Dark Horse Comics
In the 1990s, Dark Horse Comics was publishing comics based on popular movie monsters such as Alien, Predator, Gamera, and Godzilla. They wanted to base comics on King Kong as well. There were plans on doing a comic adaptation of the 1933 film, as well as pitting King Kong against the Aliens and against the Predators. Furthermore there were plans on producing a Tarzan vs King Kong (aka Tarzan on Skull Island) story as well. But the problems over the complicated and muddled rights to the King Kong character killed these plans. Comic book artist and King Kong fan Arthur Adams, lamented years later in an interview published in the book Comics Gone Ape by Michael Eury,
Well we talked about that. The rights were a horrible mess. Dark Horse couldn't find a way to do it. Someone held rights for the music, someone for the movie, someone for the story, and were ready to sue each other whenever anyone wanted to do anything with it.
The above book has various sketches from the planned Tarzan vs King Kong project that never materialized. The most Dark Horse was able to do was feature King Kong in a one page segment in the one shot comic Urban Legends published in 1993 that dispels the dual ending myth from the film King Kong vs Godzilla.
In 2005, Dark Horse Comics and DH Press were able to strike a deal with Universal to license and produce tie-in comic books in connection with King Kong. This included King Kong: The 8th Wonder of the World a direct comic book adaptation of the 2005 remake. This adaptation was planned to be a three issue mini-series. While issue No. 1 was published, Dark Horse decided than rather publish issues No. 2 and No. 3 on their own, they would publish them along with issue No. 1 again as a collected Trade Paperback in 2006. They also published a mini-comic called Kong: The 8th Wonder of the World that was shipped with the various toys from the Playmates toy line based on the film. As well, Dark Horse published a mini-comic called King Kong: The 8th Wonder of the World Special Edition that was packaged with the Target Corporation exclusive DVD release of the film in 2006.
They also were able to strike a deal with Joe DeVito a year earlier, to publish an illustrated novel (in both hardcover and softcover editions with differing cover art) called Kong: King of Skull Island. This story, by Joe DeVito, was an authorized sequel to the original King Kong story commissioned by Merian C Cooper's estate.
Read more about this topic: King Kong (comics)
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