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From Breaking In to Publishing - This is How We Started

By Anthony Cacioppo

"I got back to comic book art around 1990-91. I was looking forward to doing pencilled pages and sending out samples. But at the time I realized that I just did not have the hours that it would take to start laying out pages and doing tight pencils. My inking was pretty good, and I knew with constant practice would get better, so I decided to get into just doing inks.

"I sent out many samples to companies looking for inkers, focusing on the independent companies, because I knew that the time frame was a lot longer than the bigger companies. I really just wanted to do some projects on a part time basis. I could not afford to give up my day job to get into a 22 or 24 page grind. Having a job with benefits is just too hard to give up in this day and age.

"Anyway, I finally started getting work with many small companies. Most are not around anymore but some are still doing business, like Brainstorm and Comic Conspiracy. I did that long enough to build up some confidence and decided I would take a shot at publishing. In 1997 I formed Kaso Comics (Kaso, by the way, stands for a nickname I had as a teenager growing up in Brooklyn, New York).

"I loved horror movies growing up and for some reason I just loved the movie "The Indestructible Man" that starred Lon Chaney, Jr. So we did some investigating on where the rights were with the movie and we were able to copyright the publishing rights to it. That was our first comic book. It was a two part miniseries and it has done very well for us.

"Our second title is called "The Risen and the Dead." This started out in 1999 as a three part miniseries. While planning out the second issue we were talking withour Diamond distribution agent and it was decided to drop parts two and three and just put the entire book as one big issue.

"Diamond has been very good with us and we value the opinions of our contacts there. They know their stuff and have helped us a lot along the way. Diamond is looking for books to sell thousands of copies and a lot of times things like small press miniseries probably will not work out with them. One thing I've learned in publishing is to listen to people in a position to know - so The Risen and the Dead is now a large, single issue!

Kaso Comics right now is focusing on one-shot comics and is working on a "how to draw" series, an 8 1/2 x 11 softcover book, from comic book veteran Ken Landgraf. We are also putting out posters, prints, artboards, T-shirts and have original artwork for sale. My advice to small comic publishers is to branch out and search out work beyond the comic book industry to keep your people busy and the capital flowing. Kaso Comics is currently doing illustration and commission work outside of the comic book world and we have high hopes for 2001.