Yesterday Dark Horse associate editor Konner Knudsen announced on social media that they had been laid off from Dark Horse Comics.
Knudson was a six year veteran at Dark Horse, and worked on such titles as Black Hammer, among many others.
The Beat is hearing that Knudsen may only be the first to publicly announce their layoff and that a significant downsizing is taking place at Dark Horse with more than a dozen layoffs. We do not know how many departments were downsized but it is believed several other editors were laid off.
A downsizing at Dark Horse is not a surprise for those who have been following the fortunes of their parent company, The Embracer Group. The Swedish gaming conglomerate (formerly THQ Nordic) purchased Dark Horse in early 2022, as part of acquisition spree by the company, that included Square Enix Montreal, the Lord of the Rings estate, and literally dozens of other gaming companies.
The spree and expansion came to an abrupt halt in late 2022, when the company announced that a planned $2 billion investment by Saudi-owner Savvy Group had fallen through. In mid 2023 Embracer announced a restructuring that included downsizing at its video game holdings. Their financial troubles continued however, as noted in a 2024 report at ICv2, Asmodee, Dark Horse parent shows loss on lower sales.
Through all the video game layoffs, Dark Horse remained surprisingly stable, perhaps because comics publishing is a less volatile industry than video games – and the line was insulated from some of that volatility. Dark Horse CEO and founder Mike Richardson remained positive about Dark Horse’s fortunes despite the turmoil elsewhere, noting that the division was “self funded.”
Recently, however, there were a few signs that the turmoil had caught up with Dark Horse. WE’d heard bits and pieces of some high level staffers being laid off. Earlier this month, TFAW (Things from Another World) an online and brick and mortar collectible dealer founded by Richardson and owned by Dark Horse, told affiliates that they were ending the program as of April 14th. “As we continue to evaluate TFAW’s evolving needs, we have decided to wind down the program to focus on new opportunities.” This could also have also been a reaction to Diamond’s bankruptcy – while everyone has been focusing on the comics part of Diamond’s distribution, they are actually a huge supplier of toys as well.
We’re told that the current layoffs at Dark Horse are being attributed in part to the ongoing “crisis in comics publishing.”
The Beat will update this story as more information becomes available.
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