"Hepcats" is a comic strip about people with animal heads. "Anthropomorphic animals," is the technical term, but really...they're people with animal heads.

The comic started out as a strip published in The Daily Texan -- the student newspaper at the University of Texas at Austin -- in the late 1980's. It was a four panel gag strip (well, most of the time) that allowed for character development and storytelling. Eventually, however, the creator decided it was time to do an actual comic book, and so the creation you see on this site was born.

The "Hepcats" strip may make an appearance on this site if the maintainer of this site ever gets off her lazy butt and decides to scan the strips. Expect the occassional interlude between issues.

The comic book had a decent run in the early 1990's, but not enough for Mr. Wagner to keep it going for the whole run -- self-published comics are expensive and time-consuming, and life is really good about getting in the way. "Hepcats" -- the the tale "Snowblind" -- only ever made it to Issue 12. In the mid '90's, Anarctic Press republished the entire run, including a full-color introductory issue (Issue 0) that gave readers things that only readers of the daily strip would know. However, once again, time and life got in the way, and the tale of "Snowblind" has been sitting, unfinished, for more than a decade.

Enter the Internet.

The maintainer of this website is not Martin Wagner. She is merely a fan of the work, having been turned on to it several years ago...and having encouraged many of her friends to start reading it. Many "Hepcats" comics and collections were purchased off of eBay, one of which was being sold by Martin Wagner. Trying to avoid a "rabid fangirl" demeanor, the Yahoo Group was joined and things were going swimmingly. Plans to conclude "Snowblind" were in the works (for the few fans who stuck around), and plans to make "Hepcats" into an online comic were set by the creator.

Once again, life gets in the way. This, however, is why you have fans.

"Hepcats" is now an online comic. If there's enough fan appreciation (throw money at Martin, darnit!), there will eventually be an end to "Snowblind." At the point of this writing, however, on the schedule the strip is set to update, there's enough pages to keep it going for two years...and if the old strips are added, even more. So for new fans, welcome and enjoy the ride!

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Page Maintainer's Note: Yes, I realize the page is incredibly boring. This will be changed when I get more time to screw around with HTML. You've got good comics to override the boringness of the page, though.

 

Hepcats is hosted on Comic Genesis, a free webhosting and site automation service for webcomics.