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.