When I first met Zachary Clemente in person, we were at the downtown Sheraton near the Washington State Convention Center, figuring out interviews we’d be doing at Seattle’s Emerald City Comic Con. I don’t remember what year it was — probably 2013 or 2014 — but it wasn’t the first time Clemente and I had chatted. We both wrote for the now retired comic site Multiversity Comics and talked many a time before then, albeit via email. I knew early on, though, that Clemente had something to him, an energy that said he was going to make some cool things happen in comics.

That certainly proved to be the case, as he went on to write for The Beat before becoming one of the folks in charge at the Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo. These days, though, he’s making comics, just not in the way you might typically expect. Clemente started his own indie small press comics house in Bulgilhan Press back in 2018.

Since its inception, Bulgilhan has published some exceptional and even award-winning comics like Jesse Lonergan’s Faster, A Liang Chan’s Far Distant, Breeze Hu’s A Night Ride to the Day, and more. And it’s only picking up speed with its recent successful Kickstarter for Qu’s Slices of Life: A Comic Montage and the upcoming new printing of Faster, which doesn’t even mention the debut of J. Marshall Smith’s Testament when that new print of Faster drops. That’s not bad for what has proven to largely be a one-person operation.

I love what Bulgilhan Press has been publishing, which means I love what Clemente has been publishing. That made it feel like the right time to finally chat with him about the work he’s doing over there. So, we did just that, as we popped on Zoom to talk about a little bit of everything, including why he decided to start a small press as he did, his goals, how those have evolved, how he decides what to publish, production value, the business side of the work, and a whole lot more. It’s a great conversation with a real up-and-comer, one that is actually already here, as each and every project has proven.

You can read it below. It’s been edited for length and clarity, and it’s open to non-subscribers. If you enjoy this conversation, though, maybe consider subscribing to SKTCHD for more like it, and to support the work that I do on the site.

When we first met, we were both writing at Multiversity Comics, where you and I were both particularly interested in interviews. I am still doing interviews because I am not a glutton for punishment. Zach, I have to ask: why did you start a comic publisher?

Zachary Clemente: It’s so funny because in my head it’s the inverse. I love doing interviews. After I left Multiversity, I went to The Beat where interviews were almost exclusively what I did. I loved it!

But in 2016 or 2017, I was going up to Toronto for TCAF and I would spend maybe a couple weeks there. I was helping run a festival in the Boston area called MICE, or the Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo, which I worked on for eight years. I had become friends with Chris Butcher who helped found and ran TCAF and helped run it for many years. I viewed TCAF as an interesting golden example of what MICE could become because it has a very similar ethos and philosophy but it’s significantly bigger. Partially because of its longevity, but also due to its embassy connections and the fact that Canada has more funding opportunities for the arts. So, I went there as an “organizer-in-residence” two years in a row and got to learn a lot, meet a lot of people, and really see a more robust operation behind the scenes. 

While that was happening, I was fermenting this need for a long-term project. I wanted something I could really put my name to, put a lot of effort into and just enjoy the process of finding fulfillment and satisfaction because it was becoming clear to me that my current trajectory with a full-time job wasn’t likely going to be in a creative field. So, I should start putting the foundations together for something much bigger that’s going to last a lot longer and be sustainable. 

I had two big ideas. First was a well-produced video interview series where I would send video equipment to artists’ homes or studios, and I would work with them to set it up. It’d be this whole production. And then I looked at the small press publishing side, I was like, “That sounds easier.” (laughs) It’s obviously not easier, but it’s also something I already knew I enjoyed from the same time as when I was writing for Multiversity and The Beat and wanted to explore more. 

I think a fair number of people who become journalists also want to be comics writers. There tends to be high overlap there and I was one of those people. I was self-publishing with awesome artists, such as people who have stayed in the scene like Ricardo López Ortiz. We did a cool short together that got a little bit of traction. It was fun, but I realized I truly liked producing the comic. As a writer, I was fine. I was a fine fiction writer, but it wasn’t the thing I got the most enjoyment out of. So I was like, okay, let me look at the templates of small press publishers that exist. 

