Before The Boys laid waste to the superhero media landscape with the Sony-produced series on Amazon Prime Video, the hit comics series by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson cut a swath of mayhem through the industry. Dropped by the DC-owned imprint Wildstorm after its first few lurid issues, The Boys got picked up by upstart publisher Dynamite Entertainment, who saw the series through the remainder of its 100-issue run. Now that the show has become a breakout live action hit with a new animated series, The Boys: Diabolical dropping today, Dynamite is riding high on sales of the trade book collections and deluxe omnibus editions, while exploring new opportunities for the other titles in its stable.
Dynamite began publishing comics in 2005 after a decade in business selling licensed merchandise. Over 17 years, the company has followed a remarkably consistent strategy: take proven, if somewhat shopworn, characters and turn them into the kind of books that comic fans love, with solid stories, high quality art, and eye-catching covers (many featuring the photorealistic painting of superstar artist Alex Ross or current fan-favorite, Peach Momoko), delivered in modest quantities to the shelves of local comic shops with clockwork regularity.
That formula has propelled the publisher into comics’ mid-tier, behind the “big two” of DC and Marvel, alongside companies like Dark Horse, Image Comics and IDW, who all jostle for 3-5% monthly market share in the $1.2 billion industry.
The company’s best-known titles besides The Boys include characters dating from the pulp adventure magazines of the 1920s and 30s like The Shadow, Robert E. Howard’s Red Sonja and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan and John Carter of Mars, which the company licenses. Dynamite publishes comics featuring horror host Elvira, a few original company- and creator-owned superheroes, and a character called Peter Canon, Thunderbolt (the inspiration for the Watchmen hero-turned-villain Ozymandias), from the same pantheon as DC’s Peacemaker and Judo Master. They’ve also been adapting the gritty original James Bond novels by Ian Fleming.
Perhaps the company’s most bankable property is the original sexy vampire, Vampirella, which the company acquired outright from its original owners a few years ago, and is now in talks to develop into a major media property, either in feature films or streaming.
Dynamite gets its unpretentious, fan- and comic store-centric ethos from founder and CEO Nick Barrucci. Barrucci, like Dark Horse Comics founder Mike Richardson, maintains an abiding love for the comics he grew up with, and has run his company making the kind of comics he personally wants to see on the racks. “The most important thing is to listen to the fans and let our creative teams realize their vision,” he said.
With the sale of Dark Horse to Swedish game company Embracer Group in January, Barrucci is now the last man standing atop the only top-10 comics publisher owned by a single person.
Like any comics publisher, Barrucci has one eye on the media world. Back in 2019, before it was clear The Boys would be a hit, he bet his company on printing mass quantities of The Boys Omnibus editions to ensure they’d be in stock when the show landed. That paid off big, and Barrucci says he is gearing up for a rush on the title with the launch of the animated The Boys: Diabolical March 4 and the debut of season 3 on June 3.
That has involved managing around supply chain and pandemic issues, which have even impacted domestically-printed books, to make sure comic stores have enough copies on hand. “It’s been a challenging couple of years,” said Barrucci, “particularly for the direct market retailers who are our lifeblood.”
While other publishers have hedged their bets on the direct market by going heavy into trade book sales and distribution, Barrucci has stood by longtime distributor Diamond International, and puts the direct market front and center in the company’s plans. In the depths of the pandemic, he personally went to bat for his own local comic store, Philadelphia’s Fat Jacks Comics, by spearheading a fundraising auction. He’s also an avid collector of original art, hosting weekly live sessions for fellow fans and collectors.
Despite his traditionalist approach to the business, Barrucci has been unafraid to explore new media, new markets like graphic novels for younger readers, and new opportunities like NFTs. Now that The Boys has proven to be a major, culture-defining hit property, Dynamite is actively pursuing its next big adventure.
