Boneyard Press was first conceived while college student Hart D. Fisher was slaving over a drawing table in his basement apartment. This book, Dark Angel, would go on to be his first professional work and Boneyard Press’s first primal scream. With a loan from his Grandfather Elmer Cultler January 1991, Fisher was able to breath life into this new publishing venture. Neither Elmer Cutler (whom died in February 1991) nor Fisher’s other grandfather, Charles Fisher, (whom died in March 1991) were ever able to see their grandson’s first comic book, Dark Angel, roll from the presses, but those that did would never forget it. Dark Angel was a vicious bloodletting ball of anger and misanthropic hate, a comic that took pity on nothing and no one. A fitting beginning to the company Boneyard Press would become. Dark Angel #1 hit stores in May, 1991 and promptly sold out of its initial print run of 2500 copies and then again with it’s second printing of 4000 copies. The 2^nd issue, with a painted cover by Batman artist Kelley Jones, entered stores in August of that same year. Issue 3, with a Vincent Locke painted cover, was released in October, 1991.
Originally thought of as an experiment in self-publishing, Boneyard Press soon became a bolder and more voracious vision, wanting to expand and draw in more creators of the Boneyard Press ethos. Eric Gnoeff was just such a creator and his subversive book, influenced by American underground comics of the 70’s and a lifetime spent behind the iron curtain, Rectum Errrectum became the 1^st Russian comic ever printed in America. Eric was a college professor at the University of Illinois Fisher had met during his studies in printmaking. A horrifically funny and brutally grotesque of a comic, Rectum Errrectum was a fine addition to a company whose birth slogan was "We own the Shadows" and "Too tough for color." Boneyard Press was a company determined to scare the shit out of comics readers and capture the dark side of comics as it’s own infernal playground.
The beginning of 1992 brought a spinal injury to vicious Boneyard attack dog, Misty, and a burglary to the Boneyard compound. You can’t keep a good pain machine down for long, with projects like Bill the Bull: Burnt Cain in the pipeline (drawn by a then undiscovered Duncan Rouleau. Duncan would go on to draw for Marvel Comics on hot projects like Wolverine and Alpha Flight and Image comics, Bill the Bull was Duncan’s first published comic book work) there was no slowing down Boneyard Press’s forward momentum. Long time Boneyard creator, William Harms, had his first book, Tears, on the schedule and the second Rectum Errrectum book was waiting in the wings for another shot at the public eye. It was an idea by ex-Northstar Productions publisher Dan Madsen, that would become Boneyard Press’s most infamous publication, Jeffrey Dahmer: An Unauthorized Biography of a Serial Killer. The book was published in April of 1992 and soon became a supernova of media attention and selling out 3 separate printings. A Milwaukee television reporter bought copies of the book and took it around to the victims’ families’ homes, looking for a reaction. He got one. Fisher was swamped with negative media attention appearing on talk shows and news programs such as Entertainment Tonight (three times, including the 1992 year end wrap up), A Current Affair, Hard Copy, A Closer Look With Faith Daniels (at the time, her highest rated show), CNN (twice on Headline News and once as a part of the documentary "Murder by Numbers"), The Jerry Springer Show (October 1993), Sally Jesse Raphael (February, 1994), Larry King Live (September, 1994) and most recently on E on OJ during the OJ Simpson trial. The media frenzy over the Dahmer comics would not let up for several years.
In August of 1992, eight of the Dahmer victims’ families sued Fisher for all profits from the Jeffrey Dahmer book, legal costs, emotional stress and to have the book banned from all stores. In November ’92 a Milwaukee judge forced Fisher to pay the plaintiffs $1.300 because he did not have a lawyer present with him at court. It should be noted that the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund was approached for help, and couldn’t be bothered to aid in this politically incorrect case. The ACLU also would not aid Fisher in his legal problems. In the summer of 1993, this lawsuit was dropped by the families, who then started up another larger suit seeking even more damages, without ever having won the first case. This case was resolved on August 19^th, 1994, with a new Judge Doherty ruling for the defense, but doing so in a manner that did not allow Fisher to recoup his $9,300 worth of legal fees. There was also the little matter of the Jeffrey Dahmer: Milwaukee’s Best t-shirts. After being repeatedly harassed by local media people, Miller Brewing Company threatened to sue Fisher, so now the T-shirts read Jeffrey Dahmer: Milwaukee’s Beast. As a result of this legal harassment and vilification Fisher went on to publish three more Dahmer books- The Further Adventures of Young Jeffy Dahmer, Dahmer’s Zombie Squad, and the best seller, Jeffery Dahmer Vs. Jesus Christ.

