Moonlake Comics

Moonlake Comics is an American comic book publisher, being founded by Emilia Houghton and her husband Zachary Duncan, being founded in April 24th, 1991, known for comic strips and comic-books. The company's mascots are Rover and Squawks.

Early history
In 1989, Emilia had started production on Foxy! (a comic strip focusing on a popularity obsessed teenage fox), with the series becoming a sensation. Amazed with the series' success, Emilia then decided to take an opportunity to make more comics, but noticed that she has no comic company at the moment. Influenced, she decided to read most comics from the European comic companies like The Smurfs, Tintin and Astérix and look up inspirations for her comic company.

W.I.P.

Comic strips

 * Foxy! (1991-present)
 * Doggone It, You Chicken! (1993-present)
 * Vampires Next Door (1996-present)
 * The Fashion Model Wannabe (1996-present)
 * Gills! (1999-present)
 * The Sleuth Gals! (2000-present)
 * The Perilers (2001-present)
 * The Guardian Dragon (2002-present)
 * Emma: Hero of the Jungle (2008-present)
 * Brandon vs. Landon (2015-present)

Comic books

 * Samara: The Ultimate Sheriff (1994-present)
 * The Athenaeum Wizardry (1996-present)
 * Amelia's Magical Life in the Real World (1997-present)
 * Abby Wasabi: Part Time Samurai (1998-present)
 * Elizabeth and the Orphans (1998-present)
 * Legacy of the Valkyrie (1999-present)
 * A13x1s (1999-present)
 * The League (1999-present)
 * Ferd the Zombie Horse: The Supernatural Adventures (2000-present)
 * Project Prism (2001-present)
 * Olympus, USA (2001-present)
 * My Secret Life as a Vampire (2002-present)
 * Alexis, Rebecca and Braelynn (2003-present)
 * Agent Wolf (2003-present)
 * The Blood List (2003-present)
 * Justice Mask (2003-present)
 * Shanna: Bringer of the Apocalypse (2004-present)
 * The Alien in Earth (2004-present)
 * The Perils of Captain Nocturne and Light Gal (2004-present)
 * The Wild Troop (2004-present)
 * Odd Adventures of Ginny and Friends (2005-present)
 * Wander of Wonder (2005-present)
 * Five Lives (2005-present)
 * Killing It (2005-present)
 * Lily the World Wanderer (2005-present)
 * Take to the Skies (2006-present)
 * Scotty the Weresquid (2006-present)
 * Body Mates (2007-2015)
 * My Father's A Mad Scientist (2008-present)
 * The Outrageous Misadventures of Triple X Vision and Gem Woman (2008-present)
 * Bloodtide (2010-present)
 * Legend of La Giganta (2011-present)
 * Wander of the Galaxy (2011-present)
 * Branchnut 101 (2012-present)
 * Superneutral (2012-present)
 * Small Life (2012-present)
 * Awww Wholesome Betty! (2015-present)
 * The Cat President (2016-present)
 * Brittney the Witch! (2017-present)
 * Agranado: Legacy of the Kaiju (2018-present)
 * The Epic Adventures of Chad and Wesley (2021-present)
 * Riley Hood: Fable Hunter (2022-present)
 * Punkwasps (2023-present)
 * Nocturnal Adventures with Bate (2023)

Based on Paramount Global IPs

 * Nickelodeon Comics (2021-present)
 * Star Trek Evolution (2021-present)
 * Mission Impossible: Ethan Hunt (2021-present)
 * CSI: Pittsburgh (2021-present)
 * South Park Presents: Coon and Friends (2021-present)
 * Beavis and Butt-Head Are Back (2021-present)
 * Night of the Video People (2021-present)
 * Crazy Adventures of Bridgett and Frank (2021-present)
 * TBD

Comic book miniseries

 * Arcade'd (2014-2015)
 * Moonlake Heroes Unite (2019)
 * Moonlake Heroes Unite Again! (2021)

Comic crossovers

 * Moonlake Gone Wild (2019-present)
 * Moonlake Academy (2019-present)
 * Moonlake Next-Gen (2020-present)
 * Moonlake Tower of Doom (2021-2022)

Video game collabs

 * TBD

Partnership with ViacomCBS and consequent acquisition
In August 2014, Viacom and CBS Corporation (merged into ViacomCBS in 2019) signed a 5-year deal with Moonlake Comics, being recently renewed the same month in 2019 and it was originally set to expire in August 2024.

