[6] While in college, Richardson built a list of clients as a freelance artist and had planned on starting an art agency under the name Dark Horse Graphics.

In 1980, Richardson quit his job producing art and designing products for a furniture company located in Portland and moved to Bend, Oregon, with his wife, Karie, and their newborn daughter, Michelle.

The store’s name, Pegasus Fantasy Books, was chosen off a list of twenty suggestions he submitted to the State of Oregon when applying for a DBA registration.

After a name change to Things From Another World in 1993, the original store grew into a chain with as many as eleven locations in three states, including Universal Studio’s CityWalk in Los Angeles and Sony’s Metreon in San Francisco.

[7] The success of the on-line TFAW retail site led to a decision to limit expansion plans and, reduce the number of brick-and-mortar locations, in favour of increased emphasis toward online sales.

He repeatedly heard these creators complain that they did not own or control the characters they created, a general practice continued from the industry’s earliest days.

Richardson’s interest in Japanese pop culture led to Dark Horse’s early entry into the American manga scene.

The company achieved success with major Japanese titles, including Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima's Lone Wolf and Cub, Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira, and Masamune Shirow's Ghost in the Shell.

This approach was repeated by Dark Horse in subsequent series based on films such as Terminator, Predator, Star Wars, and Aliens vs.

[citation needed] Early on, Dark Horse Comics received attention from the film industry, with producers and studios attempting to option the publisher's titles.