It was a wild week in comics, one with surprising twists and turns throughout. But in this kind of, sort of abbreviated edition of Comics Disassembled, in which I look at nine things I liked or didn’t like from the week of comics, it all has to start with…maybe not the biggest news of the week, but the item that’s the most personally important to me.

That’s just the way it has to be.

Beetle Moses, But as a Book!

This one I’ve known was coming for a bit, but that doesn’t make it any less exciting: Beetle Moses is coming to print! The Beetle man himself, Harris Fishman, announced that his social media superstar webcomic Beetle Moses — which isn’t really about anything, in that it’s a comic strip that just tours random wild and weird thoughts that hit Fishman’s brain in always hilarious and sometimes poignant fashion — is getting its first collection this October in Beetle Moses: A Comics Menagerie. This should be a gem, as it’s coming complete with “all your favorite beetle moses comics in one place, plus brand new comics and gorgeous full page illustrations.” Not only that, but it’s now available for order.

Yes, that sounds very good, indeed.

As you may know, I am a bit of a fan of Beetle Moses, with it even earning the vaunted Comic of the Year Award in the 2025 SKTCHD AWRDS. That’s for good reason. Beetle Moses rules, and if you’ve never read it before simply because you’re not a fan of reading comics on the internets, boy, do I have good news for you here. Now the internet is coming in paper form, and it’s going to be glorious. I’d tell you that you should order it, but based on the fact that this book instantaneously went to the top of the Humorous Graphic Novels charts on Amazon, a fair few folks have already made that move. But I highly recommend getting onboard the Beetle Moses train when this puppy hits in October, whether you order it through Amazon or not (preferably not).

My money is on this being a true Christmas hit — even if I have to single-handedly will it into existence by buying this book for every person I know — so comic shops, I’d take a long look at ordering more than you think you’ll need for this one. Beetle Moses is kind of a big deal!

Mike Richardson, Departing

For those who want an unnecessary level of inside baseball in terms of how I write this column, even though this is the second point, I am writing it last. That’s because I honestly have dreaded tackling it, because how do you even cover news that is this notable?

Let’s start by saying what it is: Mike Richardson, the founder and CEO of Dark Horse Comics, someone who was for all intents and purposes the living manifestation of the company over its 40 years, has left the company. Whatever the path to that happening was, and there are different takes on the nature of it, Richardson is being replaced by an interim CEO in Jay Komas, someone who comes from one of the Embracer Group’s (Embracer is the gaming conglomerate, although they kind of do everything these days, that bought Dark Horse from Richardson five years ago) other acquisitions in Middle-earth Enterprises, the mothership of Lord of the Rings. And yes, that means maybe the most comics person is being replaced by someone who does not have a comics background.

What fueled this change? Well, the statement from Randy Lahrman, Dark Horse’s vice president of product development and sales, had all the mad libs corporate speak you’ve come to expect from this type of thing in 2026. You see, this is all part of the plan to implement “changes to modernize the business and strengthen collaboration across publishing, games, film, merchandise, and other key areas.” The only part of that sentence that shocks me is the fact that they resisted the urge to use “synergy” in it. Of course, it also has the Kumbaya messaging of wanting to “better align Dark Horse within a more connected and forward-looking group structure” at Embracer, if only to position the entire company for greater success in the future. Sure thing.

That’s it. Richardson is out and Komas is in, and we’ll see what happens next. There was a lot of doomsaying and prophesies being made about where things will go from here, and most of them were not exactly great! I understand the sentiment. Conglomerates like Embracer rarely do things that are good for the company or the industry they’re a part of, with the focus typically being on “how do we do the most with the least?”

But the truth is, we don’t know what will come. Even though the full statement from Lahrman certainly raises concern — there’s enough messaging about “IP” and “interconnected entertainment landscape(s)” that it’s hard not to wonder what this means for non-licensed properties at Dark Horse, especially in the wake of Terry Moore and 3 Worlds/3 Moons’ moves there — the truth is the Dark Horse of today isn’t exactly the many envision from the 1990s and 2000s. That’s not to say they don’t still publish great comics, because they do, but my impression is that the video game/art book side of things is big business for them, and probably more so than their creator-owned comic efforts. I say that as a total guess, so don’t quote me on it, but we’ll see what comes next. I just hope the folks who make the company a special one make it through, because that would be a backbreaker in the wake of Richardson’s departure.

To close, though, I wanted to focus on the human side of things. Even though speculation about what this means for Dark Horse and comics overall is far more tantalizing, and even though several people described this move to me as inevitable (both because of the nature of Embracer acquiring Dark Horse and Richardson being 75 years old), Richardson’s a legend for a reason. You can see how beloved and giant (literally, the man is very tall) a figure he is in comics through the response of the folks who know him. Creators like Mike Mignola and Brian Michael Bendis talked about what Richardson’s efforts meant to them and their careers (as well as noting that they still expect their comics to come out through Dark Horse), but my favorite write-up about the founder of Dark Horse came from DSTLRY and Neon Ichiban’s Chip Mosher. I recommend reading his whole post on Facebook, in which he recounts favorite memories involving Richardson, but my favorite part of it was the following.

“But one thing I want to say: the guy loves comics. He loves comic books with every inch of his being.”

That might not sound like much of a surprise. A man who started a comic publisher loves comics. Shocking. But it matters, and I love that Chip emphasized it. The comic industry needs more people who love comics to the degree Richardson does, as that passion fuels better work and better treatment of those involved in the process. While I don’t know what will happen next, losing someone like Richardson is just that: a loss. Because who thinks comics needs fewer people that are passionate about the medium in the way Richardson was? Hopefully no one, and hopefully Dark Horse can carry that spirit on with them going forward. We’ll find out, I suspect.