I had already gotten to know Annie Koyama, who ran Koyama Press for many years. I got to know…mostly Pat(rick Crotty), but I’ve also met Elliot (Alfredius) and Olle (Forsslöf), who founded and ran Peow Studio for many years. I’ve gotten to know Zainab Akhtar, who has run ShortBox in the various forms that it’s existed in, and I was really inspired by them. I met Chris Pitzer who ran AdHouse, and I was excited about what they did. I convinced myself, “This is something I could do.” I think I’ve built up a really strong network through running MICE and going to festivals. I’m a trusted commodity, to some degree. People are like, “I equate Zach to MICE. I equate Zach to reliability and doing well and being a member of the community” and stuff like that. This is a guy who wants to participate and find satisfaction in making comics as much as he can.

And that’s what started it.

I feel like you have the three things you really need to run a small press publisher, although I might be wildly oversimplifying the world of being a small press publisher. (Clemente laughs) You had the connections through MICE and everything else. You’ve also been a person about comics for as long as you have been, so you have enthusiasm, which is important. You must be passionate about this. And finally, it seems like you have the organizational skills necessary to do something like this. So, you know that you have the passion for it. You have interest in doing it. You have the skills for it.

What were your goals when you were first getting started?

Clemente: I think the big goal was to publish a couple of cartoonists I really admired. Some of them were already friends or artists I was chatting with about a writer/artist collaboration for many years. Molly Mendoza is the big one there, and as I started building up this idea of publishing, I was like, I could just publish Molly. They’re an extraordinarily good storyteller. They don’t need me to write for them. If they need me for anything, it’s to take the burden off their plate to make a book happen. Can my existence be the excuse for making a beautiful book?

That was one of the goals. I also just wanted to try something I made for 10 years. MICE was not something I founded. I loved working on it, and I found so much satisfaction in working on it, but it wasn’t me. It wasn’t just me, nor should it have been. And I was like, I want to hone my focus on something for at least 10 years. Those were the two primary goals. There was the sub goal that I promised my mom I would have, which was I would be in the black financially at a certain point in time. Has it happened? Not really. (David laughs) Is it closer than I thought it would be? Yes.

I have the benefit of having a full-time job that pays pretty well, so I can bounce in between being in the red and being in the black without worrying too much or having to capitulate and come to my cartoonists with bad news. I don’t have to do that. I can be a little bit more like, okay, things are stable for you. Even if the press’s finances don’t look beautiful, they’re stable enough for you to get your payout and to make sure your books come out. You don’t have to worry about stability because I’m just the one guy pushing it. A little bit of my own money goes into it when it needs to, but I want to do that.

And I really love it.

Does the fact that you don’t need to rely on it for your own income, does that mean that you’re able to keep a different focus in terms of what you publish? And maybe keep your publishing numbers down? Because I’m sure the path to the black could be, publish more, more frequently. But this way it seems like you are able to, for lack of better words, curate towards the things that mean a lot to you. Is that what you’ve discovered?

Clemente: Absolutely. I think I would’ve done that anyway and then eaten my words in the future if I was trying to make more money off this venture. If I want to call it a venture. It’s not a venture.

It’s an ADventure.

Clemente: It’s an adventure! (laughs) Thank you. You took the words out of the mouth. 

It’s funny…you asked me about my ethos and philosophy. A big part of it is supporting the artists I work with in some small way. I want the artist to feel like they’re getting a good deal with me. I don’t pay an advance. It’s a payment. They don’t have to make it back through royalty. The payment is low, but we split proceeds 50/50 because the idea is ideally the brunt of my costs are paid out through the Kickstarter at the beginning. That all goes to the publisher. From there on out, every sale is split 50/50. So, if I sell the book for $15, they get $7.50, paid quarterly for that book. I’ve been told that’s kind of unheard of. 

I chose that process from the beginning and it’s spared me a lot of headache because as we saw a little bit with Silver Sprocket, one of the big challenges there is, how do you define profit? How do you define publisher cost? Ideally a contract just details all that. It says “these are the publisher’s costs” in a list. It’s in full caps in bold and defined and referenced later on in the contract. That’s how it works. And it sounds like maybe versions of their contract didn’t have that.