The really sad thing about these people was that they had created all the publicity that sold the Dahmer comic book. They made it infamous.

No one would have cared about this little book if they hadn't made a scene for the press. The protest march was a farce, a three ring circus for the 6 o'clock news.

The embattled Boneyard publisher was trying to keep things on track after yet another robbery, this time while at Fangoria Weekend of Horrors in Los Angeles. During the Dahmer media frenzy, local news programs had broadcast that the controversial publisher was out of town for a week in Los Angles. Soon after these broadcasts a local CBS news crew found Fisher’s home broken into during a vain attempt at an interview. Upon returning to find his home, the Boneyard compound, ransacked yet again, Fisher began working on the Dahmer follow ups. He was distracted somewhat by a protest march lead on his home in June 1993 by Jeanetta Robinson, a member involved with Career Youth Development, and Arch Murchinson, a local Milwaukee priest counseling the Dahmer victims’ families. Fisher had baited the two ‘community leaders/parasites’ on the Jerry Springer show into their half-assed protest march to enliven the media circus. Fisher’s landlord and the assistant to the Champaign Chief of Police both asked the publisher to leave town before the protest march. There were even rumors fanned by police informants that the Klu Klux Klan was going to counter march against the victims families. After taking a four hour bus ride from Milwaukee to Champaign, the anemic protest march found two barbeques being thrown on their behalf and a young white woman with a sign proclaiming "Not all White People are bad". The city of Champaign threw a barbecue for the victims families at tax payers expense in a public park. Mr. Fisher threw a barbecue at his own expense. Fisher erected an orange party fence around his landlord's property, painted a free speech banner, and set off the barbeque/kegger party with a live band, Third Stone, with free watermelon for everyone. There were 15 police officers and a swat truck in attendance for the bash with Boneyard mini-thug Rob Gibson capturing the sight of uniformed police officers reading Dahmer books around the keg on video tape (which will be made available soon via this website). On one side of the orange party fence was a group of bouncers from local bar Mabel’s (where Fisher was working as a bouncer), martial artists (from the various schools Fisher studied at), tattooed thugs, and revelers dancing to the live band. The racist group of protesters were not amused, damning the publisher and all his supporters to hell, cursing them and hurling racial insults.

Champagne/Urbania's most evil band, Third Stone, played the barbeque, irritating the protesters to no end.

Boneyard Press author, Bill Yukich, amongst friends. Pictured in Raid shirt with the shit-eating grin.

