, assuming the price of gasoline ever goes back to its February 2026 levels, that would be $11.25. But minimum wage earners do not get even that much… as if $11.25 an hour would support anybody’s family.

Unions have done a great deal to protect their members’ safety. This is why, when you bite into a hot dog you do are unlikely to uncover somebody’s thumb.

Unions have their share of problems, not the least of which is acknowledging the purposes and needs of union workers have changed quite a bit since Joe Hill went through the scaffold. They’ve been catching on with a growing understanding of 21st century realities. They still have a way to go, but collective bargaining remains as American as apple pie and even more vital.

So… good for the DHWU. I hope our friends who work at Disney and Paramount, owners of Marvel and DC — assuming Trump approves Paramount’s buyout of DC and its parent company — are paying attention.

Unionists call that “organizing,” a word rarely used in association with the American comic book industry.

To the members of the DHWU, my hat is off to you. Grab it before the cat catches it.