I hired a literary lawyer at the very beginning of this project. I felt kind stupid at the beginning because it felt like overkill, but in hindsight, it was a good move on my part because it built this foundation where I can say, “here’s my philosophy of publishing”. It is not to make money. It’s to make the artist feel good about this project as much as possible, and that is represented in legal terminology where the process in which I publish will hold up to scrutiny.

I like that. 

I was reading an interview you did with Broken Frontier back in 2021 or 2022…

Clemente: Early on, yeah. (laughs)

You said that you were looking to publish self-indulgent work. It’s interesting that you say that…I don’t want to fantasy run the publisher or run in your brain, Zach, but it almost feels like your entire goal is you want to publish things you want to people to have the chance to do. It’s almost like you…ever hear the phrase KISS, keep it simple, stupid?

Clemente: Oh, absolutely.

You almost have a self-indulgent, keep it simple, stupid approach to publishing in the best possible way, where you’re just like, this is what I want to do, which is whatever the hell you want to do, as long as it’s awesome and the best version of what they want to do.

Clemente: It’s sort of funny. I stumbled into “self-indulgent” because at first I put the word “experimental” on the placard. I started getting more and more pitches where people are trying to use experimental as a paragraph…”This is why my comic is experimental.” I’m like, that’s asking you the wrong question. How do I get you to answer me in the way I want to be answered? So I had to pick something vague. I’m like, okay, what is explicitly subjective? “Self-indulgent” because it is explicitly built around their interests.

It’s no longer really looking at the grander scheme of publishing as a response. Now it’s sort of a response to their own artistic interests and maybe those are in response to external forces, but it is still coming from within in the most interesting way. So, it was something for me to respond to as a publisher, but ultimately it, it’s pretty accurate. I choose selfishly. I publish books I am personally excited about. 

It’s funny, I recently did an interview with Kickstarter that’ll be going up early next week, and one of the things I described is this Venn diagram. It’s not one-to-one of what I like and what I publish. Those things are separate. They have a lot of overlap, but there are certain things I like that I would probably never publish. You’re right. My ability to be financially independent from my publisher gives me the opportunity to say no to stuff I know is financially good or profitable but is not interesting for me.

I’ve been approached by a couple people who got a popular comic viral on Instagram. They sent me a professional pitch package with their expected conversion rate for reader to buyer and those kinds of things. And I was like, “I don’t care.” That’s good. I hope it goes well for them. I saw they got picked up by a bigger, more established, capable publisher to actually deliver on that stuff, which is great. I’m honored that they wanted to work with me first. But they’re like, “This can grow a publisher.” I don’t want to grow the press, not in this current form. It would take a reformation of my life for the press to meaningfully grow. 

And the last thing I was going to say about that is one of the things I love doing is taking the books to stores or to festivals and representing it. I’ve got to fucking love the book, man. People have to respond to me loving the book. If I don’t love it, I have no business publishing it. So, it is explicitly selfish in that sense.

The most recent book you Kickstarted was Slices of Life: A Comic Montage by Qu. One of my favorite books you’ve ever done is Jesse Lonergan’s Faster, which you have a new reprint of coming soon. And the third person I was going to mention is Molly Mendoza, somebody who has probably, in most people’s mind, very little in common with Qu and with Jesse Lonergan, but all three of those people can be reflective of what you’re trying to go for because you love their work. Do you feel like beyond, “I, Zachary Clemente love this,” is there a goal for what you’re trying to publish?

Clemente: That’s a great question. I struggle with the answer for this a lot. If I had to visualize a goal, I am looking forward10 years at a bookshelf of the books I’ve published and being able to remind myself of all the fun experiences and memories of making these books happen. That’s a goal. When you look at the catalog and its sort of interconnected pieces and the way in which it functions or the way in which it relates to itself…again, it’s so vague. It kind of has to be. 

