Silverwolf Comics
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Silverwolf Comics was a comic company founded by Kris Silver in the mid-’80s with titles and characters largely created by him. Among the titles it published in its run were Dark Assassin, Guillotine, Legion X-1, Port, and Victim. The company is probably best known for giving the first popular exposure to the work of the artist Tim Vigil in his work on another Silverwolf title, Grips. Grips is one of a handful of titles that survived beyond the first few issues. The others to survive for more than two issues were Fat Ninja(5 issues) and Eradicators(4 issues). Another notable distinction of Grips was that its main character’s alter ego was a comic book illustrator whose own creation, dubbed Fat Ninja, was also put out as a title by Silverwolf (in actuality written by Kris Silver). Fat Ninja was probably Silverwolf’s second most popular title after Grips. The company also published some of the first work by the artist Ron Lim in the first issue of another title, the Eradicators, and was the first company to hire artist Rob Liefeld but he never actually had any work published(he was hired to draw first issue of Stech but he jumped ship for Marvel comics and was replaced by another artist. The company collapsed but re-emerged as Greater Mercury Comics in the early 1990s, publishing more material and characters created by Silver. GMC closed up shop in 1991.
[edit] Other notable points
The lettering in Silverwolf comics was unusual(and sometimes impossible to read.), in that it was typed on an Apple Macintosh and printed with an Apple ImageWriter printer in the Geneva font. The result was less professional-looking than traditional comics hand-lettering, but was more cost-effective than the amateur hand-lettering present in most independent comics. The primitive computer lettering was a way to save money on letterers, but it also gave Silverwolf a way to keep the lettering neat, tidy, and self-consistent. In fact, the lettering, in its own way, gave Silverwolf’s comics a memorable style element that was consistent throughout all Silverwolf titles. This is one aspect that makes comics by Silverwolf a time capsule/cultural artifact of the 1980s.
The other, more noteworthy distinction of Silver's books(besides what was generally considered to be horrible scripting) was the solid band of color that surrounded every book's cover art.
