From Gasm # 4 by James O’Barr Part 1: The Crow Creator James O’Barr’s Early Years Part 2: The Crow and Caliber Years Part 3: After The Crow: The Works of James O’Barr Note: I might receive a cut of any referrals to Mycomicshop.com. Even if they sold fairly well, most Outlaw Comics existed on the … Read more
Tim Vigil’s first project for Comics Express was Omega, a sci-fi series co-created with inker Paul Martin. Omega was a big departure from Grips. Vigil tapped into his love of Jack Kirby and Fantastic Four to produce cosmic psychedelia complete with “Kirby Crackle.” The story is the tale of a hiker who stumbles upon a … Read more
Tim Vigil cleaved his way into public consciousness with Grips # 1 in the fall of 1986, around the same time as Watchmen # 1. The artist announced his arrival with a double splash page — aggravatingly split into two frames — highlighting what has become the hallmarks of his work: sex and violence. In that spread, vigilante protagonist … Read more
Continuity Studios. The Studio. Homage Studios. Extreme Studios. Gaijin Studios. These are near-legendary agglomerations of talent that comics fans will remember forever. The short-lived Homegrown Studios should have been on that list, if only they’d gotten more of a chance to show off their work before the mid-90s comics market crash. They published a small … Read more
Part 1: My Internet Before the Internet Part 2: Empire Building Part 3: The End My family moved from Dalhart to Sheridan, Wyoming in December of 1994. It was a difficult move. I didn’t have many friends in Dalhart, but it was hard to leave the ones I had. We’d lived in Texas my whole … Read more
I’m still plugging away at the Outlaw Comics history series. The “prehistory” section — which covers things like EC, underground comix, Warren magazines, the rise of the direct market and more — is taking quite a long time. I already jumped ahead once with the Avatar Press history. Below I’m sharing a timeline I assembled for the Bad Girls … Read more
So you want to read some Outlaw Comics and don’t know where to start. Don’t worry, your friendly neighborhood Sewer Mutant has you covered. For better or worse, building an Outlaw Comics collection generally means haunting your local quarter bins or shelling out for back issues on sites like Lone Star Comics or eBay. But … Read more
Part 1: My Internet Before the Internet Part 2: Empire Building Part 3: The End While I was yacking with my new-found friends, the Amateur Creator’s Union was building its own little publishing empire. It started with a series of photocopied “ashcan” comics. Here the ACU played the role of print-on-demand/order fulfiller, not unlike Lulu … Read more
The Secret Origins of Avatar Press, The Last Outlaw Publisher I’ve long been puzzled by Avatar Press’s origins. It appeared seemingly out of nowhere in the mid-90s to publish a staggering number of titles that had previously been published elsewhere. Most of these were “Bad Girl” comics, like Widow (London Night Studios), NiraX (Entity), Hellina … Read more
Part 1: My Internet Before the Internet Part 2: Empire Building Part 3: The End One of the most important moments of my youth came one October day in 1993 when I spotted the following news story in Wizard magazine # 27: The Amateur Creator’s Union, a new non-profit organization dedicated to [helping inexperienced comic … Read more