More fast ones. Lots of small publishers jumped into the business because something sold huge numbers. The Turtles become a thing and everyone is churning out black & white anthropomorphic animal comics, or worse. By the 90s, they were coming and going faster than you could read the solicitations in Advance or Previews. The Speculator Boom had a lot of snake oil salesmen diving in. There were a few good publishers who came along the; but, not many and not many survived the decade (or even the next two years). One who made a lot of noise, with ads in CBG and similar publications was Lightning Comics.
Lightning was Joseph and Steve Zyskowski. Their ads touted the collectibility of their comics, with deliberately low print runs. Their sales on their first title, Bloodfire, sold 50,000 copies. Now, we of the CBG crowd just ripped into these guys on the letters pages. it was probably the most blatant play to speculator mentality of any publisher. There were jokes about the low print runs being more of a factor of low demand, than deliberate action. Whatever the truth of things ( I suspect initial orders dropped significantly with each new title). They lasted from 1993-early 1998, which was longer than I gave them credit. Most of their books not only had limited print runs but never produced a second issue.
Their longest running title was Bloodfire...
It was derivative stuff, as a wounded Marine is saved by an experimental serum that causes his blood to become flammable. The art was Image-Lite.
More generic superhero team stuff, more Image-Lite art.
A crooked Chicago cop (that's redundant) from the 1800s is murdered by angry citizens and rises from the grave, as a supernatural avenger. Sounds vaguely familiar, like something Image would do...
Sense a pattern here?
CreeD was a continuation of a comic from Hall of Heroes, about a teenaged kid who is rid the world of evil. however, since he is a comic hero, he doesn't age, while his friends do. His mentor is a shape-shifting talking frog. Pretty much swiping from Spawn (which was hardly original) and The Maxx (which was a pretty damn unique book). the art style was very much in the style of Sam Keith's big footed Maxx.
That was the cream of the crop-a lot of Image wannabe. They didn't stop there, as the dove head first into the Bad Girl Fad.
Hellina had a bunch of one shots, with nude variant covers, even. This drek was lower than just about anything in the Eros or Forbidden Fruit line of adult comics, if you ask me. They are crap comics, badly drawn, that are pretty much in existence for one purpose-induce blindness, if you know what I mean.
Lightning whimpered off much more quietly than they debuted and were never much of a factor in the industry, even in a period with people like Boneyard, Triumphant, or some of the other fly-by-nights.
On a slightly higher plane, though equally short lived was Continum Comics, run by Joseph Naftali. These guys lasted from 1988 to 1994 and had some decent material. They had work from artists like Larry Stroman, Joseph Linsner, Mark bright and a cover by george Perez. Their first title was Continu, Presents...
It was an anthology, though mostly featuring a character I'll get to, in a minute.
Foodang was a superhero parody, from Michael Duggan. A clown with a gun. never saw it, but they tried to make a go it a second time, then at Entity, including art from Bart sears.
Mighty Mites was a continuation of the series from Eternity/Malibu, which was a parody of Marvel and other superhero companies (but, especially Marvel and X-Men) It was a decent little series.
This was Continum's premiere title and the one I read, once I was able to get my hands on it: The Dark. The Dark was a 500 year-old immortal warrior, with a healing factor that makes Wolverine look like a hypochondriac. The costume was a superhero ninja and he has the fighting skills to match it. I had been infatuated with the idea of an immortal combat expert, since watching the original Highlander movie, around the same time as I discovered the Horseclans series and Milo Morai. Imagine someone who retains the vigor and power of youth; but has centuries of experience to go with it.....the perfect fighting machine. Then, I read about The Dark, in Comics Scene (I think, might have the wrong mag). i got ahold of one or two issues, then met Naftali at Gencon and bought the missing one, followed by the Perez cover issue. It was damn close to the idea that went around in my head. The art was good, with Stroman and bright on interiors and Naftali writing. they did 4 issues, restarted it with reprints and then new issues, for 7 total.
Continum rebranded as August House, with reprint 1st issues of The Dark and Foodang and then new material for a second and last issue. I always thought they were an unfortunate victim of the speculator boom and bust, as they really tried to put out quality material, but just didn't have the capital to keep it going. They spent big on covers and still spent on interiors; but, just couldn't get it into people's hands.
One last quickie, from the early 90s, that proved very short-lived; but, made a ton of noise, for a brief time: ANIA. Now, this was actually a conglomeration of African-American publishers/self-publishers. DC had started their association with Milestone, which was a high profile imprint; but, these were independents. ANIA was a loose association of publishers in 4 different states, one of which became quite infamous, which we will save for last. The work veried from very amateurish (colored with markers & crayons!) to quite professional, though derivative. Here's what they did....
