Slightly Misplaced Comics Hero Case Files #27: Grimjack

Getting drunk with a lizard–everybody’s secret Friday night wish.

The growth of the direct market, where comics publishers could send their wares to specialty comic book stores as opposed to newsstands, meant that new publishers could have a shot at becoming something.  One such publisher was First Comics, which originally published comics from 1983-1991.  First revived Classics Illustrated and reprinted some Japanese manga comics in English, but they also did some original work with creator-owned characters that were free of the Comics Code, and as a result, were free to offer more mature content to their readers.

One of those was original, creator-owned characters was John Ostrander and Tim Truman’s John Gaunt, also known as the mercenary Grimjack.