Like many of us, Sebastian Girner woke up on Wednesday, November 6, 2024 feeling a wee bit despondent.
“I’m disheartened by the state of the world,” Girner said during our Election Day-adjacent Zoom call. “I am disheartened by capitalism. I’m disheartened by a clear majority of this country. Ultimately, a large portion of the people in this country took a look at the world and decided that they don’t need to care and are going to vote for someone who actively put a gun to their head.”
Unlike many of us, though, Girner has a unique coping mechanism: writing and editing comics. His robust career stretches to 2008, and he’s written or edited for Vault, Marvel, Image, and Kodansha, among other companies. In 2018, he helped bring TKO Studios to market as the publisher’s editor-in-chief. His work has provided the kind of wit and personal intensity that makes for compelling stories, and he clearly cares deeply for a mostly imperfect medium and industry. He is, among other things, a true “capital C” Creative.
“On Wednesday, I woke up, and one of the impulses I immediately had was to cancel all my (freelance editing gigs),” Girner said. “These were jobs that I could’ve easily done that would have brought me money that I could always use. Not to knock any of the projects themselves, creatively or otherwise, they were all with fine people. But I just didn’t feel like that’s what I would want to be doing (in 2025). I had to really clear myself up and be like, ‘I need to write.’”
Luckily, Girner’s comics writing and output has a channel: his publishing outfit Goats Flying Press, which is very much his secret weapon in the “war” against Trump.
Founded in September 2023, Goats Flying is “crowd-funded and always 100% creator-owned,” and offers help to “conceive, develop, produce, package, print, market, and provide creative assistance, quality control, and emotional support for every step of making original comics, graphic novels, manga, or whatever you like to call your funnybooks.”
Courtesy of Goats Flying Press.
And, yes, Goats Flying is also doing those other things required of great publishers, like telling truly important stories. While the press has just a handful of books released so far, one of those is The Fables of Erlking Wood, an inventive and meditative slice of fantasy from writer-artist Juni Ba and letter Aditya Bidikar.
But the press is very much a venue for Girner’s singular work and worldview, and it’s inevitably tied to and reflective of his unique place in the industry.
“I’m very much like, ‘Oh, this is what I’ve always been writing about, which is why I also think that certain forms of comic book success have eluded me because I try to make it too much perhaps sometimes,” Girner said. “I have a very difficult time writing superheroes. I’ve come from the Alan Moore school, where I find them to be morally reprehensible because they insinuate that more power is all you need. It’s the Tolkienian vision of power vis-a-vis something like Dune, which is just a huge bummer to read.”
Similarly, as much as Girner is working through big events and happenings right now, even he knows Trump is temporary (even if his impact isn’t). When that man’s evil does finally subside at all, there’s still so much of life to be experienced and processed.
“So these are all the things spinning around me, and I’m really trying to re-figure out how I can reposition myself for what I feel is to come because the external conflict is going to go away,” Girner said. “I’m going to have regular problems in a year or two or three. But these things are raging on the inside of all of us and we need to figure out where art and making art and telling stories fits into that. Because right now you’re seeing a lot of creators share uplifting quotes and fighting words, but I actually believe that even people whose job it is to come up with things and imagine things…(there’s) the lack of imagination to envision what’s coming and for how long.”
It’s an experience that only solidified Girner’s need to do less doomsaying and get back to what matters: making resonant art.
“It felt strange that I needed the cudgel of fascism over my head to basically be forced into a position,” Girner said. “I was very glad to have that, and to know that this is going to be my conduit through this. What editing and project-managing I do, I want to do through Goats Flying Press. Because that’s where I have put my eggs. (My goat eggs, as it were.) I was very scared right after the election. Like, ‘Can I still do Goats? Does this still make sense?’ Like, ‘Was I an idiot for getting this tattoo?’ There’s a reason I got a tattoo because I cannot escape it anymore.”
The range and focus of Goats Flying Press is exactly why Girner is focused on larger, more systemic concerns and issues, and how he can make comics that address this singular moment in U.S. history and still provide something of sustained value to readers. Case in point: As much as the world’s on fire, comics has been in an interesting and potentially dire state for longer than any Trump presidency.
“The creative industry is pretty salt blasted as it is and it’ll probably only get worse at this stage,” Girner said. “But I think this might be a position where comics have to redefine themselves as something truly radical and something truly brave. Because unlike a lot of other art forms, they can still be very personal. Everything that is shackled to an industry that is crumbling, I think, will have to reposition itself. And luckily, the comics industry has always been a giant shanty town that’s never functioned fully.”
Girner added, “Like, everything is being run by people who don’t know how to make anything anymore. They’re just there to make numbers go up and usually it’s by auto-cannibalization, like what you see with David Zaslav with Warner Brothers — they would rather just not put stuff out and it’s literally like a cannibal eating himself. You’re going to run out of body at some point.”
