Podcast Episode 3: Meeting Strangers

Our tagline here at Sewer Mutant: “excavating comics that you can’t find anywhere else.” But there actually is another place to find a lot of the same comics I cover: a zine called Strangers: A Celebration of the Forgotten and Overlooked, which could also serve as the tagline for Sewer Mutant. Strangers has featured interviews with the likes of Richard Corben, Ken Langraff, Geoff Darrow, and Ragne Naess (I’m particularly jealous of that one), along with articles on dollar bin diving, reviews of both new and old comics, and much more. More recently, Strangers editor and publisher Eddie Raymond has expanded into running a distro and publishing comics. And he just happens to be my guest this month.

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Show notes:

First things first: Thanks Krudler for letting us use your music in the show.

Eddie didn’t grow up with comics. He works for a comics and pop culture convention company, he wanted to understand that world so he started reading comics. His background is in organizing punk shows.

One of the first comics he read was Letter 44 by Charles Soule and Alberto Albuquerque.

80s and 90s comics are before Eddie’s time. He got into Geoff Darrow because he came to some of the conventions he organized. He describes getting into other artists like getting into punk bands, one artist to another. “It all seemed more interesting than what is in the shops, what was on the shelves.”

He had always wanted to do a zine, zines were always part of the punk scene. He learned InDesign in his job, then saw the zine Bubbles. He emailed a few people and they said they’d love to be interviewed. That’s how the first issue came together.

The issue of Strangers he recommends for someone who wants to pick up just one issue to find out what they’re about, he thinks issue 4 is the best overall issue.

No plans to do a digital version of the zine, though he is launching a new website that might republish some of the interviews there. (Actually, it launched today!)

The Corben interview (in issue 2) was Corben’s last interview. Will probably put that one up on the website.

Strangers also published the only known English interview with Damlog creator Ragne Naess, which might also be his only interview in any language. It’s in issue 4.

Eddie pronounces it “diss tro” but I usually pronounce it dee-stro because of a friend who pronounces it that way. Eddie’s way sounds more correct since it’s short for “distributor” (I think), but I think my way sounds cooler.

He started the distro to help European creators sell comics in the US without sky-high shipping fees.

Publishing comics is sort of an extension of that. He started publishing comics in the second issue of the Strangers zine. He didn’t want to limit himself to a few pages.

One of the first comics Strangers published was Dynamite Diva # 3 by Jasper Jubenvill and Sober by Jared Cody Wolf.

He published 15 books in 2021. The print runs tend to sell out quickly.

Eddie hopes to do 4 issues of the fanzine in 2022, he only did 2 in 2021. Is talking about bringing on another editor.

Publishing is the most important thing to him, he has 20–25 books planned for 2022.

Says he has no artistic ability, so no he’s not planning on doing his own comic.

His advice for others who want to do a zine: don’t be afraid to ask people for interviews, they’ll probably be thrilled to be in a zine. A lot of creators got into comics through fanzines.

Eddie asked me what my top comics of 2021 were. It was easy for me to say Reptile House, who I featured in the previous episode of this podcast. I don’t know why I forgot to mention poopix@yahoo.com, by Barbatus and Meanboss, who were featured in episode 1. I also forgot Dark Dai, which was one of Eddie’s top 10 comics of 2021 as well. I did mention Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’s Reckless. Ordinarily, I’d be reluctant to recommend it until after Image Comics resolves their labor dispute, but there’s a big old Ed Brubaker bundle available through Humble Bundle where you can get most (all?) of the comics he’s done for Image for only $25, and a chunk of that will go to charity, so you don’t have to feel bad about buying it. (Update: Image labor dispute resolved!)

Both Eddie and I spend more time reading older stuff than newer stuff, but we agree that it’s important to read newer stuff because there’s so much more diversity now than there was decades ago. Strangers was originally going to be only older stuff but expanded in part to bring more diversity to his coverage.

We talked a bit about Aircel, founded by the controversial Barry Blair. I recommend he talk to Dale McKeon and Dale Cooper about that.

We talked a bit about Tim Vigil and how problematic he is. My interrogation of that material is now available here.

One current comic he recommends that he doesn’t publish is Hell is in Your Heart by Steven Thomas. Unfortunately, it’s sold out but another printing is forthcoming. Eddie really wants to publish the vampire comic Steven does.