Ebony Warrior was a superhero book from Africa rising, with two issues, done by Eric Griffin and Steven X Routhier. It was fairly cookie cutter superhero stuff: a minister's son was a top graduate from college, courted by Fortune 500 companies who comes back home to teach remedial classes to underprivileged students. the crime has gotten out of control and enter Ebony warrior. Eric Griffin was the editor of Africa Rising and the coordinator of the confederation of publishers, who tried to present an optimistic take on all this,with promises that these characters aren't stereotypes.
Purge is a hero in Winston-Salem, NC, who fights drug dealers in the community and saves a young man who tells him to stop fighting the symptoms and go after the white men and foreigners who bring the drugs to the ghetto. Not much info about Powerknights; but, it's a super team. These were from UP Comics. 1 issue of Powerknights, two of Purge.
This was from Omega 7, which was Alonzo Washington, with marker coloring, etc. It was a militant world, with villains like the Enslaver and Aryan Avenger, racist cops, riots and everything but Rodney King. There is also an aborted gang rape, which is something it shared with Ebony Warrior.
Now, the last and most infamous of all: Zwanna, Son of Zulu, from Dark Zulu Lies.
Zwanna is an African prince (not sure if he is of the T'Challa variety or the Eddie Murphy variety) who has come to attend college in the US, at Black American State University, the world's most ultra-liberal learning institution. He angers the Focal Spy Company, who sick their three agents on them: Georgina Shrubs, Rhoda Rayban and Jamie Carter. Not only are their names parodies of the 3 previous presidents, they are drag queen assassins!.....
Not exactly The Adv. of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. It was pretty homophobic; but, also ridiculously campy, which at least got attention.
Getting even more attention was publisher/writer Nabile P Hage dressing as Zulu, climbing to the top of the Georgia State Capitol Building, throwing off copies of the comic. needless to say, he was arrested. I still recall the ads in CBG, with pictures of Hage as Zwanna.
Hage also published 2 issues of motorbike Puppies, where animals and humans are merged to create super soldiers.
Needles to say, confederations are rarely successful, as everyone tends to do their own thing. That's what happened here and ANIA disappeared, while Milestone showcased new talent, some excellent titles and got a property on tv. Sadly, we did not get a Zwanna tv series, with a special crossover episode f A Different World, where students from Black American State U meet the students of Hillman. No Sinbad meets Zwanna. Darn........
Really, the closest ANIA got to an entertainment property is in a bit of parody, though I don't know if it was deliberate, in Kevin Smith's Chasing Amy, in the form of African-American writer/artist Hooper X...
(Warning: NSFW, 'cause, it's Kevin Smith)
image2.milehighcomics.com/istore/images/large/58075882280.2.gifProbably a coincidence; but, ANIA and Milestone did elicit some counter-claims of racism, since they were presenting characters of color and not white guys; so, you could see where Smith might have taken an idea or two.
ANIA never amounted to more than a brief bit of noise, for a month or two, in CBG and The Comics Journal; but, give them points for trying to do something in an under-represented market. There were worse things out there, from bigger companies.
A bit before Lightning, Continum, and ANIA, there was Silverwolf/Greater Mercury. The company was started as Silverwolf, by Kris Silver, in 1986, from Alexander's Comic Shop, in Sacramento. They were in the right place, at the right time, as the Black & White Boom took off. They had a product that sold pretty big numbers, as they weren't afraid to be graphic, before others really went there. It helped that they were using some promising young talent: Ron Lim (Hero Alliance, Ex-Mutants, Captain America, Silver Surfer) and Tim Vigil (Faust). Their big titles were Eradicators (with Lim) and Grips (with Faust)...
Grips is the more infamous of the two, a hyper-violent vigilante, who is a cross between Wolverine and the Punisher. Grips was their bread & butter title.
Also appearing were Dragon Quest and Legion X-1...
Apparently, depending on who you believe, Silverwolf shut down because of monies owed by distributors for unpaid invoices. There was a big upheaval in this timeframe with several smaller distributors going belly up, from speculating on the black & whites (like Scott Rosenberg's Sunrise); so, that's possible. There was also talk of unpaid artists, which could have stemmed from the unpaid invoices. A couple of years later, the company was revived as Greater Mercury Comics, with a financial backer. They revived the titles, added some more, plus portfolios, and novelettes. they added some new titles...
Really, it was mostly ultra-violent and amateurish, apart from Lim and Vigil and Vigil basically just upped the ante with Faust, which I always found to be the comic equivalent of a shock jock DJ. If you like rivers of blood and guts spraying out, before such things were the norm, have at these. I had one issue of Grips, which I picked up out of curiosity and it was one issue too many.
Next time, we will look at someone who tried to do more positive things with his efforts: Byron Preiss and his various publishing ventures.