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Colt the Armadillo #4 Compared to the other issues, the fourth issue was the smoothest issue. No personnel changes, no major budget surprises, nothing. It ran smooth and was alot of fun to do. But little did we know it would be the final issue. Problems were brewing in the comic industry and the end was in sight. What became known as the Black and White Implosion, was on the horizon. It was a result in a market that was too driven by investors instead of collectors. With so many people looking for the next Ninja Turtles #1, almost any book was selling for an issue. And with many other books going for good money like Fish Police #1 (was going for $50.00 for the first print of #1), there was alot of speculative buying. But the supply of comics soon outstripped the demand and the quality was dropping. It was a time when almost anyone would release a new comic book and get decent sales. And because of this, almost everyone did release a new comic. Soon, many comic stores found themselves with shelves full of books that weren't selling. So they started to go out of business, which cut into the cash flow of the distributors. The market began to correct itself and quickly. Two of the biggest comic distributors declared bankruptcy in a very short time and this pretty much killed the industry. Sunrise Distributor and Glenwood Distribution both declared bankruptcy and with them, they took alot of money, including a huge amount owed to us. Back then, distributors would normally pay you 90 days after they received your books. This gave them time to get the books to the stores and collect the money. But what it did was allow the aforementioned distributors to owe me for Colt #3, Colt #4, Crossed Swords #1 and Unicorn Kings #1. If it was just one issue, it would not have been a problem, but being four issues and two distributors, it was too much money to overcome. The sad part was we just picked up Glenwood Distributors with issue #3. I met one of the main guys at a convention and he agreed to start carrying our books. They were the last major distributor to carry our books and we were ecstatic to have them aboard. Little did we know that move would seal our fate. That meant that all 16 of the major comic distributors were carrying our books. And Glenwood carried them in a big way. They quickly shot to the #3 distributor in volume for us with Sunrise at #4. Only Capital City and Diamond sold more comics for us. But before we knew what was happening, we were enjoying a trouble free comic. Andrew had more time to work on the artwork and it showed. And we had a bond between us. His artwork really complemented the story and we got together and bounced ideas back and forth on the story. He gave alot of input and it resulted in a better product. It was much different than the working relationship I had with Dan. His was much more of a business relationship where I would give him the scripts and he would return a finished product. Andrew was much more interested in being involved and really cared for the character. This was even more so with Crossed Swords, a project he really liked. To give you an idea how involved Andrew came in the production of Colt, he suggested that we give my Uncle Ron an appearance in the comic book. Since my Uncle Ron was not involved in the creative side of the book, instead doing the behind the scenes work like shipping books, working with the printer and distributors and paying the bills, Andrew thought it would be a good way to have him be part of the book from the creative side. So the cab driver you see in the book is actually my uncle, all the way down to the same name. He was a cab driver at one time, so it was fitting to make him one in the book. While the artwork was still not great, Julie did a much better job with the Koala Bears this time. You could see that she was starting to get a basic idea of sequential art. If given more time, she may have become a good comic artist. Speaking of the Koala Bears, to give you an idea how in denial I was on how bad this series was, I planned a one shot book for them. While I was stopping the series in Colt, I planned on having a book titled "The Death of the Koala Bears." While there were probably many in comics that would love to see them die, along with the countless other ninja turtle clones, I doubt the book would have sold. When the news came down that the distributors were going bankrupt and taking our money with them, we took a hard look at the company. When all was said and done, we would have enough money to pay the printer, the artists and not much else. We debated borrowing money to keep publishing, but with the current state of the industry and the large amount of sales lost by not having Glenwood and Sunrise made the decision hard to swallow. So in the end, we decided to close shop. We just could not see pouring money into a risky market. A short time after we closed shop, Andrew came to me with a proposition. He wanted to buy the rights to Colt and publish the book himself. We had plans for doing a book with Colt and sidekick. We talked about it and it looked like it was going to possibly happen. We talked about different plans including full and partial ownership. He went and thought it over and in the end, he decided the market wasn't right for it at the time. So it went nowhere. I saw Andrew one more time after we went out of business. I was at a comic book show and we ran into each other. We talked for a bit, but that was it. That was about 10 years ago. That was the last time I had contact with anyone involved in the comic book, outside of family. Later, we almost revived Colt. My uncle had come into some money and talked about starting the book over but this time in color. We started planning it and even hired artists to work on it. But when we submitted it to the distributors, it had the unfortunate timing of being right after the Image/Valiant crash as the industry was once again correcting itself. So the orders we received were way too low to warrant publishing the comic book. While the revival of Colt did not happen in comic form, I did choose to continue with the story. I hired an artist named Fermin to draw it for a comic newsletter I did for my comic store. The story ran for 64 pages and was the first chapter of a globetrotting story. Unfortunately it was the only chapter as I later closed the store.
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