Tiny Onion, the independent production house headed by its namesake in James Tynion IV, 9 has been a non-stop news machine for the last while. Its ComicsPRO announcements included a couple new titles in Odin and Killboy, an expansion of Exquisite Corpses with a trio of minis, and more, with all that just being the tip of the iceberg for the company. Near as I can tell, every comic Tynion or Tiny Onion has produced is becoming a movie or an adult animated series or a movie and an adult animated series. 10

That’s a lot.

Which is probably why its Director of Editorial, Eric Harburn, earned himself a new title as Tiny Onion’s Director of Narrative and Editor-in-Chief. While he’s still editing a slew of comics, his role is spreading into a number of different mediums at this point, so he needed a title that was more reflective of what he actually does. That announcement came at ComicsPRO as well, and it was something that intrigued me as the company moved into its third year with its sights set on the world. I find Tiny Onion as an enterprise to be fascinating, if only because it reorients so much of what has long been publisher-centric on a creator in Tynion, and it seems to be working — and working well — with Harburn playing a key role in all of that.

So, to dig further into what’s happening at Tiny Onion, his journey, why a new title was necessary, and how they do what they do over at this rapidly growing production house, I recently sat down with Harburn to talk about all that and a whole lot more. It was a good chat, and one that’s been edited for length and clarity. 11

You were the Executive Editor at BOOM!! Studios. You were doing quite well there. Why did you decide to take your talents to Tiny Onion, Eric?

Eric Harburn: It’s a great question. I loved my time at BOOM!! I was there for a little over 13 years, and I worked my way up from being an intern in what was essentially the mailroom to an assistant editor, to editor, to group editor, senior editor, and the executive editor over there. I had a great time. I loved working with the crew over there. Matt Gagnon, the former editor in chief, and Bryce Carlson, who is still there and is now the deputy publisher. I was able to come up under those guys and learn a lot about editing and learn a lot about comics.

Ultimately, I think the peak of my time there was right around 2018, 2019, 2020. I had been sourcing and building my own books for four or five years at that point, but that’s when things really started to find traction in the industry and with readership. Obviously, Something is Killing the Children is a major touchstone for myself, but obviously for BOOM! as well, and, obviously more than anybody, for James. It’s what allowed James to start thinking about building his own company in a bigger way than just a vanity shingle, you know?

So, a couple of years later, James had the idea to start building this thing. By the time we got to late 2023 and early 2024, it was ready to unveil itself. It was tough leaving BOOM! 13 years is a long time to be anywhere. For a long time, I didn’t see myself going anywhere else, but I believe in James. I believe James is the best writer in the industry. I think James has a unique mind in that he’s both an exceptional creator and has a great business sense. He can read the tea leaves of the industry in a way that not a lot of people can. So, him being that kind of multi-hyphenate, I was really excited about where he wanted to take his career next.

And if it was a place that I could help him reach that next level, that’s kind of the jump I wanted to take. So, it was very cool being able to leave a company that had just started to grow into a corporation, right? This was before Penguin Random House. I started at BOOM! and I think I was the 13th or 14th employee, and I think they got up to the sixties when I left. At Tiny Onion, I was part of the original three or four people.

It seems like you went from a startup type vibe to a corporation back to a startup vibe, so you’re finding that energy again. But what were your expectations heading into Tiny Onion? Did you have a defined sense as to what was going to be happening? Or was that startup energy of “anything can happen” the dominant feeling?

Harburn: Yeah, it was. We had a few strong tenets in mind and things that we wanted to accomplish. Exquisite Corpses was obviously the tip of the spear, and we wanted to do things a little differently in the sense that rather than try and come out of the gate with four or five projects and flood the zone with product, we wanted to put all our eggs in a single basket. We wanted to try and make the first thing that we did actually hit big and something that could, in success, expand.

But essentially it was flipping the equation on its head a little bit. So, we’re very happy and thankful that Exquisite Corpses found a readership and landed well. It’s allowing us to do things differently in that sense.

It was nice because at the start of 2024, we knew that we weren’t going to put out Exquisite Corpses until May 2025, so we went into this new company with a runway. We wanted to do it right. James has done it obviously his whole career, especially in superhero land. He worked hand to mouth so much, giving scripts to artists, partials, all this stuff. Even at BOOM!, we had to, a lot of times, work faster than we would have liked. Every editor and creative in comics will tell you that.

But we wanted to at least try to build a runway and say, hey, if we have to shutter in 2025 because Exquisite Corpses didn’t work, at least we gave it a shot and did it this way. So, 2024 was really like a zero year for the company, and we were able to experiment a little bit and try out some things that maybe we’re not doing quite as much anymore, but we were able to throw everything at the wall and see what stuck before 2025 became year one.

This year brings even more refinement, and we’re able to take the lessons of Exquisite Corpses but also our creative services and some of the other partner projects that we do, like our work with BOOM!, Something is Killing the Children and whatnot, and determine what the future is for us this year and coming up next year. 2027 and 2028 are our focus at the moment.