But it’s about motivation. I am connecting on a metaphysical level to their artistic desires, and this thing I’ve put together gets to be a conduit for those desires to be expressed in the world. And those are just a bunch of big Ted Talk words. Ultimately, all these works move me, or I was so excited to be in on the process; to get to produce a book that moves me. I go back and reread most of the books I publish fairly regularly because they still excite me. 

A good example of this isI published two books together last September: A Night Ride to the Day and The King’s Warrior. The King’s Warrior has definitely been the more commercial success but I think A Night Ride to the Day is the best story I’ve ever published. It sticks to my bones. I can feel it. I’ll go back and read it and I’ll just go lay down for half an hour and I’m like, I knew about this whole story. I know the bones of the story. I know so much of the background. And yet the end product still does this to me.

Maybe I’m just a sap and a sucker, and that’s fine. I love being that. But yeah, I don’t know. It’s just…

It’s more of a feeling than a deliberate plan.

Clemente: Oh yeah. When I say it’s vibes based publishing, I actually mean it. I don’t mean just the throwaway word at this point. I really mean I’m vibrating with it. (laughs)

One thing I love about what you do too is…if I remember correctly, the first edition of Faster was a risograph, right?

Clemente: Yeah. The first two printings were different color risographs.

I think I got the first one. Which one was red? I had the red one.

Clemente: That’s the first one. Yeah, that’s the best of the current versions. I think the first one was better.

It reminds me of what I always loved about ShortBox when Zainab was doing the print versions and also what Patrick does with everything Patrick does, but specifically at Peow. The production value is insane. These books aren’t just great comics. They end up being the best version of themselves. Is that part of your vibes-based approach? Trying to maximize quality while also not sending yourself crashing into the red?

Clemente: It’s a big part of it. A good example of this, for instance, is that I don’t take digital rights for my books. One, because I don’t want to figure it out. I don’t want to host it somewhere and then pay out for it. My artists can have digital stores to do that. I’m like…sell it. It’s yours. You can do what you want with it. But I am so focused on the physical object. If you line up all the books I published in chronological order, you see a lot of learnings. (laughs)

You see a lot of…Zach’s excited about full bleed! Zach was wrong about full bleed! (laughs) It’s like Zach didn’t realize that the backs of books often have a little blurb of what the book’s about because Zach’s not always there to sell the damn thing! A lot of learnings like that over the years, which I’m glad to have learned, and I’m really honored to have a trusting readership that went with me on this journey. But yeah, a big part of it was learning about book production. I had been a little bit exposed to it when I started. I was working full-time for a well-known design consultancy, so I was close to a lot of designers andI learned a lot from them. Not about books necessarily, but about production in general. It gave me a little bit more insight of the kinds of things I knew were possible and what was exciting about those kinds of things.

But I grew up going to bookstores, and anytime there was a different texture, embossed, debossed, whatever, I’m like, “Oh, this feels a little bit more special.” Anything that makes it physically stand out to me, I always felt it. I felt it in my hands. That’s where one of the big inspirations from Peow came. One part is just them doing what they want, but also their production design. Zainab too. I still think about James Stokoe’s Sobek and the gold foil on that. I love it so much, and I realize that that is one of the places where I can give some more input and have a little bit more active presence is in the design of the book. 

I have a pretty clear vision of what this book could look like. Let’s try to work together to get to it. A good example is the Faster reprint. I’m kind of calling it the Complete Edition of Jesse Lonergan’s Faster. I actually hired a designer for this project, but I had a very clear vision of it. I’m inspired by the covers from these other comics, and we have all this back matter now. We got a bunch of his sketchbook work and the original pages from his short that became Faster later in life. We’re using those in the cover and the end pages to tell this whole story, and I love it. I get to just express more about why I love this comic through the design of the book, and it’s just a fun thing to do.

You talked about the evolution. I’m sure part of that comes from doing it. But you also go to a lot of different events. You go and talk to people about what they’re connecting with and what they’re interested in. What is the process of that evolution? Is it mostly self-discovery through doing it, or is it partially getting feedback at events and beyond?

Clemente: I mean, it’s tough. I feel like a lot of it is very inside me. I feel like I’m sometimes a little overly confident as a publisher. It hasn’t burned me yet, but it may one day.

