You may not know a little publishing company called Dark Horse Comics, but if you are a fan of Concrete (whose brain was transplanted by aliens into a stone body), Hellboy (he of the sawed-off red horns, satanic red tail and gargantuan red fist) or Sin City (the violent, edge-of-desperation town where people and principles are routinely bought and sold), then you certainly know its characters and its comic books.

And if you are a Dark Horse aficionado with an insatiable appetite, the company has more in store for next year. A new comic book series about Buffy the Vampire Slayer is on its way, written by Joss Whedon, who wrote and helped produce the popular television series of the same name. Dark Horse will also release Star Wars: Legacy Vol. 1, chronicling the distant future of the Jedi, as well as 300: The Art of the Film, an account of the movie adaptation of Frank Miller’s comic book mini-series about an ancient, epic battle between Spartan and Persian soldiers.

By nurturing and backing a quirky, brooding and inventive stable of writers and artists, Dark Horse has spent the last 20 years carving out and maintaining its place as a scrappy comic book franchise in an industry dominated by Marvel Entertainment and DC Comics.

At the heart of Dark Horse’s varied efforts is Richardson, 56, who is also its founder and president. He said “Dark Horse, with about 100 employees, had $30 million in revenue last year. We built our publishing platform around creators’ rights. Our pitch was, we’ll match the rights that you get from other companies and we’ll let you own the work.”

Dark Horse, which is privately held, has endured in an industry where many small publishers last less than a year. It has thrived, its owners say, by sharing financial success with its artists and taking its role as an independent publisher very, very seriously. “Every comic we do, whether we ask to share the film or toy rights or not, we publish because we think it’s a great comic,” said Richardson.

Dark Horse pays by the story or the page, and shares profit generated by comic books and related merchandise. Richardson accepts uncertain timetables. “We support the creator and the rate they can produce it. We want them to be special; sometimes that’s not possible to produce on a 30-day schedule,” he said.

Licensed books, unlike creator-owned titles that can be as tame or as daring as a publisher desires, may have to observe some outside restrictions. “Our basic guidelines are: ‘Don’t do anything in the comics that you wouldn’t see in the films,” said Stradley of Dark Horse. “It’s an easy rule to follow.”

Dark Horse approaches the licensed titles as sequels to the films, not simply repeating the same story. Its Aliens adaptation was a hit, selling more than one million copies. In a twist, Dark Horse’s first Predator series was adapted into the story for the film sequel, Predator 2. In turn, in order to protect its license, Dark Horse adapted that film back into a comic.

“So a comic was adapted into a movie which was then adapted into a comic,” Richardson said.