Tundra Publishing

Tundra Publishing was a

Despite its ambitious start, Tundra never became a profitable enterprise. It closed its doors in 1993 after burning through $14 million in three years.[3] Kitchen Sink Press acquired its holdings;^[4] it reprinted popular Tundra publications such as Understanding Comics and continued to publish some Tundra series such as Taboo.

History

While co-managing Mirage Studios, Eastman and his partner Peter Laird often spoke of the difficulties in maintaining creative control of their work. Eastman decided to address this problem by using his own personal knowledge and connections to help other creators. With Laird's blessing, Eastman started Tundra Publishing in 1990,^[5] to realize personal and other projects.

Rick Veitch has written that:

One of the plans was for Tundra to act as an exoskeleton for an existing self-publisher; offering marketing muscle, higher production values, printing costs paid and a page rate up front for half the action no strings attached.^[6]

Moreover, as Eastman said in a 2007 interview with Benjamin Ong Pang Kean, Tundra provided a forum for Marvel and DC creators to work on projects that they could not otherwise realize:

Basically, I'd meet them at conventions and they'd said they're stuck doing Spider-Man, they had a wife and a kid at home, and they had to make ends meet. But if they really had a chance, they said they'd really do this [at Tundra] and I'd hear this repeatedly. So, I went back to those artists because I had the money and said I'd give them the chance. I asked them what they'd like to do. They could pick their dream projects that they'd wanna do and I would provide the funding so that they could survive and they didn't have to do Spider-Man for a year and I'll fund the projects and I just wanted to make my money back from the profits to keep my company going.^[2]

As part of Eastman's designs for Tundra were to produce personal projects of an adult nature,

Speaking in 1992/93, Eastman was optimistic that the company had "finally reached the point where [it had] slowed up enough . . . to be giving individual projects the time and attention they require[d]."[5] Shortly thereafter, in the spring of 1993, Tundra was bought out by Kitchen Sink Press,^[8] closing its (solo) doors after just three years, losing Eastman between $9 and $14 million.^[2]

Titles published

Notable works released by Tundra include:

• Cages by Dave McKean, issues #1–7 (Dec. 1990 – June 1993) – issues #8–10 (Aug. 1993 – May 1996) published by Kitchen Sink Press
• Vaughn Bodé
  's series from the 1960s
• ComicsTrips: A Journal of Travels through Africa and Southeast Asia by Peter Kuper (1992)
• Doghead by Al Columbia (1992) – Columbia's first solo comic book
• Graffiti Kitchen by Eddie Campbell (1993)
• The Jam: Urban Adventure by Bernie Mireault (Jan.–May 1992)
• Madman Adventures by Mike Allred (1992–1993)
• The Maximortal by Rick Veitch (1992–1993) – published under his own King Hell imprint
• Rain by Rolf Stark and Marlene Stevens (1993–1994)
• Steve Bissette – horror anthology where portions of Alan Moore's From Hell (with Eddie Campbell) and Lost Girls (with Melinda Gebbie), as well as Neil Gaiman's unfinished Sweeney Todd (with Michael Zulli
  ), were first serialized; Tundra also released the first From Hell collections
• Tantalizing Stories by Mark Martin and Jim Woodring (Oct. 1992 – July 1993) – children's comic where most of Woodring's early Frank stories appeared
• Trailer Trash by Roy Tompkins (1992–1993)
• Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud (1993)