EXCLUSIVE: Asylum Press’ Publisher Frank Forte on How His Indie Comics Continue to ‘Kill It’

We were lucky enough to land an interview with comics legend Frank Forte, the force behind Asylum Press, one of the best-established indie comics publishers. Forte has been involved in indie comics for years but has also found fame for his work in animation on shows like “Bob’s Burgers” and “Solar Opposites.” 

Among the titles available from Asylum are “Fearless Dawn,” “Beyond Doomsday: Illustrated Tales of the Apocalypse,” and many of Forte’s creations, including his vampire titles and Halloween specials. 

Forte is a comic book artist, writer, publisher, and a noted storyboard artist and designer. We spoke with him about how he manages an indie comic book company, how he got started in the business, and how he keeps everything moving forward.

INDIE COMICS ZONE:
Thanks so much for your time. I appreciate it. Can you tell me how you got started in art, animation, and comics?

FRANK FORTE:
Sure. I went to art school in the ‘90s, and I always loved comics. I wanted to break into comics, so I was part of that indie black-and-white scene. When Boneyard Press was doing stuff and that whole black and white horror boom — Tim Vigil and “Faust,” James O’Barr with “The Crow” — I was doing short horror stories. For [example] in “Cry for Dawn” and “Night Cry” and Boneyard Press’ stuff. And then I started my own thing with “Vampire Versus.” That was my bad girl book in the ‘90s.

I found it difficult to make a steady living doing indie comics. I guess my style… I could never break into the majors. I submitted to Marvel, DC, and Dark Horse. But in the late ‘90s, I got a job at an animation studio in Connecticut. Then I started learning about animation, background design, and Flash animation. I thought… well, maybe this will make money, and I’d continue to do the comics as an indie publisher.

Even with Diamond, it was just hard to get the kind of numbers you need to make money. Always love the medium. I kept publishing into the early 2000s when we did the Satan book anthologies.

Then I got laid off from that job in Connecticut. I moved to New York for a while. I went to the School of Visual Arts. I tried to get my skills up to, maybe, go back to Marvel or DC or work in some of those animation studios that were in New York, but there wasn’t a huge scene in New York for animation.

Then Sept. 11 happened, and the scene in New York was just crazy. People didn’t want to go there anymore — they were afraid. I had friends who were moving out to Los Angeles, and they told me that there was an animation scene… there’s storyboard… there’s comics… there’s art. I just needed to change. I didn’t have a job, and I didn’t really know anybody. But I packed up my car, with my comics, all my shit. So I drove out there. And I showed my portfolio around, and people said, “Oh, yeah, that’s good.” 

But you know… if you want to work in animation, you need a certain style. I started taking classes at some of the animation schools in LA taught by people who worked for Disney Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon. The teachers are people that work in the studios. 

I met some people working at a studio taking classes at night; they needed a background designer, which I submitted. I got this design job doing backgrounds. I started getting work in Flash, worked for a bunch of studios, and finally decided that storyboarding would be the best job because it’s kinda like comics. 

I could tell stories and meet with directors. It’s more fun than character design, background design, and animation, which are cool jobs. But storyboarding is kind of the closest thing to comics. And there’s also a lot more positions in storyboarding. If you look at it, every animated show has at least 15 storyboard guys and just one character designer. It’s better to have a job with more positions; you’ll get more work. And plus, it was more fun anyway.

I could still draw; I could still draw fight scenes and monsters and effects and draw for a living and have fun. I work in animation on “Bob’s Burgers” and “Solar Opposites.”

And then slowly, just going back and forth between live action, like “Conjuring,” “The Nun,” “Escape Room,” and “Lovecraft Country.”

I’ve been moving toward the live-action stuff because it seems more fun. It pays a little better, and there’s more work. And believe it or not, you kind of age out of animation. The animation studios, like the young kids who get out of school… they just have more ideas. But in live action, they like the experience. They don’t care how old you are; they just want to get it done. They want an experienced guy that knows the business. So age doesn’t matter as much.

During COVID, work kind of dried up a little bit. So, I just got started getting back into comics. I’m like, “What am I going to do with all this free time?” It is my true love. So, I tried to start up Asylum Press and try to do more kickstarting or finding alternative methods of distribution for indie publishers. 

There are a lot of like micro distributors out there. But it’s still difficult. And I think you need crowdfunding. I mean, look at what Brian Pulido does. It’s amazing, but that’s the short run of how I got started, the transition from comics to storyboard and back again.

INDIE COMICS ZONE:
Wow! That’s an incredible story. And it seems like your comic skills lend themselves to storyboarding well…

FRANK FORTE:
Directors like working with comic artists, because we have a good drawing skill set … perspective, monsters, effects, cars…we can already draw that stuff.

INDIE COMICS ZONE:
What has been so far for you the most challenging part about getting your comics going again?

FRANK FORTE:
I think if you’re with Diamond, the hard part is getting the stores to know about it so the stores pre-order it. It’s always a challenge to get those pre-orders in. It’s getting your fans to pre-order so that the stores the retailers see other pre-orders are building up. If they see a lot of pre-orders, they’ll order more for the racks. 

If they don’t see many pre-orders in the previous catalog, they’ll realize it’s not. Maybe they’ll order one or two if they’re cool stores, or they know there’s a certain amount that will sell on the racks because they’ve seen the title before. But the more pre-orders they see, the more they order from the stands. It’s kind of like that game you’re trying to play. 

