By Nicole Gluckstern, with Avi Ehrlich
For years, Silver Sprocket was on my radar in a peripheral way. I first noticed them as the indie label behind science-punk band, the Phenomenauts, over a decade ago, followed by a blissfully anarchic art show series at Mission Comics in 2015, where I also started noticing their bespoke zines for sale. By the time they opened their first pop-up shop in the Haight in 2017, I was a committed fan.
It’s not just their expansive connections and commitment to the emphatically radical, queer, and punk rock comic artists of our time, their bold, irreverent aesthetics, and their ability to adapt to numerous catastrophes—a global pandemic, deceased landlords, an epic flood in their basement—that I admire. It’s the positive energy they exude of true DIY-spirit. A retail and publishing enterprise that is necessarily engaged in capitalistic exchange, but nonetheless driven by ideals of collaboration, grassroots organizing, and reclaiming one’s voice. A community experiment in creating and holding space for the conventionally overlooked, all mixed in with the fun energy of an underground punk show (which you still might encounter in the back room of their shop, depending on the day).
Their growing stable of artists include Bay Area luminaries Janelle Hessig and Brontez Purnell, Razorcake humorists Ben Snakepit and Liz Prince, industry legends such as Cristi C. Road and Alex Wrekk, dabblers in animalian absurdism such as Michael Sweater and James the Stanton, and savvy social commentators such as Ben Passmore and Jenn Woodall. As publishers, they recently won their first Eisner award for Caroline Cash’s meticulously-crafted “PeePee PooPoo,” and their newest and upcoming releases include The Confessional, a prohibition-era vampire tale by Paige Hender, Boy Island, “a modern transgender fable in graphic novel form” by Leo Fox, and the essential Abortion Pill Zine by Isabella Rotman, Sage Coffey, and Marnie Galloway.
I caught up with my Mission District neighbor—and the instigator of Silver Sprocket—Avi Ehrlich, to chat about the evolution of the project, the struggle to balance community benefit with commercial enterprise, and what the comic book industry could learn from the indie music scene.
Nicole Gluckstern: Thanks for making time to meet with me! I always like to start out with the basic fact-checky sort of things like your name, your pronouns, where were you born, and that sort of stuff. So if you don’t mind…
Avi Ehrlich: Sure. My name is Avi Ehrlich, my pronouns are they/them. And I was born in California, South Bay. What was the rest of it?
Gluckstern: I know that you’re located here in the Mission, so we don’t have to go through that. But I was interested in when you founded Silver Sprocket, when you moved to the Haight, and when you moved to this particular location (1018 Valencia Street, in San Francisco).
Ehrlich: My background’s pretty wild. I graduated high school when I was 14, and then I got my AA degree from De Anza Community College when I was 16. I was a nerd very early on. So I was doing a website for an independent record label, and I ended up being part of starting Fueled by Ramen records which grew to be a giant, contemporary, pot-punk record label. And then I started my own label called Springman Records, and I worked with a bunch of punk rock bands and weird, experimental indie bands. I was on the Vans world tour from ‘99 to 2004 or 2005. Running a stage and a sponsorship area, and promoting my record label and artists. And then I got really burnt out on a record label, so I stopped putting out new records, and started Silver Sprocket while in college in Sacramento for journalism. Initially it was a bicycle club. Some friends and I were part of starting a volunteer-run bicycle repair shop. There was already a Sacramento bike kitchen, but we started another one. And then I got the itch to put out records again—against my better judgment—and got back into that (laughs).
…and we would just treat it like a pop-up comic book festival. You know we’ll build it as cool as we can.
But I also started doing merchandise for a webcomic called “Nothing Nice to Say,” which was a punk rock webcomic from the 2000s. I kind of saw that a lot of the visual artists that we were working with to do album covers, and concert posters, and band merchandise were amazing, and of the same community and values and politics as the musicians I was working with. And I saw that there was a real need…(because) with music, there’s a lot of scaffolding to build community, and build a career. It’s very social—you’re playing a concert with a bunch of friends, a bunch of people on the same journey that you’re on. There’s networks of venues and websites to support what you’re doing and engage with. And I felt that that was severely lacking for the people who are the writers, and the visual artists, and the storytellers who weren’t on stage with a guitar, but still had important perspectives and things to say, and voices that weren’t really being represented. So we started with some anthology comics a series called As You Were, that was people from the punk rock scene who also made comics. It was curated by Mitch Clem of the “Nothing Nice to Say” comic. And then that kind of gave way to doing standalone comics by artists that I knew from that world. So, it…was a very organic, slow-moving pivot to just doing comics and not doing records anymore.
