Popverse's top stories

• A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is going off-book but in-canon, with George R.R. Martin contributing previously unpublished material for season 2
• Why we should let Dragon Ball end after the death of Akira Toriyama
• D&D had big plans to make the game easier to play a few years ago, but admits they lost the plot... now they're trying again

People make comics. People read comics. But when the makers can't get the comics to the readers, it makes it a lot harder for everyone. For the immigrant-, minority-, and family-owned comics publisher FairSquare Graphics, all they wanted to do was make great comics. But with the bankruptcy of the English-speaking world's primary comics distributor (and de facto storage center) and the mess that is still going on there, FairSquare Graphics realized that to keep making comics, they had to make sure the comics got to the readers, distributor or not.

Good thing there are comic conventions.

FairSquare Graphics' Fabrice Sapolsky told Popverse that he currently does 30 to 40 conventions a year, selling a selection of the 50 comics they have published — everything from the supernatural queer anthology Happy Endings to the public domain take on Tin Tin in The Big Lie, and the Black-led crime fiction series Noir is the New Black. Since we've talked to him for this article at a convention, he's done several more conventions. He'll probably do several more by the time you read this.

"If we were not making money at shows, we would stop publishing, period. There's a reason why we're here," Sapolsky said, gesturing to the bustling con show floor at Seattle's Emerald City Comic Con earlier this year. "The reason isn't desperation. It's that we want to stick around. We're fighting for a better future that we feel is accessible."

Just as live event touring has become more important than ever for musicians with their distribution system falling apart, FairSquare Graphics spends close to 75% of each weekend on the road, getting back to the honest, human interaction of handselling comics to keep their comics publishing thriving. 

Human interaction is also key to the crowdfunding success FairSquare Graphics has had, with 22 campaigns and counting, to get the comics made in the first place. 

Distribution of headaches, not comics, for FairSquare Graphics

Diamond Comics Distributors currently owes FairSquare Graphics thousands of dollars in sales, going back to January 2025. What makes the sting even harder is that Diamond acted as its primary warehouse for unsold books — over 10,000 copies, by last count. With the US legal system being such that FairSquare Graphics would need to spend more money in the attempt to get back what was theirs, they've decided to forge ahead in looking for a fair & square deal... and seems to have found it, at least for the time being, directly with readers like you.

Take, for instance, one of its creator-owned comic series, Mutiny: Black Girl Magik by Kristal Adams and Asiah Fulmore. Created and crowdfunded back when FairSquare Graphics' distribution was seemingly on solid footing, by the time it was ready to go on sale, Diamond's distribution had fallen apart. 

"Mutiny: Black Girl Magik has never been in any stores. It has never been offered anywhere but Kickstarter, and later on here at conventions," Sapolsky told us. "We sold over 2,200 copies of the first issue all by ourselves, and close to 1,700 of the second issue all by ourselves. This means something."

Another example is Hyphen: Jewish Stories In Our Own Words, which FairSquare Graphics debuted at New York Comic Con 2025. It sold out of its 5,000-copy print run in two months, with a second printing now available. Again, this is without being in comic stores or having any major distribution.

FairSquare Graphics currently has a deal with the budding distribution company Philbo Distribution for comic stores, but is still looking for a more long-term solution that will get the company's publications back in comic stores and the big book chains. But again, he's not desperate enough to signsomething he'd regret... and is looking for a true distribution partner.

"They need to realize we really have an added value, and instead of turning us down or offering us impossible deals, they need to say 'Okay, we see what you're doing. We see the success that you have at shows.'"

In the absence of that, Sapolsky sees himself and FairSquare Graphics "going as we are going now."

"We keep doing some 'vertical integration' as I like to say, which is doing everything ourselves: producing, distributing, maybe even printing eventually. And doing everything ourselves to master the entire food chain and make sure that the products remain accessible, and we're not depending on anyone else."

How this DIY mentality opened the door to give others a fair & square deal

This DIY mentality that emerged inside Sapolsky and his family as a result of the Diamond-sized crater in North American comics has fermented, and as an extension of FairSquare Graphics' company motto of "stories from the rest of us," they have expanded not just to publish under-represented creators looking for a publisher, but also to become a publisher-for-hire with a new side of their business.

This fall, FairSquare Graphics is launching a boutique publishing service for fellow creators and fellow publishers to take what they've learned in a post-COVID, post-Diamond, post-everything world. This new venture is called SHPS (pronounced 'ships'), essentially becoming a comics business 'fixer,' fixing known problems and also foreseeing, advising, and in some cases handling the next problems.

"There's some kind of PTSD knowing that we had 10,000 copies of our books on consignment in a warehouse and it was stolen," said Sapolsky. "There is a sense of 'this can't happen again.' How do we make the steps to make sure this never happens again?"

In many cases, experience is the best teacher, and hard times make for hard truths. Through all these lessons, Fabrice Sapolsky has found that to help the comics-makers and the comics-readers, he can help both of them, while still having time to make and read comics himself.

Interested? Here's where to find your closest local comic store, courtesy of Sweet, and here's a guide to how (and where) to read comics online. If you're looking for the best comics in recent memory, check out the Eisner Awards winners and the Harvey Awards nominees. And if you like free comics, here's everything we know about Free Comic Book Day 2027.