Posts Tagged ‘comico’

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The Comic Company:
Presenting…

Tuesday, July 27th, 2010

Looking back, I guess it took a lot of guts for three kids from Norristown to decide that we wanted to start a comic book company especially considering that we were all still attending college and had no money except for what little we made working part-time jobs.

I struggled to meet class deadlines at the Philadelphia College of Art (PCA now UArts) and labored on weekends at places like 7-11, K-Mart, and Pizza Hut just to have spending money. The dream of making comics preoccupied my mind at every job I held. The evidence is a comic that I made while working as a cook at Pizza Hut in the winter of 1980.

Read Pizza man And Pizza Woman

The Norristown Pizza Hut Presents…Pizza Man & Pizza Woman was the first comic that I had published by anyone other than myself. It appeared on the last page of the company’s nationally distributed, monthly, twelve-page, 8.5 x 11″ newsletter Pizza Hut News Brief. This was a format that I would adapt later when publishing DUCKWORK at PCA with CO2 Comic’s own, Bill Cucinotta and the rest of the self-proclaimed DUCKS.

Phil LaSorda, Vince Argondezzi and I were all dreamers, but at the time we never believed that we could not do what we had set out to do once we had read Don Rico’s How to Start a Comic Book Empire in Free Enterprise magazine.

We considered our biggest asset to be ourselves since we knew that we would create the art for our own publications, saving us a lot of money.

Our biggest asset, however, turned out to be our own naiveté. To every person who scoffed and told us we could not do it, we had only one answer. Why not? Honestly, because we didn’t know any better.

Phil Lasorda & Vince Argondezzi at Creation Conventions

The summer of 1980 was spent developing product for the new company that we would call Comico the Comic Company. My recollection is that Vince first dubbed it The Comic Company. Phil suggested that we shorten it to ComiCo to which I responded that we should pronounce it Comeeco to sound like Mego and Coleco which were popular toy companies at the time.

Gerry Giovinco At Creation Conventions

We each had our own characters to work on. Phil had Az, Vince had Mr. Justice and I had Slaughterman. We planned to feature them in one magazine titled Comico Presents.

That summer Vince illustrated the cover of Comico Presents that would never be published other than as a flyer to promote our new company.

The Comico cover that never was © TM Respective Owners

The Comico Portfolio cover


We each made color illustrations of our character that we would have produced as 8×10″ color glossies and inserted in a hand-made card stock envelope that we simply called the Comico Portfolio. This is officially Comico’s first publication.

AZ from the Comico Portfolio © TM Phil Lasorda

MR JUSTICE from the Comico Portfolio © TM Vince Argondezzi

SLAUGHTERMAN from the Comico Portfolio © TM Gerry Giovinco

Finally, we printed up Comico t-shirts and prepared to exhibit at the Philadelphia Creation Convention were I had made inroads with my Thing costume at previous shows.

Gary Berman and Adam Malin, the producers of the Creation Conventions, were very gracious in giving us an opportunity to display our work. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude for being the first to believe in us.

We had gone public with Comico. There was no turning back…

Gerry Giovinco

Next week: DUCKWORK!
Meanwhile you can check out another DUCKWORK retrospective by Joe Williams HERE!

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The Comic Company:
In The Bag

Tuesday, July 20th, 2010

This week the comic industry is bracing itself for the forty-first installment of the San Diego Comic-Con International. The San Diego show is by far the preeminent comic book convention in the world and has been for decades.

In the early 1980’s, when we first started to attend as Comico, International was not yet tagged onto the name. Even then it was the biggest and best Comic Convention though in those days 4,000 attendees was an exciting number, nothing compared to the audience that piles in today.

1st five Comico Covers

1983 was our first year attending with a booth and we were quick to realize how easy it was to get lost in the vast auditorium of vendors, publishers and artists. Comico was a small black-and-white publisher at the time featuring five titles: Az by Phil LaSorda, Grendel by Matt Wagner, Slaughterman by myself, Skrog by Bill Cucinotta and our new-talent anthology, Comico Primer. We had our sites set on publishing color books and had begun to promote our intentions.

