If you've already read Time F•cker, you might be inclined to call it "ThrowUP Thursday"! Going back to that strip's humble origins on the Trip City website, it was broken up into 4 chapters under the title, "I'm Taking this Laying Down!" That ultimately became the first book, available here online. Above you'll see the title cards for each chapter as it appeared on www.welcometotripcity.com. My ploy was to make them appear very innocent with nods to vintage kids' LP covers with a cute loopy font and the funky logo. Anyone clicking through the strip would have no idea what to expect when the insanity hit and it hits real early.
Time Fucker was the product of a lot of frustration. My work with First Second was just not getting the traction I would have liked. It's difficult to work over a year on a project taking extra jobs just to complete a book only to see it get lost in the marketplace and editorial/marketing mismanagement. It didn't help to never have my voicemails answered after it was all over, too. So I decided I needed to write whatever I worked on next and do my best to be free of cynical comics publishing with its film scripts adaptations, flimsy video game tie-ins, tangential music group stories and other abject failures. I had this idea and the fact that it was so politically incorrect (so much so that only a dedicated publisher would print it), only made it more appealing. It was short and salty (not sweet) and it was the perfect palette cleanser.
Ironically, Time F•cker was instrumental in helping me convert on my next big project. When I met Josh Fialkov at Baltimore Comic Con in 2012, it was his reading of Time F•cker that sealed the deal on working together. As some of you already know, that lead to The BUNKER. That's meaningful because The BUNKER made a huge impact at launch with only Josh and I at the helm. No publishers, no PR drones, no book buyer approvals, no pre-existing fanbase to tap into, no marketing-borne book ideas…NONE OF THAT CYNICAL SHIT. The book was famously dismissed at the time by a mainstream publisher as "too smart for its audience." What it really was, was a great idea in the hands of two passionate creators and that's what it's all about.
