Space Beaver - History

History

In the summer of 1985, 17-year-old Darick Robertson was just finishing up high school. Already interested in art, he had begun sketching some anthropomorphic characters in comic book pages on typing paper with a pen to pass time during summer school. A security guard at a collection agency he worked for at the time, noticed his work and offered to get his work in as a backup story in Komodo and the Defiants, a funny animal comic by small publisher Victory. Robertson began creating 11" X 17" full size inked artwork for the first time, with no training. Before that actually got published, he showed his work to the owner of San Mateo's Peninsula Comics, Tibor Sardy, who was impressed. Tibor Sardy, hoping to cash in on the current funny animal black and white comic trend that had launched the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and many copy-cats, began publishing Robertson's work in October 1986 in a black-and-white format as Space Beaver under the label Ten Buck Comics. While initial sales were high, both the black-and-white comic market boom and the funny animal comic market boom were both coming to a close. Additionally, the book received a 'D-' rating in Comics Buyer's Guide in 1987. As sales slowed, the comic was canceled in April 1989, having published 11 issues.

In 2000, publisher Larry Young agreed to reprint the series in two volumes on the condition that Robertson resolve the cliffhanger the series ended on. Robertson agreed, and the second volume ended with 24 pages of new material ending the series.

The bio on Robertson's official site states, "Space Beaver, (as laughable as it was from the title alone), enabled Darick to learn the ropes of the comic book business".