Colorful AD-spirations by Matt Wagner and Andrew Murphy

When we had decided to attend the convention our first priority was to make sure that we presented ourselves as professionally as possible. We had a number of sales representatives from display companies stop by the studio and pitch their product. Most of them were very expensive and very boring. I made a point out of examining each display meticulously, focusing on how each was built and what features best suited our needs. My conclusion was that I needed to build the booth myself because it was the only way that we could afford the type of booth that we wanted.  I designed and constructed a booth display out of foam core that was quite impressive. It was covered with vinyl graphics that I applied with a tacking iron. It came complete with plexiglass pockets that displayed our books and had overhead lighting built in. The whole thing folded flat and we transported it in an oversized portfolio.

Rich Rankin and Matt Wagner at Comico Studios christening the newly constructed Comico Booth

The design and construction skills that I had developed as a model and costume builder along with the 3-D and sculpture training that I had acquired while attending the Philadelphia College of Art proved to come in handy when it came to selling comic books.

Mage-or Hijinks with Rich Rankin and Matt Wagner in front of the Comico Booth

The booth, which would last us for the next three years, gave us an air of professionalism that we had not yet been awarded by our peers. When fans approached our booth we looked as impressive as Marvel, DC and all of the other major players at the time. Our books then were a bit crude but we were slowly building our reputation on grit, perseverance, creativity and ingenuity.

We left San Diego that year proud of the inroads we had made. We had proven that we could be part of the landscape of industry and we had done well networking with fans, distributors, retailers, artists and other publishers.

When we returned to San Diego in 1984 there was a lot more at stake. Our decision to go to color had been realized but not as we had initially planned. The five titles that we had touted the year before were gone. Our commitment to color forced us to recognize that if we were to succeed we needed to send better work to the presses. The new lineup included Elementals by Bill Willingham, Evangeline by Charles Dixon and Judith Hunt, and Mage by Matt Wagner.

Comico's 1st Color Books

We knew that it was going to take much more than a fancy booth to make sure that our product would be noticed by the attending crowd of comics enthusiasts.

We had come back from San Diego the previous year with a huge pile of brochures, flyers, buttons business card, postcards and photocopied samples of art, most of which had been picked up at the entrance of the convention hall. It was easy to lose even the most lavishly produced piece of promotional material in this wild collection of potential paper cuts.

How was Comico going to separate itself and its promotional material from this knot of collateral material?

Stepping outside the box is a long used cliche but one I have always adhered to, especially when it comes to promoting a product. Ironically, it was the box that was the solution for our marketing approach for Comic-Con that year. The box was the vessel for the usual and the mundane. Once outside of it, all I saw was valuable marketing real estate on the box, itself!

We needed a vessel of our own that everybody else’s promotional material would go into.

I went to S. Walter Packaging in Philadelphia and researched bags and found a plastic one that was reinforced, strong enough to carry a lot of paper goods, and printable on both sides. I designed a catchy slogan that featured our logo in two colors and incorporated an ad that we were running in our books. Finally, I plastered the thing with black-and-white go-go checks that made it pop across the room.

Comico Convention Bag Front

As expected, we were the only company that had a bag that was capable of holding all of the goodies that anyone could pick up at registration and around convention hall. The bag was not only popular it was in demand. When bags ran out at registration a line formed at our table. Nearly every attendee carried a Comico bag that year and it was nearly impossible to not see our logo anywhere at the convention center or in the streets of downtown San Diego.

Comico Convention Bag Back

Our success at San Diego Comic-Con that year was clearly “In the Bag!”

Gerry Giovinco

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The Comic Company:
How to Start a Comic Book Empire

Tuesday, July 13th, 2010

I became obsessed with making comics when I was in high school during the late 1970’s. I wasn’t content with just drawing them, however. The process of making comics was not complete for me until the comics I had drawn were read by an audience. 

I would make comics and print them on an old mimeograph machine then distribute them around school, usually selling each copy for a nickel. I always considered my calling to be that of a cartoonist but in reality I was a born comics publisher. 