Both companies expressed long interest on setting a partnership with Moonlake Comics, especially due to Time Warner (currently WarnerMedia) owning rival publisher DC Comics and The Walt Disney Company acquiring fellow rival publisher Marvel Comics in 2009 as representatives for Viacom expressed that "a deal with Moonlake would be beneficial for the ones who want to see projects based on comics on theaters, television and streaming platforms, but don't want them to just be superheroes".

The deal allowed the company to use Moonlake's IP library to produce film adaptions through Paramount Pictures as well as to produce television adaptions for CBS, MTV, Nickelodeon and Showtime, with Nickelodeon mainly aiming for animated adaptions and CBS and Showtime aiming for live-action adaptions, while MTV aims for a mix of live-action and animated.

When asked about a possibility of renewing the deal after the deal expires in 2024, representatives for ViacomCBS stated that "although we'd be glad to renew our partnership, it's a little soon to discuss about it".

On August 2019, various rumors surfaced that ViacomCBS would buy the rights to Moonlake Comics for $5 million dollars. However, on May 2020, nine months after the rumors surfaced, ViacomCBS confirmed that they have no intentions of buying the comic company, especially due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the fact the company intended to sell Simon & Schuster soon to focus exclusively on film, television and streaming, as it would only renew its ongoing deal, ultimately debunking the rumors.

Despite this, during a recent interview, Emilia stated that she is actually interested in letting ViacomCBS buy Moonlake Comics for a decent amount, but also stated that "it's up for them to decide if they would do that, or do the deal for the third time" and will bring that up when "they meet again whether or not they'd extend the deal, or when she ever gets a chance".

Later, on January 13th, 2021, ViacomCBS announced their interest on purchasing Moonlake Comics for $78 million as they intend to keep Emilia Houghton as CEO and promote synergies with the company's brands such as Paramount, CBS, MTV, Nickelodeon and Showtime, aside from expanding the publisher into publishing titles based on the company's IPs such as Star Trek, Mission: Impossible, CSI, NCIS, SpongeBob SquarePants, Ren and Stimpy, The Fairly OddParents, Avatar, The Loud House, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Garfield and South Park.

The deal was finished on April 18th, 2021, with Moonlake Comics being integrated as an unit of ViacomCBS Domestic Media Networks. Shortly after its acquisition, its logo was slightly tweaked by including stars surrounding the moon as an allusion to the company's flagship brand Paramount Pictures, aside from the creation of three new labels: Paramount Comics (for comics based on Paramount's live-action film library), CBS Comics (for comics based on CBS and Showtime's television library) and MTV Comics (for comics based on MTV and Comedy Central's library), aside from inheriting Nickelodeon Comics from IDW Publishing.

Tropes
See /Tropes.

Trivia

 * The company creates comics targeted for different ages, like children, teens and adults.
 * Much like Dark Horse Comics, IDW Publishing and Boom! Studios and unlike Marvel Comics and DC Comics, the company doesn't focus almost exclusively on superhero titles, presenting a variety similar to European comic publishers and Japanese manga publishers.
 * Emilia has stated European comics such as Tintin, The Smurfs and Astérix as an inspiration to bring a variety similar to the ones in Europe, as well as Garfield, Peanuts and Calvin and Hobbes as domestic influences for their comic strips.
 * Moonlake Comics has been shown to be against NFTs (non-fungible tokens), calling them a waste of money and horrible for the environment, even to the point they did a poster of three Moonlake icons (Samara, Squawks, and Foxy) holding a "No NFT!" sign together.