Bad Girls of Blackout #0
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeBad Girls of Blackout #0 is a compact but representative artifact of the mid-1990s independent 'bad girl' comic boom, the same wave that produced Lady Death, Razor, and Avengelyne — a period when, as contemporary descriptions put it, the subgenre was so pervasive that it defined an entire tier of the direct-market. The issue functions as the opening salvo of a short-lived but earnest shared universe: it is the first story to assemble Blackout Comics' core female characters in a single narrative, establishing the publisher's deliberate intent to build a recognizable stable rather than simply issue one-off pin-up books. Structurally, #0 deploys the then-fashionable 'zero issue as preview sampler' format — a storytelling device that Image and Chaos! had popularized — adapted here for a scrappy New Jersey indie, demonstrating how thoroughly that packaging strategy had filtered down to the smallest publishers by 1995.
"Chapter One: Lady Vampre" launches the Blackout Elite imprint with a striking promotional tease for the upcoming series Death of Lady Vampré. The cover, by Guy Dorian Sr. with inks by Dave Gutierrez and Tommy Castillo, sets a bold tone, while the typeset lettering grounds the issue in the gritty, high-stakes world of 1995’s Blackout Comics.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Blackout Comics, based in Freehold, New Jersey, operated from 1994 to 1997 and published a total of roughly 16 series across 28 issues — a deliberately lean, boutique output. Bad Girls of Blackout #0 was written by John R. Platt, with art credited across the series to multiple contributors including Fauve, R. Buckler Jr., J. Chen, G. Dorian, T. Castillo, and Brock L. Hor Jr.; publisher and co-creator Bruce Schoengood was the central editorial and creative force behind the line. The issue was produced in the standard Modern Age format and was aimed at a mature-readers audience, consistent with the publisher's positioning within the adult-oriented end of the independent direct market.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published in 1995 by Blackout Comics, Inc. of Freehold, New Jersey; written by John R. Platt.
- Serves as the launch preview ('zero issue') for the Bad Girls of Blackout series, which ran to three issues total: #0, #1, and an Annual — the complete series run.
- The issue unites three distinct Blackout characters in a single story: Lady Vampre (a vampire anti-heroine), Violet (the invulnerable protagonist of the companion title Extremes of Violet), and the vigilante duo Ms. Cyanide & Ice.
- The central antagonist is a magic-empowered version of Jack the Ripper, providing a horror/supernatural framing that distinguishes the issue from straightforward action stories.
- Hari Kari — who would become Blackout Comics' most prominent and longest-running character — does not appear in #0 but was added to the cast in subsequent issues, making the zero issue a pre-Hari Kari snapshot of the lineup.
- Multiple artists contributed to the series across its run, including Fauve, R. Buckler Jr., J. Chen, G. Dorian, T. Castillo, and Brock L. Hor Jr., reflecting the anthology-by-design nature of the title.
- The issue was part of a publisher-wide strategy of issuing signed, limited commemorative editions with Certificates of Authenticity — a common Blackout Comics practice seen across their line.
- Blackout Comics produced the entire Bad Girls of Blackout run (including this issue) within a single year, 1995, before the publisher ceased operations in 1997 after a total publishing lifespan of roughly three years.
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