CARTOONING THE HEAD AND FIGURE By Jack Hamm

 I read a lot of comics and I read a lot of books about comics and their history. I read books on how to draw and how to draw cartoons. My favorite books were two by Jack Hamm. Drawing the Head and Figure and Cartooning the Head and Figure published by Grosset & Dunlap in 1963 and 1967 respectively. These books are so great they are still published today by Perigee Books. Get them if you can.

 I considered myself self-taught and I was constantly on the prowl for more material to learn from. Unfortunately, there were no books that I found that actually taught how to make comics.

THE COMPLETE BOOK OF CARTOONING By John Adkins Richardson

In 1977 Prentice-Hall published The Complete Book of Cartooning by John Adkins Richardson. My world had changed. The secrets to making comics were out of the bag and brilliantly collected in just over 250 pages of lavishly illustrated, intelligently composed and detailed instructions. More important to me was that this book paid specific attention to creating comics for reproduction.

The publisher in me was percolating. 

Though the production information in this book is completely outdated today, all of the other content is a must read for anyone interested in creating comics. Copies can be found online. Trust me, if you have not read it, it belongs in your library! 

I tell my children to constantly be aware of and use all resources to achieve the most success. When I was coming up there was no internet with a seemingly infinite knowledge base as there is today. I had to search for information in strange and unusual places. Sometimes the knowledge found me. 

FREE ENTERPRISE Magazine

In the summer of 1979, the year I graduated high school, I opened my mailbox and found a magazine that had been placed there by my next door neighbor. It was an old copy of Free Enterprise “The Magazine That Makes You Money” originally published in April 1978. The cover featured Poster King Ted Trikilis who had cashed in by selling the famous Farrah Fawcett poster. 

HOW TO START A COMIC BOOK EMPIRE By Don Rico

Inside, however, was my gold-mine. A comic feature titled How to Start a Comic Book Empire by Don Rico who had received an Inkpot award in 1976 at the still young San Diego Comic Con. 

The comic adventure of Captain Free Enterprise chronicled the hero showing an aspiring entrepreneur how to publish comics detailing how to buy art, manage expenses, sell advertising, print and distribute product. 

BIG BOOM IN ADULT COMICS By Len Andrews

Following the comic were two articles, Big Boom in Adult Comics by Len Andrews and Best Buys in Comic Collectibles by Cara Greenberg. Both gave a stunning outsiders view of the early days of the Direct Market. 

BEST BUYS IN COMIC COLLECTIBLES by Cara Greenberg

All three features are posted here for historic reference. 

The Publishing Monkey in me was bouncing off the walls! 

I quickly called two of my friends who were also aspiring comic creators, Vince Argondezzi and Phil LaSorda. Both of them had graduated the year before. We got together and laid out a plan. We had a distinct advantage over the business model that Captain Free Enterprise described. We would create our own art, eliminating half of the expenses he outlined. 

Comico the Comic Company was conceived. 

I spent the rest of that summer cavorting around comic conventions in my Thing costume as seen in the wildly popular film that we posted here on CO2 Comics. Those conventions represented a lot of networking, education and maturing. Comico was a solid idea that would require a lot of nurturing, planning, and development especially since the three original partners were all now enrolled in separate colleges. 

Notice in the Captain Free Enterprise story he is seen flying into the San Diego Comic-Con International were many of you are this week 32 years later! While you are out there, look for CO2 Comics contributors Raine Szramski and Mitch O’Connell, also keep an eye out for all CO2 Comics updates. 

Captain Enterprise descends on The San Diego Comic Con

Making comics because we want to! 

Gerry Giovinco

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The Comic Company | Creation

Tuesday, July 6th, 2010

Creation Conventions produced by Gary Berman and Adam Malin from 1971 till today were where I first discovered a sense of community in comics that has hooked me for life.

Thing costume by Gerry Giovinco

I made my first mark in comics not as a comic creator but as a costume designer. In the summer of 1979 my costume creation of The Everlovin’ Blue Eyed Thing, Ben Grimm himself, impressed everyone who saw it. I was soon a popular guy at the Creation shows.