I say this with respect. I feel like you have to have some level of irrational confidence to do what you’re doing.

Clemente: Oh, absolutely. But it’s like where you place it. Once a book is published, I need to be the most confident about the book. I can never say anything bad about a book I published. Then it should never have been published. That’s my fault and I’d have to have a bold face life with the entire print run of it. (laughs) It’s very internal where I take note of the way in which a book lands in certain places or which stores are interested or what kinds of people are reading. It’s sort of funny. I was joking with friends, “I’ve got to get Faster back in print. That’s the only dad book I got!” (laughs) I don’t have any other dad books. 

Also, Jesse is viewed completely differently now than when it first published.

Clemente: Yeah, absolutely. And that’s been so much fun to work with, but it is a very internal process. Learning how I feel about a thing when it comes out, learning how people respond to it. It’s funny, now that I think of it, I haven’t asked people for critical feedback. I’m looking for comprehensive feedback. I have in some small ways. I’ve had agents look at my agreement. I’ve had designers look at my files, and they’ve given me recommendations. But it’s always been very positive, which is telling me either I’m clearly doing something right, or I haven’t asked the right questions yet. (laughs) I feel like there’s got to be something. 

Honestly, the times I get the most critique is like, “Zach, are you sure about 50% proceeds. That seems ridiculous.” It’s fine. “Are you sure, Zach?” I’m sure. (laughs) I ran the numbers. It’s fine. I think people don’t believe me on that stuff, but I’m not in this to make money. I’m in this to make comics, and right now those things don’t meet for the most part.

You’re in this to make comics, not to make money, but you’re still trying to make connections and you’re still trying to get readers because ultimately you love these comics and want people to read them. Let’s talk about that. You’re distributed by Lunar Distribution. You also get into international comic shops, like The Beguiling and Gosh! Comics and Variant Edition, shops that really curate what they’re doing and are passionate about what they do. You’re also doing Kickstarters, which is important too because that will help introduce you to hopefully newer audiences. 

How do you figure out how to grow your audience and awareness in everything you’re doing? Because even if you are in it to make comics, you still want people to read those comics.

Clemente: It’s a good question. I think that’s the phase I’m in now of trying to figure that out. One is just constantly reaching out with Slices of Life. For instance, my idea there was like, this is a beautiful comic. It’s also a great book that could land on a lot of coffee tables. Even people who aren’t comics readers necessarily, or people don’t realize they are yet.

So, for this one, I’m doing tons of outreach to art bookstores and gift shops that are half fancy stationary, half gift shop kind of places. I’m reaching out to tons of them like, hey, I know a lot of shops don’t usually like backing Kickstarters and I recognize why you don’t, but I have this beautiful book coming out. You should take a look at it. 

I think on one hand is because of MICE; I’ve built up a pretty good voice for speaking to a lot of different people in the infrastructure of comics because for the festivals, you have to find sponsors and partners. You have to speak their language. That’s a big part of it. I’ve also had close local relationships. Boston’s not a huge city but has a shockingly good sort of breadth of different comic shops. They don’t overlap too much, which is kind of wild, and I know all of them pretty well. Again, MICE helped a lot with that. But the other piece of it is I don’t put too much pressure on the press about the idea of growing comics and readership. I want more readers for the press and the books, but that’s not where I’m putting that focus. 

I’m also on the board for the Boston Comic Arts Foundation, which is a nonprofit that was founded originally so MICE could be a nonprofit. It’s sort of grown into its own entity where we fund four festivals annually and tons of programming across the New England area, and it’s all about comics, arts, and advocacy. It’s like, let’s help people realize that comics are a super viable and exciting medium for creative output, for narrative, for artistic interests. Let’s put comics on the same level as literature or poetry or movies or whatever, and it’s going to be a long slog. But they asked me to lead the board for the first couple of years, and it’s been a real learning experience.

I feel like that’s what you’re doing to some degree with the publisher too.

Clemente: A little bit. There’s overlap.

I’m not saying that you’re just advocating for good comics. You’re making them too. But I recognize this is a very difficult question to ask anyone who works for any publisher, because how do you grow an audience? If anyone had that answer, they would just be doing it.

