Hepcats by Martin Wagner is a amazing story featuring anthropomorphic animals that was never finished due to real-life intrusions. And the sad part of the story is that the best parts of the story were never collected. It’s a strange tale of how art and reality collided in unforeseen ways and killed off one of the best self-published comics of the 1990s.

Once upon a time, the University of Texas in Austin had a newspaper comics team to drool over. Chris Ware (Acme Novelty Library / Jimmy Corrigan) and Robert Rodriguez ( Desperado, Sin City) were two of the stars, but probably more popular at the time was Martin Wagner and his slice of life, anthropomorphic series Hepcats. Wagner took and self-published a Hepcats book (Yo: The First Hepcats Book) while still in school. After graduating, he decided to self-publish a series. Some of the college strips and issue 1 were collected in a book (The Collegiate Hepcats) and then starting with issue 3, Wagner decided to tell a multi-issue story, Snowblind.

Snowblind is the story of Erica. Erica came in as Artie’s girlfriend in the college strips. Artie was a loser friend of Gunther and Joey (the main characters) who had almost committed suicide at one time. And then he met and fell in love with Erica who he later found out was a stripper (ironically later Wagner met his real-life ex-wife in a similar manner). The story opens with our four heroes going Christmas shopping, Artie confides in the friends that he plans to propose to Erica. And Erica sees a man who obviously rattles her. It turns out that Erica is really Kathryn, who ran away from an abusive family and the man is her brother. Volume 1 of Snowblind (Hepcats issues 3-10) covers the middle of the overall story. Volume 2 was going to cover the beginning (how Kathryn became Erica), but only 2 issues were ever completed. Issue 11 was…unbelievable, a wordless story that showed the abusive family Erica ran away from. It is one of the most powerful single comic book issues I have ever read. Then issue 12 came out and Hepcats has not been seen since.

Now to understand some of the real-life story, you need to know about Dave Sim and self-publishing. Dave Sim (review of High Society) was one of the granddaddy’s of comic book self-publishing with his series Cerebus. Sim was vociferous for self-publishing and gained a few acolytes. Among these were Jeff Smith (Bone), Colleen Doran (A Distant Soil), James Owen (Starchild), Larry Marder (Beanworld) and our hero Martin Wagner. They went on a self-publishing tour and supported each other. Then Marder took over Image Comics, Smith and Sim got into a fight, Doran went to Image, James Owen went to Image and Martin Wagner had some personal issues. And the self-publishing team was no more. Smith and Sim each completed their series, self-publishing the entire thing. Doran, Owen and Marder published through Image.

Wagner got caught up in a cycle of not finishing his book and having business and personal problems that impacted his artistic schedule. After a few years, Antarctic Press (who were big fans of his) offered to publish Hepcats. In order to get him back on a schedule and give him time to create the new issues, they started by republishing the existing 12 issues (with an added issue zero for new readers). That would give Wagner time to finish 13 (which he swore was almost done). After issue 12 came out from Antarctic, nothing more was heard. The publisher had trouble contacting Wagner and all hope was lost. Then in 2008, Wagner started appearing on the Internet. He wanted to finish Hepcats and he needed money. He sold some drawings, back issues, etc to get a solid financial base for the work and long-time fans supported him. The drawings slowed down and readers ended up waiting longer and longer until he was able to get their stuff to them. And then he disappeared from the Internet again. Many people still hold out hope for the end of Snowblind, but few believe it will ever happen. And Wagner has burned enough bridges that few would be willing to offer money until they can have the book in their hands. But if the book ever appears again, I will be one of the first in line. It’s that good.