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Post by manoopuesta on Sept 23, 2021 14:36:52 GMT
Publishing alternative comics is anything but profitable, but there has been (and there is still) people putting their efforts into publishing amazing comics books. Which publishers now defunct have been/are important to you?
I will start with:
- PictureBox
- Buenaventura Press
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Post by awfulquiet on Sept 23, 2021 14:49:49 GMT
AdHouse. Living in and around Richmond and going to Heroes and Baltimore Comicon growing up, they were always present and I ended up being exposed to some great stuff without really knowing or trying.
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Post by papersnail on Sept 23, 2021 15:00:44 GMT
Still waiting for a publisher to come close to filling the void Picturebox left
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Post by grubcubman on Sept 23, 2021 15:04:00 GMT
It’s still fresh, but I’ll really miss Koyama. What a terrific publisher (led by such an all-around great team).
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Post by whitecomics on Sept 23, 2021 15:14:44 GMT
I have such mixed feelings about this topic, because it's great that comics publishing has such low barriers that one or two motivated people can create a successful publisher but of course the publisher disappears when those people run out of time or money or energy. It's so rare--and I understand why, but it's also too bad--that those 1-2 person publishers are able to continue after the founders step away.
I really miss Sparkplug and Highwater, in addition to the publishers already mentioned.
It's not a publisher, but I think the Xeric left a hole that hasn't really been filled yet. The Koyama Provides initiative is the closest comparison, and does more good than the Xeric in some ways, but Xeric was great because they did one thing very well and provided (some? I've heard different stories about exactly how much) assistance with publishing and Diamond distro in addition to just offering grants.
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Post by MilleniumDibber on Sept 23, 2021 18:20:19 GMT
Pour one out for Peow!
I'd say Breakdown and NYRC are covering a lot of Picturebox stuff now. "Outdoors" by Yokoyama Yuichi is a beautifully put together book and adheres to alot of what made those Picturebox editions so great.
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Post by mikesheawright on Sept 23, 2021 20:28:24 GMT
I have such mixed feelings about this topic, because it's great that comics publishing has such low barriers that one or two motivated people can create a successful publisher but of course the publisher disappears when those people run out of time or money or energy. It's so rare--and I understand why, but it's also too bad--that those 1-2 person publishers are able to continue after the founders step away. I really miss Sparkplug and Highwater, in addition to the publishers already mentioned. It's not a publisher, but I think the Xeric left a hole that hasn't really been filled yet. The Koyama Provides initiative is the closest comparison, and does more good than the Xeric in some ways, but Xeric was great because they did one thing very well and provided (some? I've heard different stories about exactly how much) assistance with publishing and Diamond distro in addition to just offering grants. wholeheartedly agree, especially the Xeric, that's a good call.
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Post by manoopuesta on Sept 24, 2021 14:43:35 GMT
I forgot to mention, from Finnish territory:
Huuda Huuda (run by Tommi Musturi and Jelle Hugaerts), a publisher that I still miss a lot. Huuda Huuda turned me onto Olivier Schrawuen's work, Cowboy Henk, and many others.
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Post by disneyweirdness on Sept 25, 2021 13:10:45 GMT
I miss SLG, you could buy their books at the Hot Topic.
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Post by manoopuesta on Jul 17, 2023 13:36:00 GMT
I was starting to read the 10-years old City of Glass interview to Paul Auster and Art Spiegelman by Bill Kartalopoulos in TCJ. And I get distracted easily... so I got derailed and started pondering about Bill K 's imprint: Rebus Books. I am curious about it cause the only thing I know of it is that Barrel of Monkeys was published in English by them. Which other things did they publish? Is it still alive? (I imagine not, that's why I am posting here.)
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Post by arecomicsevengood on Jul 17, 2023 15:05:51 GMT
Yeah, Rebus just did Barrel Of Monkeys. Bill was going to do an Aidan Koch book too but that ended up coming out through Koyama instead, After Nothing Comes, which might have him listed as an editor or curator.
Space Face Books was a good publisher. One or two little books of Simon's, an issue of Lale's Hot Dog Beach, Jordan Speer's QCHQ. A Valentine Gallardo book.