Clemente: Right? Exactly.

It seems like the biggest thing for you to do is to, if something feels like it’s a strategic fit for your vibes-based approach, then do it. You have to look at it within the environment you’re in too, though, and while small press might not be as overwhelmed by all the craziness involving Diamond Comic Distributors going bankrupt and everything like that, there’s an area of effect to that. Then there’s the tariff fears. Look at what Fieldmouse Press was running into. They had to do a GoFundMe to cover tariffs for an order coming from China, but then they were like, “Do we have to do a GoFundMe?“

Clemente: Yeah, it was wild. Their printer basically erroneously told them that tariffs would be applied.

Nobody knew.

Clemente: Yeah, people forgot that there was an exemption for printed matter.

What is it like navigating that current environment? Where you’re constantly trying to figure everything out while you’re on the move?

Clemente: I mean, for me, this is where the confidence might blow up in my face, but I’m just going to keep at it, man. I have enough in me that if I take one bad hit, I could recalibrate, but that’s it. (laughs) I get to learn once. So yeah, honestly, I’m just going to keep on the steady and make decisions maybe a little bit more short term. 

One of the things I did, for instance, we talked a little bit about our health before we started recording. I had to sort of do a minor reformation of my life. I was burning the candle from ends I didn’t even know existed. So, one of the things I did recently was I turned off submissions, which was a little bit of a painful thing. One of the big parts of opening this press in 2018 when I had a lot more time and energy and fewer life things going on, I was like, “I’m going to have open submissions all the time.” Even if I can’t take books, I can still give people feedback and try to use energy there to be a force for positivity in comics. 

At a certain point, it was bogging me down. I had 50 to 60 submissions I hadn’t answered yet, and it was just there in the back of my head for days, then weeks, then months, “you’re a bad person for not responding.” I had to cut that off and find other ways to give time that benefit comics with my energy that isn’t this way. So I’ve made some decisions like that, but not really in regard to the industry writ large or industries writ large. 

I’m glad I never got to Diamond. (laughs) I looked at it once and I was like, “nah.” (laughs) Just the number of forms. I was like, I’m good. That’s not for me. It’s not going to be worth it.

That proved to be one of the best decisions. That’s vibes-based in a way too.

Clemente: I mean it is, but it’s also one of those things where I had to trust my gut. I’ve known enough people who have worked as retailers or worked for publishers who have had problems with Diamond before all this, or they sort of saw teetering. And I don’t like monopolies in general. I think there are a lot of challenges out there, and it’s always been this story in my mind in the US comic scene, so I just didn’t want to deal with them. I’m good.

I was lucky. (laughs)

Well, I’m sure that’s something you’ve learned since you started. Sometimes you can have the best plans, and sometimes it’s good to just be lucky.

Clemente: Oh, absolutely. It’s sort of funny. I’m friends with some of the folks who run Fieldmouse, Alex (Hoffman) specifically, and I remember when A Night Ride to the Day came out, he walked up to me, grabbed a copy and was like, “Damn you, man. This one was almost ours.” I didn’t realize that Breeze (Hu, the book’s cartoonist) was thinking about both and ultimately went with me, and it was specifically because we’re in the same time zone.

Alex isn’t that far. It’s only three hours. Alex was on the west coast at the time. But that was the reason, which is so funny to me because Breeze and I have communicated while they were visiting family in China. I’m like, “this is not too bad for you, timewise?” I’m glad we worked together, and I feel like I’ve done right by the book, but that was the reason. I was lucky on that one, just for living in Boston.

I know you have a summer intern in Anna Li. Is it just you in terms of actual employees?

Clemente: It’s always just been me. There’s a comics freelancer named Kelly who does odd jobs for people. I’ve hired her once. “Hey, can you go through this colossal list of retailers and get their contact information for me just so I have a list? Cool, thank you.” Or I’ve hired designers for specific work here and there. We did these little promotional cards for A Night Ride to the Day and The King’s Warrior. They were these little holographic trading cards. I got someone to design those, and for both Faster, the reprint, and then for the book that’s going to be executed alongside of it, Testament by J. Marshall Smith, I got two different designers for those books, which is not something I would’ve done up until this year. 