I think that I had made the biggest impression on Bob Schreck who was working for Creation at the time. He was generally the first guy you would see as you came through the door. Always friendly and welcoming, Bob loved my Thing costume. He would call me and have me do promo spots on the local Philadelphia “Dancing on Air” television show to promote upcoming Creation Conventions.

Hulk Meets Thing cast photo

Bob and his friend, Larry Ruggiero, wanted to make a fan film starring their buddy, Kevin Van Wagner as the Incredible Hulk and they wanted me and my Thing costume to be his co-star.

On the set of Hulk Meets Thing

The Incredible Hulk Meets the Everlovin’ Blue Eyed Thing was filmed in Long Island, NY and completed in 1982.

Hulk Meets Thing movie Poster by legendary artist Joe Sinnott

The short film became a staple at the Creation shows, featured in the movie room with such classics as Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, Phantom of Paradise and Plan 9 from Outerspace.

The relationship that I developed with the people at Creation during this time enabled me to negotiate table space in the artist alley at the shows. This is where Comico was first introduced.

Bob Schreck eventually became part of the Comico family and later moved on to be a mainstay as an editor in the comics industry.

The great illustration that was made for the film was created by the legendary Joe Sinnott.

Enjoy the film that is posted here.

Gerry Giovinco

What a revoltin' development!

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Making History

Thursday, July 1st, 2010

The Fourth of July. Independence Day. The birthday of America. A time to appreciate the rich history of our country. A history that makes us uniquely American. History is what makes us who we are, biologically, emotionally, intellectually, and creatively. The choices we make about our future are tempered by lessons learned from accomplishments, mistakes, tragedies, losses, and victories. We can never truly control our destiny but history is our only guide for navigating the unknown future.

CO2 Comics Homepage

The Fourth of July. Independents Day. The birthday of CO2 Comics. We are one year old and we appreciate every minute of it. For us, it is a celebration of the moment in time when we first, publicly revealed our web site http://www.co2comics.com/. It is the celebration of the culmination of years of dreaming, experimenting, hypothesizing, observing and anguishing over history. The history of comics. Our place in the history of comics. How we will use that history to navigate and pioneer the future of comics at this, the Dawn of the Digital Age.

Comico Covers

Mike Sterling reminded us a few weeks ago on his blog Progressive Ruin , that Bill Cucinotta and I had stood at the brink of a new age in comics before as publishers of Comico. We are proud that we had charged in with the likes of Pacific, Eclipse, Warp, Aardvark-Vaneheim, Capital, First and others laying the foundation for what would become The Independent Age.

Top: Bill Cucinotta, Vince Argondezzi, Phil Lasorda, Gerry Giovinco Bottom: Aaron Keaton, Andrew Murphy

Like our forefathers who fought valiantly to establish the ideals and conventions of freedom that make America what it is today, the early Independents left a trail of casualties while they set standards for creator rights, compensation, quality, format and innovative marketing in the fledgeling Direct Market. Comico, a briefly shining star in the industry, unfortunately, is among those ruins but its legacy should be remembered as should the lessons learned from all the pioneers in comics, wether they be the innovators of cave drawings, nineteenth century French publications, Gold, Silver or Bronze Age Comics, Undergrounds, Independents, and now, Digital.

Understand the past before challenging the future.

DAK

This is a lesson I learned from David Anthony Kraft one evening overlooking Georgia from his home perched high on Screamer Mountain during the mid 1980’s. The long time Marvel editor and writer and publisher of Comics Interview had a unique perspective of the history of comics because he had the opportunity to work and speak with legends that had created comics from the dawn of the industry. He appreciated my enthusiasm for change but emphasized understanding the reasoning for why comics had been made the same way for forty years.

Don’t fix what’s not broke? No. Understand the past before challenging the future.

This has been a historic year for comics. The Digital Age is blossoming. What it will be like in full bloom can only be imagined. We know that CO2 Comics will be part of it. We have seen the power of the internet. We know the potential of the downloadable content. We do not underestimate the value of the printed product. We know and respect the power of the medium of comics.

