Vortex was founded by 20-year-old high school dropout William P. "Bill" Marks of Toronto in 1982, with its first title being an anthology comic of the same name. Marks recalled, "[Comic books] had a lot of potential for growth that I could see. I could see a revolution happening. By this time Cerebus was doing extremely well. Elfquest was a runaway success in the bookstores and on the best-seller lists. Eclipse was starting up and shortly thereafter Pacific Comics started to get quite big."[2] Vortex received good distribution in both the U.S. and Canada. The company proved to be a major force in Canadian comics publishing throughout the 1980s.
Vortex president Bill Marks in a 1986 promo photo.
Early issues of Vortex were edited by Marks himself (who later described them as "quite primitive") and received limited exposure.[2] In 1983 Vortex redesigned their approach, employed Ken Steacy as editor,[2] and added new titles like Mister X and Templeton's Stig's Inferno, as well as Templeton & Klaus Schoenefeld's Kelvin Mace and Matt Howarth's Those Annoying Post Bros. The first four issues of Mister X featured work by the Los BrosJaime and Gilbert Hernandez.
In 1986–1987, Vortex again expanded, adding titles such as Ted McKeever's Transit, Bill White's Kaptain Keen & Kompany, Howarth's Savage Henry, and the two-issue Peter Milligan series Paradax. More significantly, Vortex began publishing a full-sized version of Chester Brown's mini-comicYummy Fur, bringing Brown's surreal, black-humor stories to a wider audience. In 1990, Yummy Fur was nominated for a Harvey Award (Special Award for Humor category). Around this time Vortex also began publishing book-length graphic novels and compilations.
However, hard times hit the comics industry in 1988, and Vortex, like many other small publishers, suffered. The company launched a few new titles in 1988, most notably Howard Chaykin's erotic thriller Black Kiss. Black Kiss became one of the most controversial North American comics of the late 1980s, due to the comic having the sort of explicit scenes of sex and violence unseen in most comics published at the time. In addition, Vortex's printer at the time, Ronald's Printing, refused to print the book due to its content.[3] To help retailers who had worries over selling what could be described as pornography, Vortex released the series sealed in a plastic bag. (This meant that casual browsers could not open the comic, or obviously see the internal content.) The publicity over Black Kiss didn't necessarily lead to strong sales, however, and by the end of 1988 Vortex's publishing schedule was erratic. Nonetheless, in January 1989, Vortex declared itself the third largest North American independent comic book publisher.[4]
Reflecting publisher Marks' interest in car racing, Vortex survived until 1994 with an odd mixture of alternative titles and NASCAR-themed comics. (In 1991 and 1992 Vortex sponsored the 'Rookie of the Year' award in NASCAR's Grand National series; the 1991 prize was won by future superstar Jeff Gordon.)
In May 1994 Matt Howarth officially moved Those Annoying Post Bros. to rival publisher Aeon.[5] Shakeups in the comics industry that year hit the small press hard, and Vortex was no exception.[6] The last comic published by the company was Nocturnal Emissions #4, in March 1994, until a resurgence in 2021 with the titles Chaos Breaker and Queen of Skulls.
