As the big 2 lean harder into superhero comics and a new ISSUE #1 every few months while many other indie publishers become bloated and ill-defined by a scattershot of sweet-and-sour titles like the Wii section at a GameStop, Vault Comics has become the publisher most likely to spotlight high-quality, innovative stories from international talent. Vault is big enough of a publisher to recently announce the launch of their middle grade/young adult imprint, Myriad, but they're still small enough that the heads of business consistently and personally engage with fans on Twitter. Unlike other major publishers, Vault is still nimble, able to take risks on brand new stories and talent who haven’t already written for The Big 2. And “talent” is the operative word here. In the past couple months, they’ve debuted Friendo, Fearscape, and These Savage Shores, all 3 of which breathe new life into a medium that can sometimes feel saturated with stories that are all fighting for the same space in the same genres.
For more information on those comics and their creators, I highly recommend clicking their titles. But needless to say, writers like O’Sullivan, Paknadel, Ram V, Dan Watters (of Deep Roots and Lucifer fame) and their fellow creators and collaborators on their titles are the industry heavyweights of tomorrow. Coincidentally, they're all a part of a creative collective called White Noise, pushing each other to build stories with depth and meaning. But even more than that, they're building Vault Comics's credibility and range as a publisher, and anyone who’s paying attention can see Vault’s success and feel the change coming.
Vault Comics is hungry and it’s growing bigger every day.
Something those bigger, slower indie publishers may want to keep in mind.