Creator Talk is the one of Avatar Press’ newest online exclusives featuring real life stories from creators we work with at Avatar. Here is our third post from writer/artist Mike Wolfer, the creator of Widow, Warren Ellis’ collaborator on the William Gravel saga in Strange Kiss (Stranger Kisses, Strange Killings), and artist on the upcoming Garth Ennis Western title Streets of Glory. In the first two parts of this series, the indy veteran talked about his first steps into the world of self-publishing and his successes and setbacks. The latest installment in the series talks about Mike’s narrow escape from the indy implosion of the mid 1990’s, and a chance opportunity with an old industry acquaintance. (See Part 1, Part 2)

HOW AVATAR PRESS SAVED MY LIFE, Part 3: Spiders And Sex

By Mike Wolfer

The idea was simple: Take everything that I loved about exploitation horror movies, add copious amounts of gore, sex, nudity and monsters, stir in some sexually-transmitted disease social commentary and offer it all to adult readers of black and white indy comics.

And kill the heroine at the end of the three-issue mini-series.

But the fans of WIDOW: FLESH AND BLOOD had become so attached to Emma, even before they knew that she could transform into a spider-legged, flesh-eating creature, that her imminent death was hastily rewritten.

Sales of WIDOW exceeded my wildest expectations, so when the final issue of the initial series premiered in the Spring of 1993, I was already at work on a sequel, WIDOW: KILL ME AGAIN. At that time, I had no way of knowing that WIDOW was at the forefront of a wave of wildly popular and eventually vehemently despised comic book characters called… Gulp… “Bad Girls.” I was doing what I liked, and the continued strong sales gave every indication that I was on to something bigger than I had envisioned. There was something about the raven-haired beauty that struck a chord with fans hungry to see a woman have sex with, then later eviscerate and consume her mate.

After the completion of WIDOW: KILL ME AGAIN, I repackaged the first two series into trade paperbacks and in February of 1995, I presented FANGS OF THE WIDOW, an all-ages reprinting of the very first issue. I realized that, after three years of attending conventions around the country, there was a huge comic readership that was being excluded from enjoying the adventures of the sexy arachnid princess by the “Mature Readers” label. As I strove for as strong a literary content as possible, I noted that several other companies were unveiling their own horror heroines, each pushing farther and farther away from thought-provoking content into the realm of cheesecake, pin-up porn. But that wasn’t my concern. I had my own solid reputation for delivering a story along with the sex and blood. There couldn’t possibly be any guilt by association, right?

It was at the New York Comic Book Spectacular in February 1995 that I met the head of London Night Studios, a company intent on getting their hands on WIDOW. “Bad Girls” were everywhere: RAZOR, LADY DEATH, CRY FOR DAWN, all of which did better than WIDOW on the sales charts, so it only made sense to me to join forces with another stronger company. Let someone else handle the myriad back-breaking chores associated with publishing while I concentrated solely on writing and drawing. It sounded good at the time and the deal that we eventually struck for London Night’s right to print FANGS OF THE WIDOW and a new, full-color series titled WIDOW: METAL GYPSIES was too good to pass up. WIDOW in full color! It was a step that I could not financially or creatively have performed myself. I signed on the dotted line.

The all-ages, first issue of WIDOW: METAL GYPSIES broke into Diamond Comic Distributor’s August 1995 Top 100 sellers, but the absence of WIDOW’s previously-established adult content was sorely missed by fans. Regardless, the 5-figure check that London Night handed me for that first issue made the story-telling concession worthwhile, or so I had justified it to myself. Oh, the things I would do with that sweet, sweet money…

To this day, I’m still unsure why I received the call from London Night Studios, four months later, telling me to “cancel Christmas.” That’s right: After two issues of METAL GYPSIES and four issues of FANGS, they were pulling the plug. Sales were slightly down, but still strong enough to justify the continuation of publication. Over the years, others in the comic industry have theorized that it was killing London Night to write those big checks, knowing that such huge chunks of money were flying right through their fingers. I just don’t know.

Fine. Fuck it.

