It’s hard not to play the comparison game. When you do something — anything, really — you contextualize what you’re doing by looking at others who do that as well. That’s true for everyone. Marketers, podcasters, sandwich artists…even comic creators. We cannot help but look at what others do and think, “How do I compare?” And if there’s one project from the past year or so that’s driven comic creators I know mad with envy, it’s not a comic at all. It’s Zdarsky Comic News, writer/artist Chip Zdarsky’s free print newsletter you can find at the comic shops.

That’s for good reason, even if that aforementioned jealousy is at least in part tongue in cheek. Zdarsky Comic News is incredible. This newsletter blends all-time classic covers that send up both the comic industry and magazines with highlights of Zdarsky’s comics and the work of his peers. It’s also a great place to learn about (some) new comics while in your comic shop, and all that comes for the low, low price of free. It’s hilarious, but it’s also useful in a way that few print resources are these days in comics. And that’s a wonderful, important thing.

So, with my own love affair with this newsletter continuing onwards and its impact seemingly only growing as ZCN soon expands to 16 pages, I thought it was finally time to talk with Chip about it. That’s what we recently did, as we popped on Zoom to talk about its origins, what goes into it, how it continues to evolve, how much of it is a gag versus being a real thing, and so much more. It’s both an excellent walkthrough on what goes into Zdarsky Comic News as an enterprise but also a fun chat in the way chats with Chip always are.

As per usual, though, this conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

I want to start at the beginning. What was the germ of this idea?

Chip: I mean, the germ was hating the internet. (David laughs) Specifically social media. I kind of removed myself from it over the past few years for reasons I think everyone understands. (laughs) I don’t think I need to go into why the internet and social media are terrible. I have my Substack, which is great, and I enjoy doing it, and I enjoy the subscribers.

But it also just feels like the internet’s broken in terms of promoting your work. I see a lot of artists and writers promoting their work on Twitter and Bluesky and I feel like it’s having the opposite effect. There are actually artists and writers who I won’t work with because of what they say on Twitter, and they don’t realize that. (laughs) I think there are a lot of people who buy books who also feel that way. It’s almost like anti-promotion for a lot of people. And it’s addictive and it affects your brain in a negative way.

So, all that said, I was thinking about, “How did I learn about comic books before the internet?” Because I did. That’s how I ended up buying new series. And the answer was…publications. There were publications such as Marvel Age, Wizard Magazine, Comic Buyers Guide, Amazing Heroes, The Comics Journal. There were so many avenues for information that were available in the comic shop, and I loved them. I loved buying them and poring over them and trying to deduce what was coming up and reading the interviews.

I realized I wanted to do something physical. That just made sense to me. And Zdarsky Comic News was born. At first, it was a bit of a joke. The title, Zdarsky Comic News…who needs a magazine just for comic news about me. (laughs) But I quickly realized, “This is actually a lot of fun to make, and I want to expand it as much as I can and do interviews and little features and things like that.” So that first issue was me seeing if I could do it and what this is. And sinking some money into it, because obviously I printed it all myself and delivered that first issue free to retailers, sight unseen. I made 50,000 copies and just kind of spread them widely through Diamond (Comic Distributors) at the time. Ever since then, it’s been based on orders that come in, which have been solid and steady. So, I’m just like, “Okay, I can do this.”

Roughly speaking, when did your path to ZCN start?

Chip: Like, the month before it came out. (laughs)

Really?

Chip: I tend to do things fast. I have an idea and then I do the idea and then I put the idea out. Physically putting together that first issue took me about two days, just in terms of the content and then just talking to the distributor and talking to the printer. And that seemed like a no-brainer. I went with Transcon for printing because they dealt directly with Diamond. They pick up from the warehouse. That makes it easier for me because I was doing everything myself. I had to learn all about these things. Back in the day when I was self-publishing, I dealt with Diamond and printers, but it had been so long that I didn’t know if things had changed, and really, they hadn’t. It was a very straightforward process.

So yeah, I’d say maybe a month before it came out was when I started to dig in and do it. (laughs) Initially it was to promote my first DSTLRY release, Time Waits, because I was also thinking without superheroes and known characters, it’s harder to promote that (kind of comic). It can be harder to get into shops and get eyeballs on it, so that made a lot of sense.

I hate to say it, but I think you’re the known character in some ways. (both laugh)

Chip: I’ll agree with that. I suppose I kind of learned after the fact too, I ended up dealing with Atom Freeman at Prana (Direct Market Solutions, a comics marketing company) who has been helping me recently, and he had a statistic about how 83% of purchases made in shop are researched in shop. Which to me just kind of tells the tale right there. When you’re in a shop, that’s when you discover new stuff, and you discover it through things like these publications or just looking at the shelves. So, I think hitting readers in the comic shop while they’re in the comic shop makes the most sense for promotion.

In my mind, there was a development process where you figured this out and you got it all sorted out. It does not seem like that was the case. Did you figure out what ZCN is as you were making the first issue?

Chip: For sure. I knew that first one was going to be four pages just because it was a cheap proof of concept. It’s basically comic paper, so it’s one sheet that’s folded. I knew the cover was going to be inspired by Oprah Magazine (laughs) so I had that locked in. I knew there’d be fake stories on the front, and then I just pieced it together over a day or two. Just what it looked like. I knew the back should probably be my catalog of books, and I’ll do an editorial inside and maybe a game.

A word finder.

Chip: Yeah. I mean, it’s all based on my past in newspapers, that kind of design and layout and coming up with weird fun things, which is something I really miss doing. It scratched a bunch of itches it turned out.

You had this entire other career before being a comic creator, and this project actually allows you to dig into a side of you that has…I mean, I don’t want to say been dormant. That’s dramatic, but you haven’t been actively using it for a while.

Chip: Yeah, exactly. I haven’t really interviewed anyone except for a couple of YouTube things since the newspaper, so that’s been a lot of fun getting back into that and just generating fun ideas and working on this kind of crazy deadline to fill a page from nothing has been a blast.

When I was thinking about this, I was thinking about it as a pie. What part of the pie is creating an actual marketing tool, What part of the pie is just a fun project for yourself, and how much of it is you just bolstering the Zdarsky mystique? (Chip laughs)

Chip: Well, I’m going to say the pie has definitely changed over the issues. At first, it was about promoting. It was just straight up, “This is Zdarsky Comic News, and it has all my stuff in it. These are all my books.” That’s it. After that, it became more about fun.