Issue three was by far the worst issue of the Colt series. We were on a roll from issue #2 and it should have been a chance to really put the comic on the map. But instead, a series of bad decisions on my part did not help. Despite these decisions, it was the best selling issue of Colt or any comic we published. But those numbers are tainted. seeing how well issue #2 sold, mainly due to the limited edition pin-up, I tried to manipulate the market again and use another gimmick to boost sales. It worked in the short term, but probably hurt us in the long run. This time I did a back-up story and featured two different versions. I did not say which one would be limited (neither one was, they had almost equal orders). The total sales for issue #3 exceeded 20,000 copies. While this was good and really got the comic out there, the problem was the final product was substandard. The main story did not feature the quality artwork that we had in issue #2 and the back-up stories were awful.
With two weeks before it was time to go to press, I had a conversation with Dan Berger. He told me he was leaving the book and doing his own comic book as well as working with the Ninja Turtles. He did offer to do the third issue but we could not agree on a pay per page rate. I will admit he was underpaid from the start and did deserve a pay increase. I also knew he was leaving and decided it would be best to move into a new direction. In hindsight it was not my best move, but I did not want to delay the inevitable. We parted ways on good terms and he went on to a very successful career.
With only two weeks to go, I did have another artist ready to go. Andrew Barrett took over the book and did a good job. It was not a great job as you can see by the sparse backgrounds, but he was rushed. I should have delayed the book and given him more time to finish the book. But I really wanted to try and keep a schedule and it ended up hurting us in the end. If you look at his next issue and especially Crossed Swords, you will get a better idea of his artistic talent.
The biggest mistake I made in the comic book was the back-up story. With the craze in the market being Ninja Turtle rip-offs, I decided to throw my hat into the ring and do one as well. My group was four Koala bears who were loosely based one Humphrey Bogart, Sylvester Stallone and Laurel and Hardy. Don't ask as I cannot tell you how I came up with that group for influences. I also decided to do the longest name for a group just to be crazy. So I called them "The Middle Aged Government Tested Atom Splitting Radioactive Democratic Left Handed Freelance Green Beret Koala Bears." And the stories were as stupid as the name. It was truly the low point of KZ Comics. Take a bad idea and mix it with a bad story and you have a recipe for disaster. But when you add in equally bad artwork, you are doomed. I had an artist named Julie Varady do the back-up story and she was not ready for comic book art. She had shown me her portfolio and she did great artwork as far as doing still life and portraits. But doing a painting of a bowl of fruit and doing comic book art are two very different things. It takes a certain talent to do a comic book and this is something that not every artist has. When you ask an artist who is used to having a subject to view and draw from and then ask them to draw militant koala bears and only have her imagination to work from, you are asking for trouble. Read either Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics or Will Eisner's Comics and Sequential Art to understand what I am talking about. I wish I had read these (not even sure if they were available at the time) and had their wisdom to draw from. I am not trying to diminish Julie's skills, she could draw, she just wasn't a comic book artist. At the time, I did not know the difference. Not having any artistic skills of my own, I did not understand the challenges of doing sequential artwork and put her into a position to fail. If I knew what I was doing, I would have had her do some basic sequential artwork to see if she could do it. But I did not and that is another mistake that I take the blame for. The problem was when I saw the final product, it was almost time to go to press. I should have delayed the book and found a different artist or something, but the orders were in and they were big. But I decided to go with it and I take the blame for it. At a time when the company needed a strong leader, I let them down. I put my desire to keep a schedule ahead of delivering a quality product. I think this would have come back to haunt us if the industry did not implode. But since we only lasted one more issue, it really did not have a chance to affect sales. The sales for Colt #4 were strong and the preorders for #5 were equally strong (though the issue never came out).
The cover is of issue #3 was done by Phil Fried, who did a back-up story in Colt #2. With Ryan and Dan both gone, I felt it was best to have someone else do the cover, so that Andrew could concentrate on getting the inside artwork done. Andrew would take over doing the cover for issue #4. One thing I really liked about the cover was all the different characters that Phil put on the cover. Some are universally known (like Marvin Martian and King Kong Bundy) while others are more local like the Ghoul and Froggy. Andrew also did the same inside the book. This added some fun to the book as people wrote that they enjoyed trying to figure out who all the guests were.
One good memory of issue #3 was going to a comic book show in Michigan that I was invited to. It was called the King Con and featured all kinds of small press publishers. I remember being on a panel with Bill Willingham, John Ostrander and others talking about comics. Also, they gave out thousands of programs to people who came and it featured a section for autographs, so all the people were going from table to table and getting autographs. It was exciting to sign a ton of autographs as well as sell a bunch of comics. We also hung out with the guys who created the Trollords as well as some other independent comic publishers. It really was a sense of being part of something. On a humorous note, when I was going to be on the comic panel, I knew that a big part of it was answering questions that the audience would submit ahead of time. They had a box there for people to submit their questions. Not wanting to sit up there and not have any questions to answer, I wrote out a few basic ones and dropped them in the box. It turn out that there was one question not submitted by me, but it made it so I had some questions to answer instead of just sitting there.