I immediately picked up the reins, shifting WIDOW back to Ground Zero, where I published the third and final issue of METAL GYPSIES and resumed the reprint book, FANGS OF THE WIDOW. Next on my agenda was a five-issue series, WIDOW: BOUND BY BLOOD, featuring a new supporting character, Brandi Five-One.

It was 1996, the year all indy publishers fondly remember as the Year Of The Implosion.

Hundreds of publishers, hundreds of “Bad Girls,” hundreds of variant and gimmick covers and hundreds of “Issue #1’s” soon made it apparent to the multiple thousands of speculators who had artificially inflated sales that there was no longer any investment potential to be had in comics. So they fled, in droves, collapsing the market and driving scores of publishers, and even comic book stores and distributors out of business, including the juggernaut Capital City Distribution. But with my low overhead and myself as the only employee of Ground Zero Comics, I survived. After three issues, I shifted the conclusion of the BOUND BY BLOOD storyline over to the pages of FANGS OF THE WIDOW as a cost-cutting measure, while testing the waters by putting WIDOW: PROGENY and the WIDOW CINEGRAPHIC SPECIAL on the market. I even produced the elusive WIDOW Trading Card Set for those hardcore collectors. I was barely above water, but I could still breathe while others perished.

And then an interesting thing happened. An associate who I had met at various conventions and who had financed several variant cover versions of WIDOW books for his gigantic mail order company was starting his own publishing venture at a time when so many others were dropping like flies. We had done business through the entire London Night fiasco and he assured me that if I were to bring WIDOW over to his new company, the same would never again happen to me.

That man was William Christensen,

His new company was called Avatar Press.
To be continued…

Creator Talk is the beginning of a series of blog posts, articles, and other missives direct from creators we work with at Avatar. Here is our second post from writer/artist Mike Wolfer, the creator of Widow, Warren Ellis’ collaborator on the William Gravel saga in Strange Kiss (Stranger Kisses, Strange Killings), and artist on the upcoming Garth Ennis Western title Streets of Glory. Mike’s talking about his history as a creator (and publisher) in the beginning of his Comic Talk series, and in the second part of this Avatar Press exclusive, he depicts his first steps into the world of self-publishing. (Read Part 1)

HOW AVATAR PRESS SAVED MY LIFE, Part 2: The Execution

By Mike Wolfer

It was in January, 1987 that I received the advance sales figures for my first self-published effort, DAIKAZU #1. After months of preparation, setting up Ground Zero Comics, lining-up distributors and generally working myself to death, I had hoped that I would sell enough books to at least cover my start-up and advertising expenses and hopefully pay for the printing of that first issue.

I was shocked that, when tallying the orders from my various distributors, my sales reached nearly 4,000.

I did the math, over and over. I was still shocked by the profit that I would be making. And I began to realize that perhaps my aspiration of one day working for Marvel Comics might not be as fulfilling as I had originally envisioned. At least, it couldn’t be as profitable as self-publishing. All I had to do now was get the thing printed, shipped and onto the store shelves. Continue Reading »

Here we have the beginning of a series of contributions to this blog from creators we work with at Avatar. Up first is our debut post from writer/artist Mike Wolfer, the creator of Widow, Warren Ellis’ collaborator on the William Gravel saga in Strange Kiss (Stranger Kisses, Strange Killings), and artist on the upcoming Garth Ennis Western title Streets of Glory.

HOW AVATAR PRESS SAVED MY LIFE, Part 1: The Start-Up
By Mike Wolfer

Okay, so that’s an exaggeration, to be sure, but my life as a comic book creator sure has changed radically since my beginnings as a self-publisher way back in 1987.

Aspiring artists and writers often ask how to break into the business, how do you publish your own comic book and what does it take to “make it”? I suppose there’s someone out there who walked up to a submissions editor at a convention and was hired on the spot; I’d like to meet that person, if only to ask them how THEY did it.

I was fresh out of the Joe Kubert School (a time which was chock-full of interesting and sordid stories, but those are tales for another blog) when I decided to enter the burgeoning independent comic book publishing business. It was the late 1980’s, Eastman and Laird were blazing, Brian Pulido was shocking mainstream readers and the floodgates were opened by Diamond, Capital City, Friendly Frank’s, Heroes World and a slew of other American and Canadian comic book distributors who all realized that there was money to be made from all of those little, “indy” publishers who were clawing their way into the market.