From The Dead and The Damned #1. Courtesy of Goats Flying Press.
And speaking of auto-cannibalization, that kind of savagery is very much at the heart of Goats Flying Press’ core book so far, The Dead and the Damned. With two issues out as of press, this “dark fantasy apocalypse” is set in a fantasy kingdom “ravaged by a horrifying curse where all things that die return to wage war on the living.” Whether it’s the art of Kelly Williams, who adds so much life to a world entrenched in perpetual death and suffering, or the humanity Girner injects into every character, The Dead and the Damned is a surprising uplifting book about a band of people trying to survive a world “where the only fate worse than death…is life.”
“I have a hope that comics can literally just be a tealight, which is how I positioned and pitched The Dead and the Damned to Kelly,” Girner said. “I want to make something that’s so dark, it feels like a tealight in a cathedral. Like, it’s that level of doom. Ultimately, I think the book turned out quite a bit funnier in the writing, because there’s too many opportunities for humor in a world that dark.”
And the book and its co-creator certainly have the pedigree to achieve that rather lofty goal. In addition to referencing “Akira, Bone, and Bill Watterson’s work,” Girner has other influences known for bringing both the deep darkness and robust humanity.
“There’s a bit I love in Berserk, which is obviously one of my favorite comics and it’s such an overblown big, huge comic,” Girner said. “It’s so violent, and so dark and so edgy, but there’s so much nuance in the writing sometimes. Guts, when he gets the Berserker armor, he says that he can’t taste things anymore. That he’s literally lost his ability to taste food. I found that to be such a strange, beautiful thing. The strongest and most black metal comic book character ever, and he lost the simple ability to taste food.”
It’s an element that Girner has seen in the other works of Berserk creator Kentaro Miura, and something he hopes to capture in all Goats Flying comics.
“He would spend 500 pages on something nobody cares about, and when with two or three panels he could re-contextualize the humanity of these very silly characters sometimes,” Girner said. “And that’s what I want to do. Like, those are the comics I aspire to create, which is just something that you don’t think about for years. And then you grow into the understanding of something you read years ago. I think the great comics always do that.”
It’s a dynamic that’s continued in Goats Flying’s other books, most notably the aforementioned Erlking Wood. But while Ba doesn’t include nearly as many violent skeletons, that book is still described as a “meditation on life, death, joy, regret, and the great web of stories” connecting man and nature alike.
“This is the third book I’ll have published with him — the first two being Djeliya and Mobilis at TKO,” Girner said. “Erlking Wood is the end of a conceptual trilogy.”
The only issue, then, is that these kinds of tales might somehow typecast Goats Flying.
“It’s funny because I was at New York Comic Con and I had Scales & Scoundrels and The Dead and the Damned on the table and people were like, ‘Oh, is Goats Flying Press a fantasy publisher? No, not at all,” Girner said. (Scales & Scoundrels is the most like other fantasy tales, but even it uses genre as more of a storytelling device.) “But these happen to be the books that I’ve been able to publish. God knows I’ve got pitches coming out the wazoo that I haven’t been able to place somewhere else.”
That’s not to say that he’s against fantasy per se. Rather, Girner has had to reconcile with what these stories mean, the value they offer, and why these stories need to be told at all.
“Game of Thrones was successful because, sure, dragons and knights are fun,” Girner said. “For most of us, that stuff was old hat. But for a mass audience, it was the first time that they were enjoying that particular taste of genre. Same with The Walking Dead. When that came out, I was like, ‘This has been around forever.’ Because I was a huge dork and I’d been playing Resident Evil and I’d seen Dawn of the Dead. For a lot of other people. this was their way into it.”
From The Fables of Erlking Wood. Courtesy of Goats Flying Press.
Similarly, Goats Flying stories are a chance to not just tell the kinds of stories he wants, but to build beyond them. To create a surge in interest that transcends genre and is about getting people deeply involved.
“I love hearing from people who are excited about something that I care nothing about,” Girner said. “I have a good friend who was obsessed with the Marvel movies, which I cannot watch or don’t want to. But I love nothing more than to listen to him explain to me what it means to him. I wish that that was a thing where it’s like open mic night, but it’s just someone talking about like why they love Moby Dick.”
That right there gets at the larger reason for Goats Flying’s existence: People had so many ideas about what books like The Dead and the Damned should be. Despite the notes being the kind Girner might have offered in the past, he says it’s time to let his stories get a chance to really live.
“Again, I’m not knocking anyone in the industry,” Girner said. “It’s really, really difficult. I’ve been an editor professionally for 16 years, and the ability to take someone’s true dream project and make it happen within a for-profit publishing system, it’s almost impossible. But when you’re getting notes that you yourself would give and you just roll your eyes. I’m like, ‘These notes are all perfunctory.’ They’re all just to turn this from something it is into something it could be because that might make it more tangible for interests further down the production line, like IP for Hollywood.