But just the amount of work, and I’m hitting the limits of my ability to execute on my design vision. I just don’t know Illustrator and Photoshop that well. I don’t have the technical skill to actually execute on something in a way that’s meaningful and useful. So working with designers is a big one.

But no, as far as employees, I think it’s going to be me for a very long time. This business was built around me and my life. It’s so thoroughly integrated. As I was getting more and more people at festivals, students especially, being like, “Are you looking for interns?” fear would tear through my veins every time they asked. I knew I would be a bad boss. I knew I would make a bad experience for an intern. With Anna, I was very clear from the outset. I’m like, “Hey, this is going to be a learning experience for both of us.”

Though, I’ve been doing more manager work at my day job. I’ve been a manager for interns and co-ops and junior staff members more consistently, so I’ve built up a little bit of experience there on how to do it. I’ve been in what feels like a very long-term personal relationship for about three and a half years and the joke is like the idea of adding on a full-time intern or a full-time employee is scarier than getting into what feels like a lifetime relationship with somebody.

And part of that is, what was I ready for? I was ready for that. I was not ready for people asking me to be an intern initially.

You’re talking about how you’re working with designers on Faster and Testament with designers at least in part because you’ve reached as far as you can go with your own design skills. But I imagine part of it…I’m not trying to make it seem like you’re a control freak, but to some degree, I imagine part of what makes this easy is you’re able to do it all yourself and you have this vision for yourself, so expanding beyond that is scary because then you don’t have that same level of control.

Clemente: Oh, absolutely. If I have a very strong vision of what a book is going to look like at the end, I’m very reluctant to let go of it. Working with Huahua (Zhu) was a really good experience for me. She did The King’s Warrior. Incredible artist, so multi-talented and versatile. She has so many styles at her fingertips. And she has an interesting design aesthetic.

I remember at some point she changed the whole cover color, almost out of nowhere. I sat for a moment. At first, I wrote an email, and I wasn’t angry. I was just like, “Hey, let’s not do this. We’re already this far down the line.” And part it was, I already had a yellow book. I didn’t want a second yellow book. (laughs) Then I just sat with it and was like, if the goal of this is to help the artist hone and create the best version of this thing, there has to be a certain amount of control I give away. 

I thought about it more and I was thinking back to when I did more interviews. I did this interview years and years ago with Rosemary Valero-O’Connell, and we were talking about the process of moving between pencils to inks. And she had this idea that her penciling self and her inking self are different people, and she’s excavating what has been left for her and making what she can out of that discovery.

That’s kind of the same for me as well. As a publisher, I am wearing different hats and I’m trusting myself with them each time. And sure, I can go back and redo stuff here or there. But it’s all still bits and pieces. It’s not too much of a leap to say, I can trust another vision as long as we’re in communication. That was a weirdly huge moment for me. It was like, “Oh, it can happen. I can do it.”

So much of this seems like you learning on the fly and trying to figure out how to adapt to the realities of what you learn about.

Clemente: Oh, absolutely.

At this point though, you have another job. You are doing a lot. You’re burning the candle on ends that weren’t aware of before. But how much of your life is this? Is Bulgilhan Press the highest end side hustle you could possibly ask for basically?

Clemente: I think so. On one hand, I wanted a long project to spend my time on. But also, it’s a pure expression of how much I love the medium and the scene and the people. To not do something like this would be in some ways antithetical to who I am. I am compelled to some degree. 

I mean, you get it.

Yeah.

Clemente: So, it’s one of those things where…there are times my mom’s like, “Oh, I wish you could visit more, but you’re traveling so much for comics.” That’s who I am on some level. I wouldn’t really be your son otherwise. I would be someone else a little bit, and it’s the kind of thing where I am grateful how this worked out.

I remember very early on I was like, I’m not going to date in comics. It’s not one of those things where I have to find somebody who understands how this goes for a lot of people, depending on what side of the aisle you’re on. I don’t need someone who can commiserate with me and understand. I need somebody who wants to share a life with me, and this is what my life is. A lot of it is comics. But not exclusively. There’s lots of other things I like to do and other things I enjoy, and yeah, this is the biggest…it’s not even a side hustle. 