It’s a matter of promotion. Social media… you’re posting, you realize it’s just not getting to anybody, like why isn’t this working? You try to get coverage on websites, which is always good. But the big ones like CDR, Newsarama, and Bleeding Cool… They rarely cover a solicitation from an indie. So it’s hard to get that covered. It used to be easier.

There’s no more Hero or Wizard, so there are no magazines out there that you can advertise in. There used to be like that you could reach 10,000 readers of the Comics Buyers Guide. But that’s not there anymore. There are hardly any print magazines you can advertise with.

So it is a challenge. You’re hoping people come to your website, or you’re hoping they open your newsletter. I have a newsletter, but newsletters can go to spam or go to promotions folders. Then those don’t get seen. So you either rely on sites like yours, smaller sites to cover your press release, or doing podcasts, having your own YouTube channel where you talk about it, like Cartoonist Kayfabe. 

Those guys build this massive thing when they have a new book coming out. They’re like, hey, check out our new book, and it sends tens of thousands of people to pre-order that book. That model is really cool.

INDIE COMICS ZONE:
What kind of shows are you involved in?

FRANK FORTE:
I do the local stuff because I’m in LA. I do San Diego… I’ll do LA Comic Con and DesignerCon, which is in Anaheim, which is kind of like a designer toy show. I’m also trying to sell my books wholesale to micro distributors like Comics Mainstream, Comics Distro, and Powerhouse. Those guys are distributors that also take books to shows. 

You got to drive there on Thursday. Then it’s Friday, Saturday, Sunday, then drive back Monday. That is five days out of your thing. In the ‘90s, you could make $10,000 at a show. Now, you’re lucky to break even. So, it’s not always worth it, but I do. 

INDIE COMICS ZONE:
Well, your Asylum Press titles are just really incredible. The artwork and the different kinds of horror that you feature are… 

FRANK FORTE:
We try to do the best stuff. We’ve worked with Steve Mannion for a while. I was an editor for “Heavy Metal,” so I met many cool creators who do short stories and draw short stories. That’s not always an easy thing to find. Sometimes you have to pair up artists and writers, but there is a particular type of creator who writes, draws, and works in the short story format. We work with a lot of those people for the anthology books, but we want to do more of it. I’ve always liked [anthologies], but they’re tough to bring in a profit; got to create some character. 

If you look at Brian Pulido like he’s created a universe of characters. He doesn’t do horror anthologies seamlessly, like Zenescope. They have characters. So we’re trying to create that signature character in a universe, so people have something to come to, aside from anthologies.

But you’re right, though. For an Indie [Creator], the promotion is tough. If you can do it on crowdfunding and raise like some of these guys raise $20 or $30,000. That’s pretty good. Then you can make the book. You can print it, ship it, and there’s some leftover. 

INDIE COMICS ZONE:
Have you found that the people who are interested in your books have you found that they are interested in purchasing extra T-shirts, clothes, pens, and things?

FRANK FORTE:
Yeah, I think they do. I think when they finally find the book. You see the orders on the website, you’ll see a comic book and then you start seeing the merchandise and we’re starting to sell it through other distributors. So Diamond and Lunar are going to carry it. 

And I use Faire — another site that, indeed, people might be interested in working with. It’s a wholesale website where you, as a creator or an artist, can put your merchandise up there. Basically, the buyer is 20,000 independent retailers all over the that’s in the States. Still, it’s spreading all over the world. I thought these guys weren’t going to buy comic books. But yet, they do. 

But they also they’re more into like little indie weird gift stores. And maybe into buying enamel pins, even though they don’t know what they want. Cool, eclectic stuff that isn’t mainstream.

INDIE COMICS ZONE:
I met a professional creator at a con who said there’s no such thing as digital distribution. He said that you’re giving your comics away once a creator goes digital. People post your work on pirate sites and email it to each other…

FRANK FORTE:
I was, to be honest, against it at first. But it just seemed like, even if you don’t put it out there digitally, somehow those comic books get on those digital pirate sites. You can’t have them taken down, once they start getting copied.

The way I look at it is like if somebody wants to read my comic for free and get into it, and they want to buy it, they’ll probably come to my site and buy it. But some people will read comics that they’ll never buy your comic, you know. So, you can’t fight it. 

Comixology makes us some revenue. Sometimes we try to put the comics out digitally, like a month after they come into stores, to give the stores a little bit of breathing room. 

We’re so small that in the big scheme of things. I don’t know how much that would affect our sales. Are people going to go to a store and buy it? Using it in a month before on Comixology? I don’t know. I think it’s a good way to get the books out there. 

People may not have known you will find it on Comixology and global. I think it’s a win. Because it’s like you said, it’s so hard to get promotion or get coverage. You finally start relying on these sites. We reformat and put on Webtoon because Webtoon has millions of readers. 

MORE ABOUT ASYLUM PRESS
Founded in 1999 by Frank Forte, Asylum Press is a unique publishing house specializing in high profile projects from some of the industry’s biggest names. Publishing superhero comics with Warlash: Zombie Mutant Genesis, continuing their tradition of horror with Undead Evil, Satan’s 3-Ring Circus of Hell, the upcoming Asylum of Horrors and Beyond Lovecraft, venturing into dark humor with Billy Boy The Sick Little Fat Kid and The Cletus and Floyd Show, Asylum Press continues to be on the cutting edge of comic and graphic novel publishing. For more information on Asylum Press, check out the official website at http://www.asylumpress.com