Maverick is a defunct imprint of Dark Horse Comics, created in 1999 by editor Diana Schutz for creator-owned works, to "provid a home for creator-owned properties — providing a certain identity to those creator-owned labors of love that distinguishes them from Dark Horse's licensed books." The imprint, Dark Horse's second attempt at a creator-owned imprint, was relatively short-lived, publishing fewer than fifty issues/titles between 1999 and 2002.
History
Schutz instigated the "Maverick" line at Dark Horse Comics in July 1999 for the purpose of "provid a kind of identity or specific line for those sorts of individual creator visions." Part of the purpose of having a separate imprint was to noticeably separate Dark Horse's output into discrete sections, and as Schutz notes: The aim of the Maverick line was to "push the medium a little bit," although Schutz recognized that such titles are often a hard sell. To help address this, the Maverick Annual anthologies put newer creators alongside established names such as Frank Miller and Sam Kieth.
Titles
The first title published was Frank Miller's —Miller also having suggested the "Maverick" name—and was edited by Schutz. The first year's output saw Maverick "consolidate... creator-owned, creator-produced titles under one roof—such diverse titles as Mike Mignola's Hellboy, Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo, Paul Chadwick's The World Below, Matt Wagner's Grendel, and Sergio Aragonés' Groo, to mention just a few," bringing in new titles such as Rich Tommaso's The Horror of Collier County and providing a home for such projects as P. Craig Russell's adaptation of Der Ring des Nibelungen. The eclectic titles had one thing in common according to Schutz: "It has a lot to do with the particular project being a labor of love for the individual creator," despite the logical oddity of "attempting to unite the unique visions of each individual creator," which she termed "a paradoxical enterprise at best." The titles featured design work by Cary Grazzini, and each featured an individual variation of the distinctive Dark Horse "horse head", an idea of Mike Richardson's to "truly reflect... the spirit of independence that is Dark Horse Maverick."
Editorial staff
Although Schutz initiated the line, she did not edit all titles, instead she "over the whole line," as she "couldn't possibly handle editing every single book published under the imprint." Ultimate control over which titles best fit the imprint, however, did lay with Schutz and Dark Horse owner-publisher Mike Richardson, with input from others including Phil Amara.
Year two
During its second year, Schutz highlighted Maverick's "trades program" as standing out, both for collecting previously published materials, including Neil Gaiman and Alice Cooper's The Last Temptation, and debuting new work. New works included titles by entirely new creators as well as such legendary individuals as Will Eisner. Somewhat ahead of its time, the imprint would contend with the "financial obstacles" that go hand-in-hand, said Schutz in 2001, with the then-declining numbers of people reading comics, but she maintained that:
Delays
Format changes delayed the release of Neil Gaiman and John Bolton's Harlequin Valentine, which Schutz had originally "planned to as a 32-page comic book with no ads," but, after seeing the artwork, decided that she wanted:
Anthologies
The Maverick Annual anthologies not only featured established and new names, but managed to entice work from semi-retired individuals such as Will Eisner, J.R. Williams, and Denis Kitchen. Kitchen is perhaps better known as a publisher, but as Schutz notes, she is "old enough to remember a time when Denis was not merely a publisher but was also an artist and was one of the early crew of underground cartoonists. And he was a fabulous cartoonist, but simply has been pursuing other interests." Kitchen agreed, during a CBDLF cruise in 2000, to contribute a story to Dark Horse Maverick 2001 called "My Five Minutes With God". Schutz also wanted to spotlight then-lesser known French individuals Philippe Dupuy and Charles Berberian, beyond their normal Drawn and Quarterly audience.
