Comics

Lara's first appearance in the Top Cow Comics began in 1997, when she appeared alongside Sara Pezzini in the Witchblade series. However Lara also appeared in the Sega Gaming Magazine 'Mean Machines' in issue #46, dated to August 1996. You can view it here.

The Top Cow series include issues #1-50, plus several one-off stories, crossovers, a #0 and #1/2 issue, and a 12 part 'Journeys' series. The series of #1-#50 ran from December 1999 until March 2005, and was collected into a book called 'Lara Croft Tomb Raider Compendium, Volume 1', which was released in November 2006. There were plans for a Volume 2, but sadly it never saw the light of day. In an article on TombRaiderChronicles.com dated 19th July 2004, the Top Cow President Matt Hawkins said “Once we spoke with Eidos and realized they were changing Lara Croft up quite a bit it seemed a prudent course to wrap up what we’re doing now and prepare for the newer version sometime late next year”. The author of the article also adds ‘Once Tomb Raider #50 has shipped, Top Cow still plans to release various Tomb Raider specials and one-shots before Volume 2 starts up again with the redesigned character. Top Cow will continue to produce new trade paperbacks of existing storylines and keep the issues in print’ [SOURCE].

The next series of comics began in 2013 with the new direction of the Tomb Raider series. This time, the publisher was Dark Horse Comics. Lara's first appearance in the new series began with 'The Beginning', which was a pre-order incentive for US fans.