As far as stirring things up, Boneyard Press continued to do so with it’s publication of Kill Image (June 1993). Kill Image was a comic book in which an independent comic publisher loses his mind and murders the ‘Big Three’ at Image Comics (Spawn creator Todd McFarlane, Youngblood has been Rob Liefield, and Jim Lee). Fisher followed this up with the not as popular Kill Marvel. Boneyard Press was a slap to the face of the comics industry. Rude, irreverent, unapologetic and taking no prisoners Boneyard Press continued it’s assault with the likes of Stiff, Devil’s Bite, The God that Failed, and it’s longest running title Flowers on the Razorwire. Constantly breaking new ground, Fisher wrote and released Rush Limbaugh Must Die, along with a t-shirt of a gold toothed Limbaugh in sniper scope sights to huge applause, getting a favorable reaction from both Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh and free publicity from their on-air chatter about the book. The follow up, Howard Stern Vs. Rush Limbaugh was even more popular managing to elicit a negative reaction from the self-proclaimed "King of all Media" by offending his tastes with the slapstick and sexual content of the book, not an easy task by any means.
1993 was one of Boneyard Press’ busiest years with a personal appearance by Fisher at the Dome Room in the nightclub, Excalibur in Chicago, for a tribute to the art of bondage on March 7^th. In July, Fisher expanded his talents when he began filming The Garbage Man. It is the first film ever independently financed, written and directed by any comic publisher and is the first film ever about a black serial killer . Shot on 16mm and sporting a fantastic soundtrack of local Champaign, Illinois bands like The Trees, Lovengineer, Third Stone, and Mole Temple, The Garbage Man was a filmed in two days on locations through out Champaign, Illinois.
This wonderful year continued with Boneyard Press pursuing it’s own lawsuit with Marvel Entertainment over their improper use of the copyrighted title Dark Angel. Their publishing wing, Marvel UK, had problems with the title Hell’s Angel. The Los Angeles based motorcycle gang had pursued the super hero company for trademark infringement and Marvel promptly switched the title to Dark Angel. Boneyard Press then hit Marvel Entertainment with a lawsuit of it’s own and settled out of court with the then head of Marvel UK, Lou Bank, who cancelled the title as soon as he assumed control over Marvel UK.
The publicity generated by the Dahmer comics garnered Boneyard Press international recognition in Italian, French, Austrian, Australian, English, and Canadian newspapers culminating with an article in the prominent German magazine, EGO. The cutting edge German magazine had this to say about Boneyard: "…downright vicious, unscrupulous, and shocking underground comics…Whoever buys these comics is supporting a good thing … Kill the system! Read Boneyard Press!"
On the home front Hero Illustrated ranked Boneyard publisher, Hart D. Fisher, in 1993 and 1994 on their Top 100 Most Important People in the Comic Book Industry, dubbing Fisher as "the most dangerous man in comics."
In October of 1993 Fisher had a one man show of his art in The Felini Room in the club Crobar. On opening night the joint was packed twenty minutes after the doors opened. A variety of Fisher’s violent paintings, and photographs were on view for thirty days.
There was no slowing down Boneyard Press in 1994. One of Boneyard’s hottest projects, the collected edition of Bill the Bull: Burnt Cain, was highlighted in the magazine Previews, a catalogue of upcoming comics. Flip to the article Under the Reading Lamp and these were some of the things they had to say- "Think of it as comicdom’s answer to Reservoir Dogs… as genuine and original as anything in this league, including more polished crime books like The Crow and Sin City."
Boneyard Press Publisher Hart D. Fisher continued waging his public war of words against censorship by appearing on The Bertice Berry Show, ABC’s hard hitting news program DayOne, and Larry King Live on CNN. It was during this time that Fisher decided to move the entire Boneyard machine to Los Angeles in a bid to solidify entertainment contacts, finalize film deals and pump some new blood into the machine. This move proved wise because within five months of the move, Fisher was made managing editor of dark rock god Glenn Danzig's publishing company, Verotik. Fisher helmed Verotik during it's most successful and controversial point of it’s publishing history. Fisher worked with the likes of art legends Frank Frazetta, Simon Bisley on the Death Dealer book, and other big names like Jae Lee, Stan Shaw, Grant Morrison and more. It was at Verotik that Fisher took a little known story written by Christian Moore (for the Boneyard publication Rough Trade) and rewrote it as "A Taste of Cherry" for Verotika #4. This book would go on to inflame the entire comics industry as a focal point of censorship. Oklahoma police raided and closed Planet Comics and charged the stores two owners with selling obscene materials and child pornography charges (based on Frank Thorne's comic Devil's Child in which satan takes form as a child). "A Taste of Cherry" became the piece of evidence the state was depending on and when the owners copped a plea, Verotika #4 become banned in the state of Oklahoma as obscene material. It was during this time that Fisher and Verotik parted ways and Fisher was once more able to devote himself to the killer machine full time.
This meant bringing about the first true horror comics crossover with Dark Angel/Razor: The Final Nail. Plotted in a Wendy's over a couple of double cheese burgers with Everette Hartsoe and written by Fisher, The Final Nail was one of Boneyard’s best selling projects as well as being one of the best Razor stories ever written.

e-mail: bonedaddy@boneyardpress.net