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Home , Amazing Heroes, Eric Reynolds (comics), Fantagraphics, Fletcher Hanks, Gary Groth, Gilbert Hernandez

WIZARD EDGE, THE GUIDE TO MUST-HAVE INDIE BOOKS, STARTS HERE! and i ARMED S OHE U GER SAYS HI N“The cops were scared sh--less How rebelliousA indie D of us,” recalls co-founder/ co-publisher . “We were much publisher Fantagraphics better armed than they were.” It was a gray Saturday in September survived tumultuous 2007, and the staff of celebrated alternative publisher Fantagraphics had turns to take on the loaded into a van and driven an hour or so north from their Seattle headquarters industry and blaze new to an isolated stretch of woods in the tiny Snohomish County town of Sultan, trails for the art form Wash. Once there, they lined up their targets—, computer monitors, up a bunch of electronic equipment while By Sean T. Collins bottles of cleaning products, even a trespassing on private property. No charges lawnmower. Unloading an assortment were filed, though there were a few tense of guns that included a 9mm, a 10mm, moments when the cops, with hands a rifle with a telescopic lens, a .45, a .44 on their holsters, first approached the GARY GROTH Magnum, a .357 Magnum and a 12-gauge Fantagraphics crew. “They were very wary shotgun—plus some bayonet knives, just of us,” says Groth, “until they realized we in case—these guardians of comics’ cutting were just some goofballs from Seattle.” edge proceeded to blow the crap out of Goofballs? Perhaps. But Fantagraphics everything in sight. is deadly serious when it comes to the “It’s a long and distinguished tradition,” business—and the art form—of comics. says co-publisher Kim Thompson of the Groth, Thompson and company have spent company’s annual “Shoot-Out Party.” over three decades with their metaphorical “Before there even was a Fantagraphics, guns blazing on behalf of the notion that back when it was just Gary and me, he and comics are art, more than capable of I used to go out and shoot at a friend’s producing powerful images and telling farm, just bring Hawaiian Punch cans and sophisticated stories. Their ammo in this blow the hell out of ’em with a Magnum.” battle: a hall-of-fame lineup of comics and As the company grew, so did the arsenal. creators, from pioneers “We’d buy bombs at the Indian reservations such as Jaime and to under the table and set them off in cars and living legend to classic strips fridges and washing machines,” Groth says. and . “There was one [lawnmower] that blew 50 It hasn’t always been easy—the feet up in the air. We thought it was gonna publisher’s been kept alive by everything land on us.” from public pleas to porn to . And This time, though, the shoot-out party thanks to the outspoken opinions expressed had some party crashers—the sheriff’s in Fanta’s magazine , department. Turns out it’s illegal to shoot they’ve taken as many shots as they’ve dished out. But according to Groth, the aim has remained the same all along: “Our love is to publish great cartooning, in whatever form that takes.”