Our first year as CO2 Comics started humbly last Fourth of July weekend with just a few pages of comic art by Bill and me, an introduction and the basic structure and design elements that remain intact today. During our maiden year we have had the pleasure of being able to post the work of over twenty creators, many of which were friends with strong ties to our Comico days. We have accumulated nearly 600 pages of comic art about ten times the amount of work that had been published by Comico in its first year.

CO2 Comics Year One

The audience has been bountiful. CO2 Comics has received nearly two million hits in its first year! In 1982, when Comico began publishing, it was inconceivable to reach an audience like that. Our sales figures of the two Primers that we published in our first year were just a few thousand copies, combined.

We know that as Comico grew into a significant publishing house, CO2 Comics, likewise, will make a major impact in the comics community.

Why? Because history repeats itself.

We also know that we as publishers are older and wiser. We have a proven history of learning from our mistakes, exploring unique options, and pressing the envelope. We also know from failure. We know that Comico, for all of its successes, became a casualty, but it laid a foundation for a future. We are living in that future now and looking into the next horizon.

CO2 Comics considers our first year a beta year. In many ways it was a campaign that developed a life of its own. This next year will be even more exciting. New product will appear on the site, new comics by new creators. Digital, downloads will be developed for e-reading devices, and we will release our first products in print.

A key theme that will prevail throughout will be history. We are excited about comic history and our first print product will have tremendous historic value for the entire comic community. I would love to tell you about it right now, but it’s a surprise! Actually, it has been a tremendous amount of work, a true labor of love, and so important to Bill and I that we will announce it only when it is 100% ready to fly.

Until then we will keep the subject of history alive in our blog with a new weekly feature, The Comic Company, that explores some of the innovations we tackled in our early years of Comico. Inspired by the Progressive Ruin blog, and the interest that was generated by it, we will look at the highlights of the Dawn of the Independents and our involvement in an exciting time in comics history.

Making comics because we want to!

Making history because we just can’t help it.

Gerry Giovinco

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Flashback to the Past

Tuesday, June 15th, 2010

As CO2 Comics closes in on its first anniversary we can’t help but reminisce about what got us this far. Looking back over the past year doesn’t require much of a stretch of the old memory muscle in our heads but Bill and I have a history in the comics industry that goes back nearly 30 years and believe me, some of those memories need to be jogged with a crowbar to snap back to the surface.

That’s why we were so tickled when Mike Sterling resurrected a vintage Comico promo kit that was circulated to retailers back in 1985 and posted it here for the world to see on his website progressiveruin.com.

Most folks that have been following CO2 Comics know that Bill and I were two of the founding partners of Comico. Seeing this promo kit online brought back a lot of memories of Comico and those early days of the Independent comic movement.

Inspired by the archives shown here we’ve decided to dredge up little gems from our own collections and share them here on a weekly basis.
We hope you’ll enjoy them and share some of your Comico treasures with us as well. So please enjoy the link to Mike’s site and return regularly for future updates about the past.

 Gerry Giovinco

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Carl Macek 1952-2010

Monday, April 19th, 2010

It has come to our attention that
Carl Macek passed away from a heart attack this weekend.

Carl Macek and wife Svea

Carl of course was the man behind the huge success of Robotech
in the 1980’s and a big supporter of us at Comico.

Here are a couple of links that has some brief info
regarding his passing:

http://www.robotech.com/news/viewarticle.php?id=418

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2010-04-19/american-anime-producer-carl-macek-passes-away

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/anime/carl-macek-1951-2010.html

This is sad news for all Robotech fans and fans of Anime.


UPDATE:

First, let me apologize for the brevity of the above post. I had just heard the news and wanted to forward it as soon as possible and was not available to follow up on it until now.

Carl Macek had a profound impact on Comico. It was the relationship that we had with Carl and Harmony Gold that solidified the notion that Comico was a viable force in the comic industry. ROBOTECH, more than any other property, made people notice us and trust that we would do a great job publishing anything. Carl trusted us early on and never wavered. The rest is history.

When Bill Cucinotta and Phil LaSorda first met Carl at a Las Vegas comic convention in 1984 they returned home infected by his enthusiasm for Macross. Carl was not just a producer that had landed the rights of an interesting anime series. Carl genuinely loved the medium, and the source material.

