How Rebellious Indie Publisher Fantagraphics Survived Tumultuous
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 Fantagraphics co-founder/ co-publisher Gary Groth. “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 comics 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 KIM THOMPSON tiny Snohomish County town of Sultan, trails for the art form Wash. Once there, they lined up their targets—televisions, 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.
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