Fast forward to about five or six years ago, and one of my very best friends in San Francisco, was the owner of the Bang-On T-shirt shop on Haight Street. She was frustrated that the storefront next door to hers had been empty for a while, and it was regularly getting like graffitied, and there was garbage being left outside, and it was really hurting her business. So she was able to convince her landlord that I could take over the space as like a very short term pop-up until they could find a new tenant. And we would pay very, extremely low rent, and keep it clean, and have insurance…and we would just treat it like a pop-up comic book festival. You know we’ll build it as cool as we can. We’ll have it for a few weeks for the holidays. And then we’ll get kicked out and do something else.
And for me it was really important for my brain health of the time to get the business out of my home and have a space for it, and pay an extra 500 bucks to have a storefront on Haight Street. We never really meant to start a store, but our one month pop-up ended up lasting for about two years. And kind of was, the nurturing, proving ground of “oh, we really can run our dream store, and make something really special.”
Gluckstern: I love that. I’m glad we got a lot of that history in there. So I think that I’ve visited all of your various locations. This is your second location on Valencia Street…
Ehrlich: Yeah. So first we had that one spot on Haight and then they found a tenant for that spot. But then the other spot right next door became available, and was the same landlord. So we just moved next door after a year. And then we moved here (to the Mission) right before the pandemic. We were subleasing, sharing with 1-2-3-4 Go Records, and then the pandemic hit before we could have our big grand opening party. That really sucked because we had a bunch of new books we were so excited to promote, and we front-loaded our release schedule to have them all come out at the beginning of the year, so we could really promote them at all the festivals…and then everything shut down, and there were no festivals. But luckily, the two industries that really thrived during the pandemic were video games and books, because everyone was stuck at home. So our mail order and our distribution sales really went nuts, Like the entire book industry did really well…Eventually 1-2-3-4 Go Records, was like, “this is too much work to have a storefront that we can’t even open.” So we took over that spot. And then the owner (of the building) passed away, and his family decided to sell the building and so we…moved into this spot.
So I’m finally accepting like: we’re gonna do the best we can under capitalism…
Gluckstern: And do you reckon this is it? Or you’re just always open to moving, or possibility?
Ehrlich: I don’t have like grand dreams of like expansion. I think anything really does need to be slow and organic. Like, if you get a bunch of investment money, that’s a big opportunity to make a lot of mistakes with trying things you’ve never tried before. I mean, I would love to get a bunch of funding to help do what we want to do, and we definitely have roadmaps in mind. I would love to have a print shop that is like a community-oriented print shop, where people can make their own comics. We’ve budgeted it all, and we know how we would do it. But everything would be very slow and steady and cautious and deliberate…
Gluckstern: Let’s touch on this a little bit more. I don’t want to just talk about business strategy…but it’s interesting, in that this is the struggle that a lot of more radical projects, or more community-oriented projects run into. How do you create the passion project that serves your communities, fills your passion, but is also sustainable on a financial level in a capitalist society? How are you making that work?
Ehrlich: This has been a very major topic behind the scenes. We’re both a publisher and a shop. And right now we’re facing a major scary cash flow issue…because we published about 30 books last year, and typically we print enough books that are gonna last us for, like, two or three years. And about 14 of those books sold spectacularly well, beyond our wildest dreams, and needed to be reprinted. The problem is with the traditional book, trade market you don’t get paid until six to nine months after a sale happens. Meanwhile we have to pay our printers upfront to print the new pressings. And that reprint of books that you got in takes longer to sell than it did when the book was brand new. So our balance sheet looks amazing, because the inventory that we have on hand is worth a lot of money, and we are confident that it will sell based on past performance and comparables. But our taxes are based on all of that inventory being counted as cash on hand. And it’s not cash on hand. And our accountant was like, “you guys are doing amazing like, if you wanted to get investors, you could show them this and do really well.” And we’re just, like, we can’t get investors. We don’t want anyone telling us what to do, but also, our contracts with our artists are based very much on consent. And any investor doing their due diligence would look at how the business is structured, and say, “wait, there’s not something to this that has enduring value.” Like, “if Avi gets a stroke and turns evil, and all the artists want to leave”—there’s not something to hold on to and exploit for money…
But for the moment we’re just so fucking busy, and there are so many plates we’re keeping spinning…Like, we’re going to pay everyone’s royalties. We’re paying everyone’s wages. We started offering healthcare in January of this year.
