Piranha Press
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Piranha Press, an imprint of DC Comics from 1989 to 1993, was a response by DC to the success of Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus graphic novel, [citation needed] and to the growing interest in alternative comics. The imprint was edited by Mark Nevelow, who chose not to develop comics with the established names in the alternative comics field, instead introducing several unknown illustrators with an eclectic and diverse line of experimental graphic novels and stories. According to former DC art director Dale Crain, Nevelow once stated that the only well-known alternative comics artist he would even consider was Chester Brown. Unusual for the time, Nevelow succeeded in getting DC to agree to contracts giving creator ownership to writers and artists. Nevelow's associate editor on the imprint was Karen McBurnie. Designer Dean Motter created the basic Piranha cover format and logo. After the initial 1989 titles were art directed by John Workman, the in-house Piranha production design was by Bhob Stewart from 1989 to 1992, with other design contributions by Crain, Rick Spanier, Richard Bruning, Veronica Carlin, Margaret Clark and Rick Keene.
Piranha's most successful title was Kyle Baker's Why I Hate Saturn which had multiple printings. Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children, a 32-page monthly anthology of Dave Louapre's stories, illustrated by Dan Sweetman, had a 30-issue run from June, 1989, to September, 1992. Humor series of note were John Blair Moore's Invaders from Home!!!, Marc Hempel's 120-page Gregory, and Epicurus the Sage by William Messner-Loebs and Sam Kieth.
Other Piranha writers and artists included Gil Ashby, Mark Badger, Glenn Barr, Charlie Boatner, Damon Cardwell, Tim Conrad, Michael Davis, Gerard Jones, Jon Hammer, Alison Marek, Douglas Michael, Steve Parkhouse, Alec Stevens and Jennifer Waters.
Artist-writer Alec Stevens was the first creator to sign a contract with Piranha Press in September, 1988, and his graphic novels The Sinners and Hardcore followed in June, 1989 and January, 1990, respectively. A third book, A Winter Within, was verbally agreed upon, but a contract never materialized, and Piranha Press began to drastically change its editorial direction in an effort to attain the commercial success that largely eluded them (excepting Baker's Why I Hate Saturn and Hempel's Gregory).
Howard Cruse's Stuck Rubber Baby (1995) was a project that began with Piranha Press. However, the book took so long for Cruse to draw that it was later published under DC's Paradox Press imprint by editors Andrew Helfer and Bronwyn Taggart with design by Robbin Brosterman.