38 WIZARD #213i who came ORIGINS AND OMENS aboard in Long before publishing any 1978 when comics, Fantagraphics was Catron founded with the simple ambition departed for of talking about comics. a PR job at University of Maryland DC Comics, journalism-school dropouts Gary the late Groth and Mike Catron, both ’70s were veterans of the comics a terrible scene, formally incorporated time for i their publishing venture the kinds of Fantagraphics in 1975. After a sophisticated brief flirtation with the rock- comics the music press, they took over the Journal was Texas-based Nostalgia Journal, searching for. a collector-geared pulp-culture “That was a magazine. “We bought it with the really dead idea of expanding its editorial spot in comics content to include much more history. Marvel coverage of comics,” says and DC were Groth. Inspired by the kind of pretty much hard-nosed journalism that had in decline, at recently exposed the Watergate least in creative terms. The different scandal, Groth established underground wave [of the late sequential- the tone of The New Nostalgia ’60s and early ’70s] had crested art look Journal from his first issue, July and fallen back. The top level [of at Mexican-American lives 1976’s #27, which contained a the entire industry] was Steve that would truly put Fanta on lengthy investigative attack on Gerber’s . It was the map as a publisher to be Above: The Comics Journal the business practices of the rival almost a ground zero at which reckoned with. Buyer’s Guide. to start.” Exploding out of the Los The point, Groth says, was to The notion that they were Angeles punk scene, brothers Below: Los Tejanos interior page treat comics not as the province the change they’d been waiting Gilbert, Jaime and Mario of collectors loading their dusty for, to paraphrase President Hernandez self-published a shelves, but as a living, breathing Barack Obama, hadn’t yet art form that deserved hard- crossed their minds. hitting reporting and reviewing. “The Comics Journal was really the anchor of the company, [and] FROM ‘ROCKETS’ it was possibly the first time in WITH LOVE the history of comics when a By the early ’80s, the industry magazine actually devoted space began showing positive signs to negative reviews of comics. of creativity and innovation. Of course, the criticism ran the “Certainly [’s] gamut from being wildly ecstatic was to harshly negative, but it just important,” says Thompson. took people aback that we would “That was a good early warning criticize comics so harshly. This shot. And there were still good was the first time comics creators undergrounds being produced— and publishers were confronted, Crumb never stopped working, month after month, with a lot of for instance.” negative criticism. They pretty Meanwhile, Fantagraphics’ much flipped out.” first foray into comics publishing Over the years, the came about as a result of the Journal’s no-nonsense attitude, “if you build it, they will come” particularly when Groth was principle. Having successfully set at the helm, has prompted up a relationship with the half- feuds with figures ranging from dozen distributors that made up Cerebus creator to the fledgling at science-fiction author Harlan that point in order to publish the Ellison to Marvel Editor-in-Chief Journal, Groth and Thompson Shooter. According to Groth, had unwittingly created the he was even banned from the infrastructure to start putting Marvel offices. out comics as well. Their first The negative tone probably was 1981’s Los Tejanos, a shouldn’t have come as a by underground surprise, since according to Kim veteran Jack Jackson about the Thompson, a friend of Groth’s Texas-Mexican War, but it was a

wizarduniverse.com 39 32-page comic called Love & uncompromising, sophisticated “Gradually, it dawned on us Rockets. “After a lame attempt approach to adult topics, the that we were something called trying to shop it around at a book instantly caught Groth’s eye. an ‘alternative comics’ publisher, local convention, Gilbert got the “Here were the kinds of comics but I can’t tell you exactly when idea to send it to the Journal that we’d been championing in that happened because we didn’t for a possible review,” recalls theory. That was a revelation. I have any grand plan to become Jaime. “I liked the magazine was so smitten by it that I called one,” says Groth. “We were because it was different from them up and basically just asked always flying by the seat of our the other fan trades. It had them, ‘Would you be interested in pants, and we never had any higher standards for comic art, us publishing this?’ They jumped five-year plan—we barely had a called out the bullsh-- going at the chance, and the rest is five-month plan, and we only had Love and Rockets #15 on in the comic biz and was history.” that because we had to send our

’09 WIZARD EDGE WIZARD ’09 cover just plain nasty. It Fantagraphics re-released solicitations to Diamond three reminded me a lot an expanded Love & Rockets #1 months in advance. But when of the punk music in the summer of 1982, in time the started, magazines I was for the San Diego Comic-Con. like them, with the reading at the time. Before long, the series, which same ambitions, started coming Maybe [a review] chronicled the long-running sagas out of the woodwork.” would get us of Jaime’s bisexual punk rockers some kind of free Maggie and Hopey and Gilbert’s BUILDING A LEGACY… advertisement, fictional Central American village Having moved from their original even if they hated , became the core title headquarters in Washington D.C. it—in the punk not just of Fantagraphics, but and now operating out of the days, a trashed of a burgeoning movement of same large Connecticut house review was a intelligent, ambitious sequential that many of its skeleton-crew good sign!” art. Along with a pair of staff lived in, Fantagraphics With art as anthologies helmed by giants began receiving submissions accomplished of the underground scene—Art from young cartoonists inspired as the best Spiegelman and Francoise by the company’s unorthodox mainstream Mouly’s avant-garde RAW, approach. titles, attention launched in 1980, and Robert One of the first was to the unique Crumb’s visceral , debuting , whose details of Latino in 1981—Love & Rockets helped series and punk create the “alternative comic.” debuted in 1984; culture and an Clearly different from the Big he was soon Two’s spandex slugfests, it was joined by also a breed apart from both Daniel the underground’s Vietnam/ Watergate-era taboo-busting books and the other indie publishers’ , fantasy and action-adventure efforts.