My day job’s a side hustle. It just pays more. (laughs)

So, you are in the midst of a 10-year plan where you’re trying to give it the old college try, to see what you can do here. You’re half-ish way through 10 years.

Clemente: I announced Bulgilhan in 2018. I didn’t publish until 2021.

Wait, why? What happened?

Clemente: Well, I didn’t have any books. I announced myself as a publisher with no books. 

I was joking. I was referring to the pandemic.

Clemente: Oh, that too. (laughs) But genuinely, I had no projects. I was seeking submissions. Honestly, I would’ve held off longer, but Jesse (Lonergan) was like, “Hey, man, can we just do this?” (laughs) I’m like, yeah, yeah, okay. I had the finished manuscript for six months.

That sounds like Jesse. 

Clemente: Yeah. I’ve known him for a very long time. He was part of the Boston scene before he moved to the Philadelphia area. But also, I have sort of thrown out the 10-year thing because it’s just like…this is it. It goes as long as I do.

What are your goals going forward? Are they the same as when you started, or have they evolved alongside everything else?

Clemente: They’ve evolved. I still have the same vision. I want to step back and see all these wonderful books on a shelf that people have read or I’ve gotten to be a part of. There are lovely stupid little goals. I moved to San Diego when I was 12, so I was actually raised going to Comic Con when it was easy to go in the early 2000s. I would just pay 12 bucks and walk in as a 13-year-old. I would love to go back as a publisher one day. It doesn’t really make business sense. I’m not going to grow the publisher that much unless something drastically changes, but I’d love to go back and be part of that version of the comics community. 

I’d love a book win an Eisner. That’d be really nice. I don’t think it’s going to happen anytime soon, but it’d be cool. Not because I think it’s important for me, but I feel like it’s important for my artists. I want them to feel like this is something they can achieve and something they deserve.

Hey, I just want to say Floating World got nominated for Best Continuing Series this year, so anything is possible. Santos Sisters!

Clemente: That’s true. Anything is possible!

I’ve removed some goals I didn’t have any more at a certain point. I just want to make books that are beautiful. What I’ve been hearing now is because I’ve been publishing for a few years, I hear people who entered art school read a book I published and then are graduating being like, this book inspired me. That’s all I need to hear. 

I don’t need anything else.

Also, it probably makes you feel old.

Clemente: I mean, a lot of things make me feel old. I’m kind of cool with that at this point. Every time I see a 20th anniversary, I’m like, “Oh damn, dude.” But I feel like I’m decent at coming to peace with stuff like that. The joke I’ve been saying…it’s not a joke. It’s the thing I’ve been saying to not answer the question, but it’s becoming more of the answer is, I want to die doing this. I want to be 93 and croak over InDesign or whatever. (laughs) If that’s the way I go…yeah.

It goes back to what we were talking about. It seems like it’s more about feeling for you. It’s not about an end game. You don’t have a 10-year plan of, “I would like to be the #4 publisher in the direct market,” or “I’m going to destroy Mark Siegel (the head of First Second and 23rd Street Books) and I’m going to take over his spot.” (Clemente laughs) You don’t have delusions of grandeur. You just want to enjoy yourself, and it seems like that’s your goal.

Clemente: I mean, ultimately…it’s like, why do I eat? One, for sustenance. But two is I love to eat. I love food. I love cooking. I love recipes. 

I love comics. I think I have a pretty good eye and a pretty good mind for helping artists create better versions of their comics than they could have alone…potentially. I praised myself a little bit. And I find immense satisfaction out of the process. It’s something where if we are put on this world to do anything, I think “create interesting pictures” is a great way for the human experience to be summed up in. And yeah, I’ll play my part in that.

And I’ll love it.

Thanks for reading this conversation with Bulgilhan Press’ Zachary Clemente. If you enjoyed this conversation, though, maybe consider subscribing to SKTCHD for more like it, and to support the work that I do on the site.