Fabrice Sapolsky Talks His Latest Campaign We Will Survive!

Coming Out Fighting

US indie publisher FairSquare Graphics has had a very difficult last few months, mainly down to the instability of Diamond US. But they haven’t given up publishing and they have just launched a latest Kickstarter campaign to keep them afloat and its head Fabrice Sapolsky just spoke to us to offer us a glimpse into the new campaign…

TRIPWIRE: What was the impetus behind the latest campaign?

FABRICE SAPOLSKY: Well… Survival first! Financially, we’re almost at an impasse. We’re pounding the alarm before it’s too late. Since Diamond, our estranged distributor, collapsed, in January, revenue has been sporadic. We’ve exhausted everything we saved. Our Kickstarter campaigns have been successful but not bringing enough to both guarantee current projects being made and pay our debt to printers, licensors and, unfortunately creators… Because 2024 has been tough too, especially on the book trade front. Many independent bookstores have faced major hurdles and have ordered less and returned more books.

And on the convention front, we’ve already attended 22 shows in 2025 and though all but two of them have been profitable, we haven’t made much from most, after cost.

In the end, after we understood that Diamond wouldn’t let us get our inventory back and we couldn’t afford a lawyer to fight their Grand Theft Distro move in court, we decided to turn to the only people that have never let us down: the audience.

TW: And on a related question, the impetus behind keeping FairSquare Graphics going?

FS: Rage? (laughs) More seriously, we feel that we’re kind of a unique case in the American publishing landscape. We don’t fit in any box. Yes, we’re primarily immigrant and minority focused, but we’re not trying to cater to any community in particular. We want our titles to be for everybody. And the crowd that buys our books comes from every possible background. We curate our catalog in a way that no one else does. Plus, we focus on creators rights AND, we bring an exceptional level of quality in printing and design for a company of our size.

We can’t let that disappear. We can’t let those voices being silenced.  A book like Beyondtopia Legends would never have been published if not for us. Many other publishers passed on it. Noir is the New Black, our biggest selling title, still defies every statistic in publishing. My very own Intertwined omibus, has been largely ignored by retailers when it came out, with its $40 price tag but is one of our best selling book at every show. I could go on forever.

THAT. Our curation, our desire to constantly bet on an intelligent crowd ready to welcome non-compliant titles, our amazing creators and their bigger than life stories… I refuse to let it go away.

TW: What perks can people get on this campaign?

FS: They’re basically buying our digital catalog in ways we never offered it before. And with the funds we’ll get we hope to be able to reprint hard copies and send them to them. But we also have a few add-ons that I hope people will fall for. A couple of years ago I created a design around the “Indie Comics are Amazing” motto. I usually wear a t-shirt with this logo at shows. For some reason, it went largely unnoticed. But since I decided to include it in the campaign, it got traction and I couldn’t be happier. People getting behind Independent comics brings me joy.

We also have our first ever mini-bust, produced in partnership with GlenForge Studios. And, of course, the few titles we still have in print are available.

TW: FairSquare Graphics has had a very difficult year partly because of the current Diamond situation. How have you managed to stay positive as a company ?

FS: There’s no plan B. It works or it works. I’m 55 years old. Despite 28 years in publishing on two continents, no one is interested in hiring me for some reason. I’m not going to drown in tears or depression because of a distributor that failed us! I have stories to tell and to share with the world. So we fight. I am in love with the stories our creators are kind enough to let us publish and the creators themselves. Many of them have become practically family. Like Joe Illidge, Greg Burnham, TC Harris, Greg Elysée. I owe them to survive. And I need to give a special hug to my partner Kristal Adams. Without her, I don’t know if I’d be able to stick to the plan like this. She’s my rock. As I often say, no one can tell me if and when to quit comics. As long as I feel relevant and people are buying our books, we’ll find ways to stick around. Our difference is our biggest strength. If the establishment keeps ignoring us, we’ll keep going anyway. We have cool kids too.

TW: What have you learnt from the other campaigns you have run so far this year?

FS: That past successes don’t guarantee the next ones. I also had to acknowledge that there are 10 times more campaigns now on Kickstarter than three years ago and people’s wallets aren’t as extensible as Mr Fantastic. I look at Pat Shand’s Space Between, Kat Calamia and Phil Falco’s Lifeline or Travis Gibb’s Orange Cone as inspiration for strategies.

As a result, you now have to consider what you make on a campaign as just a portion of your budget. It helps, but you still have to find other sources of revenue to meet your break even point. Even on a hit series like Noir Is the New Black it’s true. Our latest offering, in June, brought under $9k net ($11.6k gross). But the budget to release the issue is $15k. We’ll make it happen over time, but it’s not as if a success on Kickstarter allowed you to swim in cash. It’s part of a larger equation.

TW: What have you learnt from the current environment as an indie comics publisher too?

FS: Nothing that I did not know. There are a lot of predatory deals out there. I interviewed half a dozen potential distributors to replace Diamond and I was either not convinced by any or they were simply not interested in us. As I said, we hardly fit in any box. But our books are praised. They sell. We had starred reviews. We had award nominations and took a couple of trophies home. But it’s easy to ignore you when you don’t have enough means to make all the noise.

Many retailers don’t really care about your books unless they have a bankable name or – better—IP attached to it. Distribution has become the wild west and greed is at an all-time high. I had some nice surprises though. Retailers calling us to work directly with us and highlight our books. The direct market is still a complicated place when you don’t offer superhero books though. Resistance to indie publishers is everywhere. At big outfits like B&N, Amazon or at your LCS.

We’ve partnered with Philbo Distribution for our direct market releases and we’re developing a new line of single issue comics JUST for that channel. But that doesn’t mean it will pay off. We’ll keep on trying though. The days of one size fits all in publishing are gone. The Kickstarter audience is not the same as the convention audience or the Comic shop audiences or the book trade one.

TW: How do you avoid falling into another financial hole like you were in the first half of this year?

FS: By being as frugal as ever. By relying on ourselves as much as we can on the global publishing food chain. By diversifying. We’re going to offer a lot more digital content for example. I have resisted this for a long time but the fact that we’re left without inventory chqnges the deal. You can’t replace 10.5k books overnight. We also want to explore different formats at different prices.

We’ll also take our time to get back to the trade book market. No rush. When we’re bqck on our feet financially, we’ll be in a way better position to negociate the right deal.

TW: How does an indie comic company survive in 2025 with all of the pitfalls and hindrances?

FS: Resilience. Perseverance. Hard work. A great support system. And confidence in the talents and stories we produce.

TW: What will a successful campaign here allow you to do as a company?

FS: Because our inventory has been seized and WILL flood the market at ridiculous prices in the coming months, we’re going to reprint our best sellers in better quality, with more content and we will outdo ourselves. The next iteration of FairSquare Graphics shall be better than the previous one. You can take my word for it!

Support the campaign here