40 WIZARD #213 Clowes, who launched his detective-spoof series Lloyd Llewellyn in 1985. “I did a 10-page color Lloyd Llewellyn comic when I was around 23 and living in New York City, and decided to send it out to some publishers for feedback,” Clowes says. “I wasn’t expecting much— maybe just some advice or words of encouragement—but Gary called me a few weeks later and offered me my own bimonthly comic. That was a big thrill.” Clowes and Bagge both went on to great things with the publisher as the years went by: Clowes’ one-man anthology series gave rise to one of the company’s bestselling graphic novels, , whose film version marked the breakout of Scarlett Johansson and earned Clowes an Smith. Meanwhile, Amazing Above: Daniel Clowe’s Ghost World Oscar nomination for Heroes—a magazine conceived Best Adapted Screenplay. as a more mainstream-friendly Bagge’s caustic chronicle Comics Journal—ran for of Seattle slackers, , 200 issues and, according became one of the grunge to Thompson, helped keep middle: Peter Bagge’s Neat Stuff era’s most memorable the company afloat until the memoirs and served as popularity of then-recently Fantagraphics’ unofficial launched Wizard eclipsed it. flagship title as the publisher “I don’t carry a grudge or Below: Kane’s cover to settled in the Emerald City, anything—it’s the circle of ’s Doomsday Squad where it moved in 1989. life,” Thompson laughs. But there was more to Still more unusual was Fanta beyond the infusion the solution the company of new blood. The company devised for its financial began publishing reprints of troubles in 1991. classic comics Prince Valiant “We looked at our and as early as 1983, …FLIRTING money situation and and even wooed the godfather were like, ‘Sh--! of underground comics himself, WITH DISASTER Now what?’” recalls Robert Crumb, into publishing “It’s always been hard to Thompson. Enabled The Complete Crumb Comics with weather the storms,” Groth says by Diamond’s recent decision Fanta beginning in 1987. “Talking of Fanta’s place in an industry to distribute adult material him into that was no small frequently beset with financial and inspired by Black Kiss, the achievement,” Groth recalls. “It meltdowns. “We’ve always artistically ambitious, decidedly was a real watershed moment operated on a shoestring. But dirty graphic novel from for us.” when there’s just so little money Key to Fantagraphics’ ever, you get used to operating appeal was its adamant stance that way, so that when there’s in favor of creator ownership a little bit less money, you can and creators’ rights. “We felt deal with it.” During the ’80s, very strongly about that, and mainstream-friendly titles offered we took our model from the cash infusions, from the one- underground comics, where shot X-Men Companion to John the creators owned the work, Byrne’s The Doomsday Squad, and there was virtually no an early Byrne effort Groth question about it.” Indeed, the purchased from the ruins of Journal became one of the main . Over the years, battlegrounds during the mid- the company would also become ’80s struggles of artists such as a second home for ambitious for original art and books from artistically restless royalties. In other words, they mainstream creators such as weren’t in it for the money…and Amazing Spider-Man’s it frequently showed. and Weapon X’s Barry Windsor-