He added, “Like, ‘Hey, your book is 99% skeletons and dead people, could you not have that? Then maybe we could package this into some kind of TV deal.’ And I was like, ‘I could, but I don’t.’ The amount of work it would take me to do that is the amount of work it would take me to (start) a publisher and Kickstart-er this money.”
For Girner, it’s not just about skeletons and violence for the sake of such gore. As we’ve collectively dipped into a hell dimension in recent years, he’s taken stock of his legacy, and Girner wants to create projects that will mean something. Even if the world does, in fact, end prematurely.
“I have a three-year-old that I didn’t have when I started writing the book,” Girner said. “I was on the cusp where I was married and I was like, ‘I think I might have children soon. How do I feel about that?’ And The Dead and the Damned is how I feel about it, which is going to be a weird one. But I know the ending, and I’m very excited and I’m very scared to write it because it’s me looking ahead essentially toward my own death and trying to figure out how I leave something behind when I don’t actually believe things are going to be OK. I don’t know that I can promise that to anyone, even to my children. The only thing you can leave behind is that you are loved and you were loved and I want you to live as full and free a life as you’re able.”
It’s made him more aware of what’s changed for all of us, and the unique and prosperous position he’s in to do something meaningful in the face of all this chaos and decay.
“The world has stripped us, and this is a privileged white man speaking, but I still feel like lines are being drawn,” Girner said. “I feel like I’m on the losing side, and I don’t want to lose that. I don’t want the world to change me into something that I don’t recognize. And that is like a really fearful place to create work from — I’m terrified of the future now, but also I know that you got to get up in the morning, kiss your kids, and make some coffee.
Girner added, “Like, how lucky I am to be able to pick up my phone and call a number of writers or editors or artists, or even just mutuals, and talk a little bit about art and story and completely disengage from the fandom IP wars that are happening and are going to continue to happen inside. It’s probably only going to get worse. I can carve out these nooks for myself where I’m like, ‘My God, this is nourishing to me; this helps me get through the day.’”
From The Dead and The Damned #1. Courtesy of Goats Flying Press.
It’s why he says he’s “never been able to truly leave comics, even though I’ve arguably edged back from the center stage.” Turns out, you can have success if you just get a little more grizzled and uncaring over the years.
“But I think that’s also just getting older and not seeking that kind of attention anymore, or having been in the industry long enough to understand that you don’t really make it up or out,” Girner said. “There’s not that much left to be gotten from a super successful career in comics because it’s still just a successful career in comics.”
It’s a dynamic made all the more bizarre/complicated/etc. by what Girner sees as a clear desire by others to get involved in comics — even if it’s not always for the best reasons.
“TV, film or YouTube influencers are where the big money and the big stuff is going,” Girner said. “But comics are still the fulcrum and the intersection of all of that. It’s something that draws everyone, like filmmakers, novelists, and poets. Comics are what everyone wants to make, so being able to make them freely and, ideally, build Goats into something where I can share that with younger creators because getting into the industry is becoming increasingly more difficult. I’d like to see it grow, but if it just stays small, as long as it can function. I already do everything myself, other than print the books, and I’ve looked into that, and it’s not pretty, but it could be done.”
At this point, you may think that Girner is some depressive nihilist with nothing good to offer to our current predicament as a species (aside from sweet skeleton-fighting action.) He’s much more hopeful and positive than you’d imagine.
“I’m noticing a lot of my stories are journeys,” Girner said. “It’s not a central cast of characters, like the X-Men living in the mansion getting called out to adventures. It always starts somewhere and then goes somewhere and stuff happens. Yeah, 90% of the characters are dead, but a couple of are still living and they live. One of the mottos of humans, people who are alive in this world, is ‘life is for the living,’ which is how they wink at things. Like, ‘Oh, I still fancy her.’ Or, ‘That guy is pretty cute.’ Every person you love when you lose will come back and try to murder you, and so there’s this gallows humor that everyone has.”
It’s not just about laughing on your way to the chopping block: Humans are resilient in some huge ways, and Girner wants to capture that dynamic.
“People aren’t going to stop telling fart jokes or coveting their neighbor’s wife or whatever just because like hell has ripped a hole in the sky and everything is dead,” Girner said. “We’re still going to be doing this until we’re in the ground and then you can have our bodies if you want. There’s a lot of spite, but healthy spite, you know?”
It’s a quality he shares with his various collaborators, including Williams.
