Winter is coming, so I think it’s time to do another blog series about old comics.
I did have some problems deciding what comics publisher to go for this time. Eclipse Comics was in many way the ideal publisher for this sort of thing — a wide variety of comics in various formats and genres, and most of the comics are pretty forgotten these days. But I’ve run out of companies like that. Somebody suggested First Comics, but that seems kinda dull. Sure, they published some fun stuff, but the series had a tendency to go on and on and on out of inertia, apparently.
An ideal publisher is one that 1) published a bunch of comics that I want to re-read, and 2) had stuff that I haven’t read at all before.
So I’m seeing just three publishers left, really: Drawn & Quartery (but pre-2000, only, because after that it’s mostly graphic novels, and writing about a graphic novel is basically doing a review, and I hate doing reviews), Pirahna Press (the DC imprint did a lot of weird stuff), and, yes, Black Eye.
Black Eye Books started off as Tragedy Strikes Press (and I’ll be covering those issues, too), but then tragedy struck, they split up and Black Eye rose out of the ashes.
They didn’t publish all that many series — they existed between 1991 and 1998… and then ressurrected a couple years ago! So I’ll be doing all the 90s books, and then all the new books as well, probably.
It was an interesting era in many ways — and probably the hardest decade ever to publish comics. It was after the enthusiasm of both the Direct Market had run out, and after people stopped hoping for another mainstream blockbuster like Maus, too. So there was a lot of tentative “is it possible to publish this thing now? how about this thing?” and the answer to most of those questions was “no”. It wasn’t until Persepolis/Fun Home that people figured out how to do comics publishing again, but by that time Black Eye had gone under.
(While pulling out the “Black Eye” shortbox to snap the pics for this blog post, I did happen upon some publishers I haven’t previously considered doing — like Alternative Comics and Aeon/Mu… Hm… Perhaps those are possibilities, too. Next winter, though.)
I’ll be aiming for one post per day, so this blog series should last about a month.
Hey Lars! What an honour to be featured on your blog retrospective. One clarification here, is that Tragedy Strikes Press was a completely different company than Black Eye Books. I was managing editor at TSP and when that company wound down, I started Black Eye. — Michel
How about Comico or Blackthorne? Both were somewhat in the same mold as Eclipse and I believe both published series that had gone through Eclipse at one time or another. Plus, there are actually some hidden gems in there if I’m remembering correctly.
Found your blog(s) a couple of weeks ago by the way, and finally about caught up- really enjoying most of it, even the stuff I totally disagree with.
Yes, Comico would be a possibility — I’d forgotten about them. They did some good stuff (Mage, and… er… uhm…), and had an interesting design aesthetic. Might be expensive to buy some of the things that had rabid followers, like Grendel, Robotech or Fish Police)…
Blackthorne is the company one of the brothers from Pacific Comics started, I think? They did a whole lot of reprints of old newspaper strips, and I’m not really interested in that any more. And I see they did 73 (!) 3-D comics.
I couldn’t resist, so I had a look at what people seem to be valuing Comico books these days — and it seems like they all go pretty cheap. Except for the first three issue Grendel series, where each issue is more than a hundred bucks.
Yeah, I see Comico stuff in dollar bins all the time- their licensed comics are pretty awesome (the Gumby specials and Jonny Quest are standouts).
But yeah, Blackthorne is Steve Schenes. Definitely a lot of reprints and 3-D but a few gems too, like I said. Check out Nervous Rex and Tales of the Jackalope even if you don’t go for a full readthrough.
Comico is looking quite attractive… We’ll see. 😀
I read Nervous Rex at the time (and the recent re-release), and I think I have the Jackalope issues here somewhere…