We were all fans of anime back then but it was clear that Macross was special. Carl was the preacher and we were the choir. I like to think that Carl saw that we loved making comics as much as he loved producing the English adaption of Macross and knew that we would treat it with the same admiration and dignity that he put into his work. Maybe it was just fate.

At the time we were all little fish in a big sea. Then ROBOTECH happened. Without boring anyone with the history of how the series boomed onto the scene, one thing was clear, ROBOTECH was bigger than all of us. Carl of course rose to the occasion and orchestrated a masterpiece. He had all the opportunity in the world to put the comic adaptation of ROBOTECH into the hands of DC comics but he stood his ground and insured that Comico would continue to be the publisher of his baby.

Carl had not only proven his own integrity but he boldly displayed his trust in us. Before ROBOTECH, I can assure you that Carl micro managed the developement of Macross #1 actually scripting it himself and having his wife Svea render the pencils. The enormity of the ROBOTECH project forced him to step back and hand us the creative reigns of the comic books, which he did unflinchingly. We returned Carl’s good faith by producing comics that he could be proud of.

Carl Macek was a man with a dream as are we all. But Carl separated himself from most by ferociously acting on his dreams. Transforming them into a string of success stories. I am happy to have been part of one of them.

It would be nice if there were more guys like him in the world but it is a tragedy that we have just lost the one-and-only Carl Macek.

My sincerest sympathies to Svea, the rest of Carl’s family and the extended ROBOTECH family.

Gerry Giovinco

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The Gutter | CO2 Comics Offers a Sneak Peek

Tuesday, April 13th, 2010

Trailblazing, Canadian comic artist, Bernie Mireault is currently wrapping up production on his first graphic novel.

To Get Her

TO GET HER is a book length work that features characters well known to fans of his signature work, The JAM.

Gordon Kirby, his girlfriend, Janet and Gordon’s dog, Harvey move into a new direction as the cast takes on the greatest oppressor of all, the daily routine of real life.

Gordon Janet & Harvey

Though soon to be published in print format, Bernie Mireault has offered a sneak peek in the form of an excerpt presented on CO2 Comics where his short stories CABLE, ISAAC vs. ELI, OF The SPHERES and the animated comic, The JAM LIVES have been popular features.

Bernie Mireault on CO2 COMICS

The 24 page, preview of TO GET HER will be posted in the form of weekly updates and will be sure to keep fans informed of publication dates and details of the soon to be completed graphic novel.

Bernie’s work on The JAM, which had been published by Comico, Slave Labor Graphics and Caliber, had been nominated for both Harvey and Eisner awards, as has his work on Matt Wagner’s Grendel.

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Finding Ginger Fox: Pop Star or Pop Art

Thursday, March 25th, 2010

Ginger Fox made her debut on Nickelodeon/TeenNick this past Friday, March 19, 2010.

This is not the smart, saavy, sexy Ginger Fox character created and written by Mike Baron and illustrated by Mitch O’Connell that graces the web pages of CO2 Comics in full, glorious color.

Nickelodeon’s Ginger Fox (Ginger Rosselin Cynthia Fox), played by actress  Betsy Rue, is a washed-up pop star trying to make a comeback. Her exploits were featured in an episode titled “iFix A Popstar” on the popular television show iCarly that stars Miranda Cosgrove as Carly.

The show, which is aimed at young teens, broadcast this episode in which Carly and her friends attempt to help Ginger Fox resurrect her career but discover that the has-been star is a bona fied, uncouth idiot. The episode is an obvious parody of Britney Spears and her bungled 2007 MTV Music Awards performance.

Nickelodeon's Ginger Fox

In stark contrast the lead character in Baron/O’Connell’s The World of Ginger Fox is a determined, intelligent and stylish executive of a Hollywood film studio of the 1980’s.
The World of Ginger Fox was first published as a graphic novel by Comico Comics in 1987 and is now one of the many fine comic features that are updated weekly on CO2 Comics.

