How Dark Horse Comics Partnered Up With Nintendo For The Legend of Zelda Books

You may recall a partnership that came together a few months ago between Dark Horse Comics and Nintendo, leading to the creation of the Legend of Zelda book set, including the Encyclopedia and Hyrule Historia, which have gone over tremendously well with fans. In fact, the Hyrule Historia in itself has sold nearly a million copies all its own.

So how did such a partnership come together anyway? Nintendo Life recently had a chance to find out, speaking with Dark Horse editor Patrick Thorpe about how the publisher was able to strike a deal and celebrate the Legend of Zelda legacy at the same time.

Thorpe explained how the Nintendo partnership first came together. "So in 2011, I tracked down Nintendo's booth at San Diego Comic Con and met Seth McMahill. We exchanged cards and he put me in contact with Cammy Budd who was Nintendo's senior third-party marketing manager. She asked me what a partnership with Nintendo might look like. I knew that the 25th anniversary of the Legend of Zelda was coming up, so I pitched her on a book that would be a retrospective look at the whole series. Initially, she told me that she wasn't sure that they'd have the resources available to support such an endeavor, which is totally reasonable, these are incredibly time intensive to make."

He continued, "A month or so later, she contacted me again saying that she had talked to NCL and that they were in talks with another company, which I later learned was Shogakukan, who was developing a book very similar to that in Japan. They obviously weren't going to do two books, but asked if we were interested in doing a localisation of that book. After bringing in Dark Horse's licensing guru Nick McWhorter, we worked out the details and were off and running. Hyrule Historia hit my desk shortly after that."

But more importantly, the books became a location for Nintendo to explain how the Zelda timeline was actually split apart. "The timeline was provided to us, so I do not know the inside story of its development and finalization. But, boy, that was the most hotly anticipated and debated portions of Hyrule Historia. People still debate aspects of it. I love talking to fans about the timeline. There are some really, really brilliant fan theories out there that connect certain aspects of the game. Here's a teaser. The Encyclopedia leans into the timeline and elucidates portions of it. The order of at least one of the video games has moved as well, based on some new information."

You can read more of the interview here, and pick up a copy of The Legend of Zelda Encyclopedia over at Amazon.