As Disney fans and Dark Horse readers know, we have republished the long-lost Disney masterpiece by Roald Dahl, a book unseen since 1942 titled The Gremlins. We've also created a variety of figurines in various formats. Now we are proud to add our own small contribution to the Disney universe, with The Return of the Gremlins penned by publisher Mike Richardson.
When we decided to create our own product, Disney was very supportive. Dark Horse is great at seeing opportunities in properties, new and old, that have been overlooked. We knew this was another one of those situations. The Gremlins is a great story with a lot of potential. Doing the comics also allowed us to reprint Gremlins shorts by none other than Pogo creator Walt "Pogo" Kelly, with six pages worth in each new issue.
The Disney Gremlins have a timeless quality, and getting a chance to recreate their world is an honor. They have a heritage and a history that you don't find very often. The modern interpretation of Gremlins is quite a bit different from the illustrations by Disney animation artist Bill Justice, but the concept of them has been with our culture for over half a century.
Disney's George McClements was our primary contact for approval on the Gremlins merchandise project, and Tonya Agurto steered the publishing deal. We pressed Dean Yeagle into service on the illustration of the new comics material, later joined by Fabio Laguna. Richardson had a clear vision as to the updating of the adventures of these mischievous little critters, and he brought the story forward in comic book format.
The Dark Horse PVC sets, large vinyl figures and limited-edition figurines, are intended to represent the Gremlins doing what they do best-causing havoc. Although they destroyed planes in the book, we made a point of picking poses that would make as much sense sitting on your desk as they would on the wing of a plane. Many of the poses were directly from the original Bill Justice book illustrations.
Gremlins don't have a specific skin tone; they come in every color of the rainbow. Fifinellas are always the same-color them beautiful! You can pick any color you want and claim that it is correct, but we wanted to find colors that worked well with each other and gave them an animated feel. With the figures, we wanted to create as much subtlety in the paint as we could. The colors are simple, so we chose to mix matte and gloss paint. Most would overlook details like that, but those are the types of details that we take pride in.
The same attention to detail is present in the new comic book series as well. Richardson felt that there was a need for positive work of this kind for today's audiences, and he and editor David Land went the extra mile to ensure success. We trust you will agree.
-David Scroggy
V.P. Product Development