GINGER FOX Graphic Novel by Mike Baron and Mitch O'Connell

The introduction of Nick’s Ginger Fox character has generated a search engine buzz that has tracked down many women whose real name is actually Ginger Fox and has lead many young teens to the CO2 Comics site to find comic material that may be intended for a more mature audience.

Though there is material that is perfectly acceptable for young readers, especially those that are considered “young adults,” the general disclaimer on the site reads:
“CO2 Comics is created by Adults for Adults. Some comics on this website contain subject matter that may not be appropriate for children.”

We do not consider any of the material on CO2 Comics to be obscene or gratuitous. There are enough mature themes found throughout the site, however, that warrant our position as responsible publishers to notify readers in advance.

This is a fine example of why parents should remain involved with their children’s experience on the internet. We hope that our efforts can support attentive parenting and lead to a positive comic reading experience for all.

CO2 Comics
Making comics because we want to.

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The Gutter | CO2 Comics & Steve Lafler
Together at Last

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010

Bill and I first met Steve Lafler back in the early eighties at one of the many comic conventions that we frequented as we promoted our then upstart comics publishing company, Comico.
Steve was a regular at most of them, so it could have been in Chicago, Houston, San Diego or any of the many along the road. 
Comic conventions have two parts to them.
The first part is the convention itself, were you are tied to the booth greeting fans, occasionally sneaking away to network when things are slow.
The second part happens after the hall is closed, at dinners and hospitality parties with new and old friends. These are usually fun gatherings that run into the wee hours of the night and are where networking, bonding, and most of the real business of comics gets done. 

Dogboy

 Being rookies at the game, my young partners and I did our best to fit in at those get-togethers and find acceptance among the comics professionals, many of which were our own personal heroes. Among them all, Steve stood out as a mentor and a role model for reasons that were personal to all of us at Comico. 
 Steve’s style was unique and clearly not mainstream, his subject matter was psychedelic with a twist of the occult and, most importantly, he too was a self- publisher standing alone at the helm of the imprint Cat-Head Comics pushing his own black-and-white comic, Dog Boy.

Steve’s acceptance, enthusiasm, and infectious attitudes about individuality, creator’s rights, and independent publishing were refreshing, supportive and motivating to us, especially since they paralleled our own commitments towards publishing comics.
Flash forward nearly three decades and little has changed.

Comico has long escaped Bill and I but our latest creation,
CO2 Comics, has given us a new vehicle by which to present our own work and the work of other great comic talents that share our vision of a cooperative environment where comic creators can support each other creatively and economically through cross promotion on the internet and using the accessibility of self publishing resources. 

BUGHOUSE Graphic Novel

Steve Lafler is still doing his own thing having published over fifty comics himself.
Steve also has had the luxury of seeing his work also published by Fantagraphics and Top Shelf Productions.
He has had the opportunity to brag that his Bughouse graphic novel has been declared one of the top 100 best comics of the last decade and he continues to self publish and explore the boundaries of the medium by posting his comics in blog format and publishing via Print on Demand.
Steve’s enthusiasm remains unbridled as evidenced by this recent facebook quote “I can’t believe how much goddamn fun it is to slap ink on bristol board, holding a brush sideways to draw tire treads. Livin’ the dream, baby.”

So it is no wonder that the time has finally come for CO2 Comics and Steve Lafler to work together doing what we do best, have fun making the best comics we know how. 

El_Vocho

   

CO2 Comics is more than proud to be presenting Steve’ earliest professional work, Dog Boy and his most current work El Vocho which will soon be available as a graphic novel published by Steve himself under his Manx Media Label.  

Manx Media Publications

El Vocho T-shirts

To view more of Steve Lafler’s other available titles visit this link: http://www.stevelafler.net/ 

While you are there, buy some comics and get one of those cool “El Vocho” t-shirts! 

Don’t forget to support all the other creators on CO2 Comics who have provided over 400 pages of comics. 

Do so by reading their work, visiting the provided links and purchasing related products. 

CO2 Comics is committed to delivering great comics direct to the consumer.
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Making comics because I want to, 

Gerry Giovinco

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