Hepcats

Hepcats was an independent comic book self-published in the 1990s by artist Martin Wagner. It dealt with the lives of four college students, and was inspired by Wagner's own college experiences. It first began as a daily strip in The Daily Texan, the student newspaper at the University of Texas at Austin, in 1987. The characters were rendered as anthropomorphic animals, but in a human setting, and the book's highly detailed pen-and-ink artwork was its hallmark.

Though critically acclaimed with a cult following, the series was not a financial success, and this led to an erratic publishing schedule that frustrated readers. The series stalled after its 12th issue. An attempt to revive the series by Antarctic Press in 1996 failed, and Wagner later admitted in an interview he never should have agreed to it.

Wagner left the comics industry in 1998.

Collected volumes:

• Yo: The First Hepcats Book (1988; collection of Daily Texan strips — cover spoofs sleeve of Peter Gabriel's album So)
• The Collegiate Hepcats (1993; complete collection of all Daily Texan strips, plus Hepcats #1 and some pre-Hepcats work from the University of Houston paper)
• Snowblind, Part One (1995; collecting Hepcats #3-10, first half of unfinished Snowblind graphic novel)