Someone mentioned finding a 1990s comic fanzine where it mentioned me and Caliber comics. I was asked what happened?
Uh...Caliber went defunct in 2000 (I think) and it was over trading cards that were misprinted and as a result a couple million dollars worth of purchases had to be refunded. I think the owner, Gary Reed, went on to teach and left comics. What was my connection?
Thankfully, not financial! As with MU Press, AC Comics and Blue Comet Press (amongst others) I was promoting the Caliber Comics in the UK but also had some limited series that Reed wanted to publish. The first was The Ultimate Game which has changed over the last few decades. The other was The Survivor what might be called Escape from New York meets Gladiator! There was another title but I won't mention that for now.
So what went wrong before the cards calamity? Well, the artists. Basically they turned in first issue art and preview pages for later issues and they impressed enough. However, one artist just decided "I can't be bothered" and the other just dropped out of comics then came back in and then...dropped back out again.
Reed accepted what I told him and that was that I could not push any of the series until I found artists who could produce 4 issues and 6 issues respectively. It was what made me decide never to publish anything until all series art is completed. I found someone and Caliber...went bust.
Actually, I will say what the other series was since I just realised that this is the one mentioned in the found comic news item and, to be honest, it is not going to shock anyone! The series was D-Gruppe: Germany's Premiere Super hero team and some of the rough art I put together still exists. Seriously, one day D-Gruppe will be a published series outside of Black Tower (maybe).
While so many Indie comic companies vanished Black Tower continued and evolved and is still here decades later.
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