No American comic publisher has done more licensing of comic material for and from the screen than Dark Horse, the Portland, Oregon-based company that also maintains an office on the Universal lot in Hollywood.  Therefore it makes perfect sense for the European comic syndicate Strip Art Features (SAF) to work with Dark Horse in order to get SAF properties exposure in the U.S.  This collaboration will include adaptation of SAF material for film or television as well as distribution of European-created graphic novels in the U.S.

It looks like something should be happening on the movie/TV front very soon.  Before partnering with Dark Horse, SAF was working with Scott Rosenberg's Platinum Productions, and at least one of the projects that Platinum was pushing is very close to a done deal.  While SAF will now be working out of the Dark Horse Hollywood office with Dark Horse pitching the SAF properties, Platinum will continue to work on the projects they began with SAF.

Strip Art Features arranges multi-lingual printing of graphic novels for various European markets, and it definitely makes economic sense to add an English portion to the print run.  Dark Horse will publish the English language graphic novels under their new 'Venture' imprint.  The first book in the series, the gritty police story Blood Ties by the Belgian artist Hermann and writer Yves Huppen, is already in stores.  Although the size of the current audience in the U.S. for serious, non-superhero graphic novels makes publication of a separate U.S. editions problematic, the co-printing deal that Dark Horse and SAF have worked out will give American audiences a chance to savor the delights of a different comic culture.  Stores that can sell Jimmy Corrigan, Safe Area Gorzade, and Little Lit should be carrying the Venture titles.  The audience for serious, highbrow comics in the U.S. is very small when compared with superhero fandom, but it has been growing -- and contrary to the conventional wisdom, the two audiences are not completely mutually exclusive.  And of course if a movie actually gets made, demand could spike dramatically.