Randy Chang's career in comics could have been inspired by Robert Frost poetry: with every crossroad, he's taken the road less traveled. Once a casual reader of comics featuring Spider-Man and Batman, he discovered "[Dan] Clowes and [Chris] Ware and [James] Kochalka [while in college], and it all snowballed from there." At loose ends upon graduation, he attended a ‘state of comics publishing' panel at MoCCA, led by Highwater Books publisher Tom Devlin. According to Chang, Devlin "left an indelible impression that he ‘knew what was going on.'" Chang contacted Devlin regarding an internship and "the next week I was packing books."
Chang decided to take Bodega a step further in 2006. After getting his feet wet by publishing Dave Kiersh's A Last Cry for Help, he put out two post-apocalyptic titles: Mourning Star, by Kazimir Strzepek, and Daybreak, by Brian Ralph. Strzepek had been self-publishing Mourning Star, which reads like a dark AD&D[2] epic, as a series of minis: Chang, who describes himself as a "huge fantasy/sci-fi nerd," had seen the comics and, when he ran into the cartoonist at APE, offered to publish a collection. Likewise, Chang and Ralph had connected at the Highwater table at SPX: when Ralph began publishing Daybreak — the story of a one-armed survivor of a zombie holocaust — online, Chang made inquiries as to publishing it. Bodega's flagship titles were well received: particularly Mourning Star, as it earned Strzepek an Eisner nomination and an Ignatz award. Chang acknowledged the award nominations "generated a lot of interest for the book that it probably otherwise wouldn't have, for readers that don't go to the shows and foreign publishers. But really what it's changed is it's made things easier for my parents. Before they would always tell their friends they didn't really know what I was up to, some crazy comic-book thing. Now they can say ‘our son Randy is an AWARD-WINNING publisher,' which makes them happy and which means less grief for me."
This series of events also highlights the importance of indy conventions for small-press-and-self publishers. Chang explained, "MoCCA, SPX, and EXPOzine are the three annual shows we schedule everything else around. SPACE, APE, and INDIEISLAND got thrown in this year too: TCAF in 2009. Sometimes I think the shows are the foundation of the business, not only in terms of making money and getting exposure, but getting to meet and party with other artists and publishers. I like to party." Crucially, networking at conventions can foster mutually beneficial business relationships. For example, Sparkplug publisher Dylan Williams sold La Mano and Bodega comics from his table at the 2007 Portland, Ore. Stumptown Comics Fest. Chang would like to cooperate further with Williams, as he "usually can't make it out to the West Coast conventions, and Dylan has been nice enough to make sure our books still have a presence at the show. I do the same for Dylan when he can't make it out to the East Coast, like last year at SPACE and EXPOzine."Kristy Valenti currently works for The Comics Journal and Fantagraphics Books, Inc.
Uncharted Territory is © Kristy Valenti, 2008