Mirage, Eclipse, Chaos and so many other publishers proved that it could be done, that success could be achieved without the might of a giant, corporate entity behind them, and more importantly, they exposed the little-known reality that there were tens of thousands of comic book readers out there who were not superhero comic book readers. Therein lay the strength of the independent comic book publisher: Diversity.

Knowing that my own creative proficiency was not up to par with the standards of the “majors”, self-publishing was the perfect outlet for me to begin building a fan-base and make some cash on the side, all the while honing my abilities in the hopes of achieving my childhood dream of one day working for one of the “Big Two”. It would be simple: Draw comic, publish comic, show comic to large company editor, sign contract to draw Marvel Team-Up. It could happen, right?

By the Fall of 1986, my first comic, DAIKAZU, was ready to roll and after a nerve-wracking, sit-down meeting with Diamond in Baltimore, I was accepted for distribution. With the world’s largest comic book distributor behind me, others soon followed suit in agreeing to carry my book. Acceptance itself did not mean that I had a run-away hit on my hands; the public hadn’t even seen the book yet, but a green light from distributors was enough to give me the confidence that I might be the next “big thing.” You’re right. I was young and idealistic.

I was ready… Or so I thought.

Forget for a moment the roughly 200 hours I spent actually writing and drawing that first book; the business aspect of self-publishing was a whole other animal that had to be tamed. The real work then began, as time, money and effort began to wing its way out the window and my “To Do” list began to grow exponentially. I needed to set up a Post Office box, design a Ground Zero Comics company logo and get stationary, envelopes and business cards printed. I found the most inexpensive, local printer that I could (who had never printed a comic book, but assured me that they could). I researched and gathered names, addresses and phone numbers of every comic convention organizer in the Tri-State area so that I could promote the book on the road. I scraped-up every cent I could to run ads in the distributor catalogs and the Comics Buyer’s Guide. I did direct mailings to the largest comics retail outlets around the country to alert them to the impending release of DAIKAZU #1. And on and on and on. Have I mentioned that I did all of this by myself, with no assistants or business partners? Right. That’s why it’s called “self-publishing.” Oh, yeah, by the way, I was also working a full-time job at a printing company. And gigging about 8 times a month in the band Crash Tokyo.

Drive and the ambition can go a long way, but I still don’t know how I did it all.

After a lot of sweating and months of anticipation, the distributor “numbers” came in, publisher’s slang for the total number of copies of DAIKAZU #1 advance ordered from comic book retailers around the globe. It was the moment of truth, when I would find out if my year or so of dreams and hard labor would bear fruit, and if anyone out there gave a damn about me, my work or a giant, Japanese monster.

If I thought that I had worked my ass off up to that point as an up-and-coming indy publisher, I hadn’t seen anything yet…

To be continued…

I was just going though some old Avatar PR and material from the “old” version of the site to see what needed to be integrated here, and I spotted something which must not go unnoticed. If I’ve got my facts right, 2007 marks the 20th anniversary of regular Avatar writer/artist and creative force Mike Wolfer’s entry into comics with giant-monster title Daikazu under his own Ground Zero banner in 1987.

Of course, Mike has been a vital part of Avatar since almost the beginning, first with his creator-owned title Widow and in more recent times as frequent collaborator to Warren Ellis (Strange Kiss, Stranger Kisses, Strange Killings) and John (Night of the Living Dead) Russo, and numerous other projects. In fact, we have another big project which Mike will be involved with which we will be previewing in May solicits.

Twenty years of doing indy comics is an absolutely monumental achievement. What Mike did with Ground Zero, along with what others did, such David Quinn and Tim Vigil with Rebel Studios, helped lay the groundwork for the kind of indy scene that Avatar entered a decade later in 1997. Mike continues to play an indispensable role in shaping the company with his creative contributions to this day.

I still remember seeing Widow for the first time around 1991-92 and being bowled over by it. Great writing, great art, and never pulled any punches. Those characteristics have been hallmarks of Mike’s work ever since. Thanks, Mike. Here’s to another 20 years.