It had to be kind of broken down for me that, you’re trying to compete with capitalism but you just can’t. Capitalism has all these functions in it that exist in the way they do because of the way our society is structured. And if you’re trying to run something that’s like a has a community service model, that’s not the what you should be comparing yourself to. So we are getting ready to do a fundraiser for the first time ever. That is, gonna be deliberately about “hey, we started a store by accident. We didn’t really put together a five year plan, because we thought that it was gonna be like a two month pop-up. And we just kinda kept going with it…”
I listened to this amazing podcast about Panera Bread, and how their CEO really wanted to do a community service thing, and he opened up a location where everything was sliding scale. If you don’t have any money you can still get an amazing meal—if you like Panera. But their idea was that they hoped enough people would show up and wanna pay the full price, or pay extra to support this project, and they would have services for homeless people, and do this whole thing. And it was kind of a foil to another project in the same city that was—everything was just free. It was fully arranged around the people they were serving, but they were not trying to make it exist under capitalism. And their takeaway was like: “we raise money once a year. We have a big fundraiser for this cause. Trying to frame it under capitalism inherently just doesn’t make any sense.”
So I’m finally accepting like: we’re gonna do the best we can under capitalism, and the things that need to work that way, like printing and selling books. But the storefront has a very specific mission. We host so many events that are not designed to make money, and I don’t wanna have to (worry about) “okay, how is this gonna pay for itself, and turn a profit?” When that isn’t what the fucking thing is about.
Gluckstern: Have you gone the fiscally-sponsored project or nonprofit route for your events?
Ehrlich: We have a couple of different roadmaps sketched out, and one of them that I’m really excited about is having a formal nonprofit arm that is deliberately about that stuff. But I feel like we have to be cash flow positive…to even spend the money to get all of that set up. I do think that’s gonna be in the future, if if we’re able to keep this going and kind of silo out like: “the publisher is this, it has its own bank account.” “We negotiate advances from our distributors…to keep things rolling because they make money from selling our books, and they’re invested in that.” But for the moment we’re just so fucking busy, and there are so many plates we’re keeping spinning…Like, we’re going to pay everyone’s royalties. We’re paying everyone’s wages. We started offering healthcare in January of this year. But we’re in a very scary period where it could all fall apart. And I’ve navigated scarier situations, but I don’t really know how this is gonna work yet. So it’s tough. But I also think these are the same challenges that any project of this scale do face.
Initially, I was the one person doing every job, including just getting really excited about people’s work and wanting to work with them. Now we have a twelve person crew…
Gluckstern: Totally. So there’s a couple of things I want to ask you about the art part of Silver Sprocket. I read in another interview—and I did see this show myself—that your first art show was at Mission Comics?
Ehrlich: Yeah, so I’m good friends with Leef, the owner of Mission Comics, and he was in a different space at the time, and he had a gallery space in the back. And I got him to let me do a curation for three months to do three shows in a row of “Silver Sprocket Presents.” We did a “Henry and Glen Forever” show with Tom Neely. Incredible cartoonist. I’m gonna say the best inker and letterer alive today, who does not get his due. Then a group show. And then we did a Degenderettes show. (They’re a) transgender, queer bicycle gang, based on mutual support and art. That one was super memorable. There were things you could only get by stealing them. We destroyed a urinal with a sledgehammer at the opening. Gave everyone safety goggles and such. Yeah, that was really amazing (laughs)…we also worked with the Degenderettes to publish the Trans Guide to Self Defense, which is completely free to read online. And we donate for free as many copies as any organization asks for…and sales have been enough that it’s able to completely fund all the free copies that anyone has asked for, and a surplus of money ready for the next printing.
Gluckstern: When I think of Silver Sprocket publications, I first think of colorful. Everything is just super vibrant, super saturated. And of course you have a pretty large stable of artists at this point, and you’ve published a lot of different artists who have different styles, but I always come back to color, and I always come back to kind of a cartoony style. A little bit…playful…
Ehrlich: I think playful and fun are there, though we have plenty of books that are not that. Our artists come from all sorts of places, and as much as I want to say there’s not a “house style,” I do think there are kinds of aesthetics that feel more Silver Sprocket than others. Everyone we publish has experienced self-publishing their own work. So we definitely come from the Zine world and DIY publications. But I also think we come from Saturday morning cartoons, and manga, and anime. Which definitely has that cartoonish vibe and playfulness…It’s kind of like more of a raw Saturday morning cartoon vibe. Which just kind of speaks to where, like, I think, a lot of us got into cartooning and art, and you know. Pausing a VHS tape of X-men and drawing it! There’s one punk rock fanzine that I kind of credit as being my own personal inspiration for really going deep on indie comics as an adult, which was “Cyanide Milkshake,” by Liz Suburbia. For me, it’s like the perfect one-person, anthology indie comic. We carry the anthology in the store, and I kind of point at it as like “none of this would exist without ‘Cyanide Milkshake.’”
