Here we go with comics artists, educators, and publishers Daryl Seitchik and Dan Nott, founders and operators of Parsifal Press, a comic and graphic text imprint based in White River Junction, Vermont. Our discussion centers on independent comics publishing, where we examine its prevailing attitudes, aesthetics, and practicalities with curiosity about whether they differ from their counterparts in the world of text-based small press literary publication (spoiler: they do!). Dan and Daryl help us survey the scene of contemporary alternative comics/x alongside the rise of Big Five and mainstream interest in the so-called graphic novel. We interrogate ideas about literariness, self-publishing, and professionalization coupled to organizational breads and business butters like printing and distribution. This comparative approach proves highly illuminating, and enables us to think together about what writing is, what makes literature literary, and lessons we can all take from the time-honored traditions of transgression, foolishness, profit aversion, and DIY culture-making across genres and forms.

Some alphabet at the outset: artists’ books, The Center for Cartoon Studies, Dan’s Hidden Systems (Random House Graphic), Daryl’s Now and Other Dreams (Fieldmouse Press), Diamond Comics Distribution, Fantagraphics, Hilma Af Klimt, Kit Anderson’s Ignatz Award-nominated Weeds (Parsifal Press), Lynda Barry, Renee Gladman, zines.