It’s a surprisingly big pile, bigger than three refrigerators. It’s 113 cubic feet and, at two tons, heavier than a Jeep Cherokee. Its contents: 5,250 unsold issues of the Imp, Dan Raeburn’s zine about comics. The pile sits in Raeburn’s Kenwood basement, not budging, not shrinking.
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In a way, every mistake Raeburn made on Imp number four was a direct result of the success of Imps one through three, each of which profiled a different comic book artist with illustrations and long personal essays written by Raeburn. Issue number one, “The Fallen World of Daniel Clowes,” published in 1997, was a slim, saddle-stitched volume that interspersed Raeburn’s essay on the cartoonist with excerpts of an interview with Clowes. “I worked on this evenings and weekends for about six months, followed by a two-week stretch of all day every day,” he says of the issue. The initial printing of 1,000 copies moved quickly, so Raeburn printed another 2,000 and sold them too. The second issue, “The Holy War of Jack T. Chick,” profiling the creator of the pocket-size fire-and-brimstone Christian cartoon pamphlets passed out on street corners, came out the next year. That issue, Raeburn says, was “a doozy”–he worked on it part-time for seven months, then full-time for two more. He optimistically made an initial print run of 2,000 and ended up having to order a second printing of 1,000 and a third of 2,000 before demand died down. Imp number three, “The Smartest Cartoonist on Earth,” published in 1999, examined the work of Chris Ware. Raeburn spent so much time on this project he completely lost track: “It’s just a blur of gray winter days and long nights,” he says. “I threw everything out and started all over at least twice or thrice.” Guessing that its audience would be substantial, Raeburn printed 4,000 copies–and once again he underestimated demand. He ordered a second run of 2,000, and they all sold out.
“Those were the good old days,” says Raeburn.
Raeburn has a bunch of theories about why “Historietas Perversas” didn’t sell. The subject matter had a lot to do with it, he thinks. “Nobody’s interested in Mexican comics,” he says, sounding amazed. “I thought everybody would be. They’re infinitely more interesting than most Japanese comics,” which have garnered a huge American following, despite the vast differences in language and culture.
For many zinesters, such an offer would have fulfilled fondly (but likely secretly) held aspirations of breaking into “real” publishing. But Raeburn, as pessimistic as he is obsessive, never met a gift horse he didn’t want to kick in the mouth. The July deadline was too tight, he groused. The standard $5,000 pay was too little, especially since the job included coordinating the photography of Ware’s artwork. To finish the book on time, he would have to give up freelancing, but, his savings exhausted, he couldn’t survive on the advance, one-third of the total pay.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Yvette marie Dostatni; cover art/Jose Silva and Oscar Bazaldua.
