by publishers such as Raw, Fantagraphics Books and Last Gasp. He was convinced by his then-girlfriend, Kris Nakamura, to take the work he had piled up and publish them himself as photocopied minicomics, distributing them on the streets of Toronto. Sales got off to a slow start, but eventually picked up. "Sales were brisk", with some issues topping 1000 copies, as Brown sold the books on consignment in bookstores, local comic shops, and through mail order, while working a day job in a photography shop. Brown published the series under the "Tortured Canoe" imprint. Vortex (1986–1991) Brown had pitched his work to Vortex Comics publisher Bill Marks before 1986, but at the time, Marks was not prepared to publish an ongoing series. In 1986, at the urging of Mister X artist Seth, Marks finally contacted Brown with a contract to publish three issues, which would reprint the entire contents of the seven issue minicomic series. The contract would be renewed depending on sales. The December 1986 first issue received preorders of 12,000 copies, a considerable number for a small-press, black-and-white comic book. The large number of orders was due in part to the black-and-white comics explosion of the mid-1980s, spearheaded by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird's breakout Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The boom soon imploded, however, and Yummy Fur'''s sales dropped to a few thousand. The book was dropped by a printer in the province of Ontario after the printer had used discarded pages of the fourth issue of Yummy Fur to pack boxes of a feminist publication. The issue included a nude scene from the Ed the Happy Clown serial in which the character, Chet, stabs his girlfriend, Josie, while they had sex. The feminist publisher lodged a complaint, and the printer informed Vortex that they would not handle Yummy Fur anymore. In 1989, the bindery Packaging Services & Supplies of Wisconisin refused to bind the first Yummy Fur collection and an Omaha the Cat Dancer collection, citing that employees found the content offensive; a spokesman for the company called them "worse than pornography". Sales saw their lowest point with issue #9, at 1673 copies, largely due to the fact that Diamond Comic Distributors had dropped the book—purportedly for low sales, despite the fact that Yummy Fur had been getting more orders than many other Vortex titles that hadn't been dropped. It was suspected that the book had actually