“With Kelly, you’d be hard pressed to find an artist who will put so much humanity into a cast of characters that are all dead,” Girner said. “Even just how he figured out a way to make them all like classic Jack Kirby distinct silhouettes, and how that fits into who they are. It’s also like a classic fantasy. So we’ve got a big strong barbarian, but he’s just a skeleton. Except we figured out a way where he, if people look closely, the armor that he’s wearing is essentially a giant tree. So the idea is that he died so long ago that his body was absorbed by essentially an oak tree that grew around him. And then he hewed his way out of it.”
That small touch isn’t just cool, but it speaks to how Goats Flying approaches genre storytelling in a new and interesting light.
“I just love the undead. I think that they always get a bad rap,” Girner said. “In fantasy, they’re always like the fodder. But every one of those skeletons was someone’s friend, lover, uncle, or husband. The idea that just because you come back from the other side you aren’t that person anymore because now you’re a skeleton. There’s more stories there. That’s why I love fantasy. Like, you can make horrible, horrible things happen, but for a reason. Whereas in the real world, bad things just happen and there is no reason. And the sum collective totality of human art is to try and figure out what that reason could be.”
Pic by Ben Sears. Courtesy of Goats Flying Press.
He went on to say he became interested in genre because he was “trying to understand the world.” And while it’s taken him across his own twisted, sometimes complicated journey, it certainly beats doing, say, another Deadpool story about him “wisecracking over a pop star” (with no hate to those titles or creators, of course).
“You are actively putting a limitation on the book’s readability,” Girner said. “And I try to not do that to the extent that I’m able, even in a book that I’m writing now for Goats that I think is the most immediately visible as something where I’m responding to the world right now, as opposed to down the road. You just want to create something that it doesn’t matter if a kid picks it up now or picks it up in 10 or 20 years — it could still have that impact. And I think great comics do that. Art styles change and stories change.”
Girner added, “Garth Ennis is my favorite writer. I could pick up something he wrote 30 years ago, and his themes haven’t changed. Like, I don’t think his humanities have changed. I think that he’s someone who, despite writing some of the most horrific grotesqueries, I never doubt his commitment to humans and to us. Whereas I’ve read others that have made successful careers as writers, and doubt that sometimes. It feels very misanthropic. It feels very self-serving. It feels very mean. I find myself turned away from that work despite it being bestselling.”
Girner would certainly like that Ennis-esque career for himself and Goats Flying. But that doesn’t mean he’s going to tell anyone else anything different than what he’s already doing as both a writer and publisher.
“I do a little bit of teaching and occasionally do speaking engagements for schools/art classes,” Girner said. “They’re old enough to know what they want, but not quite — you’re in college and you’re just pinballing around the world. And then my old ass comes in there like, ‘Let me talk you into making comics, which is a misunderstood medium, kind of ghettoized in a dying industry and bolted to a nightmare factory generating Hollywood IP, which is now like being made subservient to tech.”
And while he has no prosperous secrets to share, he does have something of even greater value to provide.
“I’m not in a position to offer anyone a career yet or financial gain to the tune that I would like just yet,” Girner said. “I’m not giving you the secret sauce to make the next big selling thing or the next manga crossover hit. This is going to be one of those things that you admit yourself to when it’s done, and you will be able to tell yourself, I did that. And that’s how I measure my life in these little blips of, ‘I can’t believe I wrote this comic and I can’t believe I made that book happen.’”
And, if a recent preview release from Goats Flying is any indicator, there’s going to be a lot of great books for creators to hang their hats. (The preview includes Erlking Wood, which drops in May; issue #3 of Scales & Scoundrels, the horror title Lake Yellowwood Slaughter from Gavin Guidry and Alejandro Arbona; the extra relevant The Consumption from Girner and artist Jack Mandrake; and The Dead and The Damned #3, among other goodies.)
It’s also more proof that Girner made the right call in banking on himself, other creators who need the support, and weird and novel storytelling in general.
“I felt tired of the journey of going to all these other places and trying to please all these other people,” said Girner. “I’m the one who has to make the call. Like, do I want to publish this? I fulfilled 1,000 comics from my living room after my son went to bed because I cannot put the machinery out to mail and stuff envelopes when I have a three-year-old running around. The audacity of what I’m doing never ceases to delight me.”
That audacity continues even as the Trump administration enacts even more of its heinous policies. I caught up with Girner once more prior to publication, where he said it’s hard to feel at peace when “the gun (that’s) been put to our collective heads…and the trigger is being pulled almost daily.” However, his work still gives his ample joy, and with Goats Flying’s slate packed through 2026, he’s focused on doing what he can to fight back against the tide.
“I chose my publisher’s moniker as ‘Comics Against All Odds,’” Girner said. “It’s become a mantra for me now that has carried me through many dark days and I expect will be doing a lot to bolster me for what’s to come.”
Courtesy of Goats Flying Press.