wizarduniverse.com 41 built up a sizeable library of FIND YOUR FANTA! No matter what your taste in comics, Fantagraphics has a book for you landmark graphic novels. Los Bros Hernandez produced book- IF YOU LIKE… THEN TRY… WHY… length stories and Wigwam Bam, while their fellow The Walking Dead House Fans of ’s black-and-white opus Fanta stalwart Clowes used his of horror and survival will find much to freak out title Eightball to serialize his about in this brutal, haunting story of three young graphic novels Like a Velvet explorers who enter an abandoned mansion…but Glove Cast in Iron, David Boring may never leave. and eventually, Ghost World. If you thought Final Crisis or All Star “My first Fantagraphics book was wild, wait till you get a was a Christmas present: the ’09 WIZARD EDGE WIZARD ’09 load of the pure cosmic madness of the hardcover collection of Ghost bizarre, violent Golden Age superhero World, given to me by the girl I comics in Hanks’ works, such as his was dating at the time,” recalls bombastically titled collection, I Shall Destroy All the current Fantagraphics mainstay Civilized Planets! Paul Hornschemeier (The Three Paradoxes). “I had zero Indie Movies Bottomless Dash Shaw’s gigantic graphic novel about a exposure to underground or Belly Button dysfunctional family’s last weekend together alternative comics at the time, before its matriarch and patriarch get a so it was a revelation.” divorce is the kind of book you’ll pass along to Ghost World was also the all your hippest friends. initial gateway drug for Brian K. Tales Designed These surreal, gut-bustingly funny Vaughan, the “Lost” writer and to Thrizzle and comedy series, by Y: The Last Man and Runaways creator who’s one of the and , respectively, have both been made into actual publisher’s many vocal fans in the Adult Swim shows. modern mainstream. Vaughan cites another of the company’s South Park The gross-out gags in Ryan’s Angry best-selling titles as a major Youth Comix and Blecky Yuckerella are influence: , ’s so extreme and politically incorrect they journalistic look at Israel and the make Cartman look like . Not for Occupied Territories. “That had a the faint of heart! huge impact on me, not just as a Napoleon Unlovable Based on a teenage girl’s diary writer, but on my outlook of the Dynamite discovered in a rest-stop restroom, world. I’d never seen anything Esther Pearl Watson’s cringe-tastic look quite like that or considered that at the life of a nerdy high-school girl in comics could do something like the ’80s is, like, totally rad. • STC that. It really blew my mind.” Perhaps the most influential and acclaimed title of all Black Kiss #1 American Flagg! creator Fantagraphics books they could was ’s beautiful, , Fanta afford. With vocal support melancholy series The Acme decided to go triple-X from creators like Spiegelman, Novelty Library, which gave birth and created its Eros Warren Ellis and , the to the award-winning graphic Comix imprint. “We company soon earned enough novel Jimmy Corrigan and shaped were desperate enough money to keep going. By that a generation of young creators to grab at any flotation time, Fanta was on the verge of a with its bold experiments in device, then it was windfall that would allow them to layout and design. “Anyone who’s like ‘Well, let’s do not only survive, but flourish. published as much as one issue pornography. People of Acme has contributed much like sex!’” FROM ‘PALESTINE’ more to comics than I have,” Fanta’s last, and Vaughan says. most serious, cash- TO ‘PEANUTS’ AND By the mid-2000s, the flow catastrophe BEYOND graphic novel movement that took place in Though the regular “floppy” Fantagraphics and its creators 2003, when their format was the helped pioneer had truly crashed former bookstore publishing method of choice the pop-culture gates, with distributor went out for Fantagraphics’ stable of reviews and interviews popping of business owing creators well into the 1990s, up regularly in the world’s the company over it had become clear that their most popular publications. “I $70,000. Groth ambitious stories called for a remember when we’d get a issued a plea format to match. “As cartoonists review of Eightball in Time and on a variety of were doing more and more we’d be excited for months about message boards book-oriented projects, the novel- it. Nowadays, it’s like, ‘Oh, there’s and blogs, asking length thing became more of a another review in the New York readers to quickly natural,” Thompson says. Times or Entertainment Weekly. buy whatever Soon the company had Oh, okay,’” Thompson laughs. “It’s

42 WIZARD #213 very gratifying. There’s a certain The Complete Peanuts, a projected and company have been at the Above: Jimmy Corrigan element of ‘it’s about time.’” series of 25 volumes that will center of an explosion—literally, as Meanwhile, Fantagraphics contain the legendary strip’s entire chunks of washing machines and itself is the healthiest it’s been 50-year run. In addition to serving computer monitors throughout in years. Groth and Thompson in the money-maker role once the woods of rural Washington can Below: The Complete Peanuts give much of the credit to editor filled by or Eros, attest. And given the company’s , who started at Snoopy and the gang have initiated trailblazing track record, it the company as a Dan Clowes- a new wave of lush archival probably won’t be the last. worshipping intern and who reprints across the industry. currently spearheads the The end result? “We’ve been company’s publicity efforts, as solvent for five years,” Groth says well as serving as a pointman proudly. “We don’t have to sweat with younger creators such as how we’re doing financially on a Johnny Ryan and the rotating cast daily basis.” And there are more of contributors to the company’s receptive readers out there for new flagship anthology, . Fantagraphics’ bold brand of “By any standard, Eric’s the comics than ever before. “It’s what stabilizing third wheel on the we kept hoping for, but it really erratic Groth-Thompson bicycle,” only established a beachhead Thompson says. within the past six or seven years. But both financially and Prior to that, we’d been banging creatively, the biggest factor our head against the wall. It’s a in Fanta’s current success weird feeling, a different kind of is none other than Charlie rollercoaster ride than what we’re Brown. Beginning in 2004, used to, but the kinds of comics with the approval of we wanted to see have reached Charles Schulz’s widow Jean, critical mass.” Fantagraphics began publishing It’s not the first time Groth

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