I ordered a bunch of Sparkplug stuff from Wow Cool last night. Didn't really pay them much mind at the time, as the Picturebox stuff was so exciting, it made everything else look staid. But the Dunja Jankovic comics they put out are really incredible. (I ordered the Tessa Brunton comic, Passages, the David King comics, and some issues of Dylan Williams' Reporter.)
For the most part, very few publishers have an amazing ratio of hits, where everything they put is a banger, and so a thread like this strikes me as a little weird. But so many artists just stop putting work out if they don't have a publisher they have a good working relationship with to push them to keep making. Very few artists can make self-publishing economically viable, long-term. Or they just put out stuff digitally, because that's what viable for them, but then there's just no public profile or record in the real world. (I found a copy of Pete Toms' comic Dad's Weekend on Ebay because it was put out by Hic & Hoc.) And then there ends up not even being a real record of the publisher being good, because there's no legacy being maintained. Or publishers become more conservative over time (as an attempt to stay in business) and then that destroys their legacy.
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Post by dominocorp on Jul 18, 2023 7:51:16 GMT
I recall, when Jankovic's comic came out, sitting at the Sparkplug table at SDCC in '08, and an all star alternative comics person (who is still huge today) picked it up and said 'oh, look at me, I'm Picasso...Jesus Christ, gimme a break.' Anyway...Department of Art is one of the best comics of this century, glad people are still picking it up.
Asthma by John Hankiewicz from Sparkplug should also be mentioned here.
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Post by eheitner on Jul 18, 2023 12:58:10 GMT
I think in comics, small publishers have sometimes filled a role that might otherwise be filled by like, curators or critics, in the sense of providing a unified sense of what someone might be looking for in art, what things they value; like, I never found myself really enjoying that many of the Shortbox titles that I picked up (one or two exceptions) but I respected that it had a pretty clear vision of what Zainab liked and was looking for (didn't hurt that she had also written so much about comics prior to publishing). As much as I have ragged on them, I think of 2dCloud in that respect also (and unfortunately for me their vision is much more one that I'm interested in). I would absolutely be interested in anything else Rebus published because I'd be interested in what Bill K. thinks is worth publishing.
Or, if not an artistic commonality, then as a way of mapping social connections-- like, artists who published together because they are buds.
Then it's interesting when these things scale from a single person up to a more "institutional" level. Its like, I have a pretty good sense of NYRC's editorial interests. As others have discussed, it's a shame that whatever editorial vision was initially at First Second sort of evaporated.
Anyways strong underlining for everything superlative about Dept of Art, bought by me from Domino because of Austin's writing about it. Austin, I think I'm learning which parts of your editorial/artistic vision as a publisher/distributor I vibe with and which ones I don't, but when they hit for me they really hit!
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Post by bluebed on Jul 21, 2023 6:34:16 GMT
Nobrow Press 😏 (as in, initially promising publisher gone to shit) But yes, it is curious how they and :01 started by putting out Blexbolex and Richard Short, and then squandered all the good will within a year. That :01 edition of Gus was ridiculous, probably half the size of the original, barely readable. Seemed clear that they didn’t really know what they were doing, and the YA stuff both of them have been pumping out is what it always should’ve been. But it’s one thing to look for direction as an individual and another when you’re stringing artists along and leaving them behind as you shift your focus to whatever sells. Should’ve just reopened under a different name.
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Post by teemcgee on Jul 21, 2023 10:31:21 GMT
Nobrow Press 😏 (as in, initially promising publisher gone to shit) But yes, it is curious how they and :01 started by putting out Blexbolex and Richard Short, and then squandered all the good will within a year. That :01 edition of Gus was ridiculous, probably half the size of the original, barely readable. Seemed clear that they didn’t really know what they were doing, and the YA stuff both of them have been pumping out is what it always should’ve been. But it’s one thing to look for direction as an individual and another when you’re stringing artists along and leaving them behind as you shift your focus to whatever sells. Should’ve just reopened under a different name. Nobrow's devolution was particularly apparent in its own festival in London, ELCAF - early years you had publishers like Bries and FRMK, progressively became less and less comics and more and more the kind of graphic art/illustration that you'd see used elsewhere as marketing decoration for sales of apartments in a gentrifying area to younger "creative professionals".
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