Gluckstern: Would you say that there’s stuff that kind of naturally gravitates toward Silver Sprocket? Who makes the call? Do you reach out to folks? Do people send you stuff? How is this relationship formed?
Ehrlich: Initially, I was the one person doing every job, including just getting really excited about people’s work and wanting to work with them. Now we have a twelve person crew…and we have a monthly meeting where we all bring in artists that we wanna look at, or projects that we wanna take on, and talk about them and decide what to do. So, it hasn’t been the “Avi show” for a long time…It’s not a consensus sort of level…we don’t really have a vote. But we talk about the project, and then we all agree, like: “okay, we’re fucking excited about this, and wanna do it.” Or: “we’re not really feeling this, someone else might do this better.” There’s plenty of stuff that we pass on, like the artist really wants to work with us, but we feel like it would do well at a bigger publisher that would give them more money and resources. So, we do have an idea of what a Silver Sprocket project is, of like being not quite squeaky-clean, not the Marvel house style. And also being something that we don’t really think would get the proper attention somewhere else.
Gluckstern: So with that, you’ve also been recently been getting nominated and winning awards (as the publisher). Ignatz awards, an Eisner award…
Ehrlich: We’ve been winning Ignatz’ for a long time, but this year we won our first Eisner for “Best Limited Series,” (via Caroline Cash’s “PeePee PooPoo”) which was amazing.
Gluckstern: Do you have to submit yourselves to get those awards?
Ehrlich: We do submit to a lot of awards. That’s part of our working process. We have a whole spreadsheet of all the different awards, and we’re always paying attention to them, and we also really rely on our roster of the artists we work with…Like, we tell them, “we are here to work for you, but we’re really more of a megaphone to amplify the work that you’re doing, and help you get more mileage from it.” It’s not like you’ve signed with us, now you get to sit back and we do all the work. It’s we’re gonna do a ton of work, and we’re gonna be engaged with you to navigate that, but, doing marketing or PR, there’s always infinite work you can do, and you’ve got a very limited set of bandwidth for what work you actually can do. So, we’re trying to make sure that we’re focusing that on where the artists want us to be focusing it. And. doing our best with what opportunities exist there. So our artists are very engaged in, like, “oh, here’s a publication I found out about, or here’s an indie store I just discovered that we should get our books at.” It’s a very tight collaboration.
It’s really exciting to have someone who started out working here, and was making her own comics and developing a career. And then now to be able to be putting all of our resources behind her work, is really special…
Gluckstern: Wow! It kind of sounds like running an indie record label. However did you come across these ideas?
Ehrlich: I mean, there’s so much low-hanging fruit from the record industry, that I really wish the comic industry would get wise to, Like, already developed marketing methods, and ways of getting data and analytics about where your audience is…And we’re finally having those conversations. There’s an organization called ComicsPRO, that’s building a standardized data method for comic books in the way that the book trade has ONIX…so we’re involved in getting there. But we’re also very busy, and trying to champion any of these projects would be a full time job in itself.
Gluckstern: To wrap up, and bring us home, is there a project coming up for Silver Sprocket that you’re particularly excited about?
Ehrlich: I’m really excited that we recently launched a subscription program. Because we publish a lot of first time artists who don’t really have notoriety yet, but would if people were familiar with their work. And I think there’s a lot of people who trust us to put out really cool books, but who might not have the bandwidth or the attention span to really look closely at what all those books are…So we have very accessibly priced subscriptions: 15 bucks a month for PDFs, or 40 bucks a month to get print copies of every single thing we publish. Every month you get a curated package worth more than that subscription price. It really helps us have predictable revenue, and it’s really great for the recipient to just get a really amazing loot box every month of really incredible comics to enjoy or gift to friends…Like, if I were not part of this publishing house at all, I would be so excited to subscribe to that….
Also, every season of new books is just incredible. We’ve so many fresh and returning artists doing really amazing comics. And I’d be a bad parent if I tried to talk about one of them and not the others. But one that I’m really excited about right now, is a book by a former employee, Yasmeen Abedifard, called When to Pick a Pomegranate. It’s Persian folk stories and mythology, informing a really beautiful comic with vignettes about identity, and love, and grief. It’s so good, and there’s nothing like it, and I’m really excited for the world to check that out. It’s really exciting to have someone who started out working here, and was making her own comics and developing a career. And then now to be able to be putting all of our resources behind her work, is really special…I mean she’s incredible on her own—without us she would still be a superstar—but to have been there through that development is really amazing.
This interview was edited for length, grammar, and clarity.