Fantagraphics, Seattle's respected independent alternative-comics publisher, announced it was in danger of folding last year and appealed for help. To the astonishment of the Fantagraphics staff, they were overwhelmed with orders within days. "Fantagraphics' financial health, I'm happy to report, is getting better and better every day," says company "Official Shill" Eric Reynolds today.

When the company released its first titles just before it moved to Seattle from California in 1989, it inspired a generation of cartoonists and kick-started a new genre of alt-comics, picking up and blending the faltering tradition of the undergrounds of the 1970s with the experimental sensibilities championed by the artists seen in RAW at the time. Cartoonist Peter Bagge lived in Seattle prior to Fantagraphics' arrival and watched young cartoonists flock to town. "It was still relatively cheap and it had all the amenities," says Bagge. "It just seemed like a great place. And then the grunge phenomenon really put the town on the map and then all of a sudden it became the place for young people to be."

However, Seattle-based artists don't--and didn't--get special consideration at Fantagraphics. "We just kinda look for good work in general," notes Reynolds, who also has editorial duties. "I don't personally care whether a person's from Seattle or Timbuktu... I personally enjoy having them in the same city as me, but from a business point of view, I'm not really sure it's all that necessary."

But while Fantagraphics is back on its feet, the same can't be said of the comics scene it inspired in Seattle. Dirk Deppey, the newly appointed editor of the Comics Journal, a news and opinion magazine published by Fantagraphics, sees "a livelier comics scene in Portland" than in Seattle. "The old Fantagraphics scene from the late '80s to mid-1990s seems to have largely drifted away."

Seattle's poor economy combined with a still-growing cost of living is one clear factor. "Now it's kind of expensive to live here," says Alternative Comics artist David Lasky, who came to Seattle during the mass migration of the early '90s. "And there're no jobs. I think people are tending to leave, which is too bad."

Over the last decade several publishers, including Canada's Drawn and Quarterly and Florida's Alternative Comics, have emerged in Fantagraphics' wake. Two of the best-known alternative houses--indie darlings Top Shelf Comics and the more commercially oriented Dark Horse--are based in Portland (Top Shelf is simultaneously based in Georgia). Their presence, along with Portland's lower cost of living, exerts a pull on Seattle's alt-comics community.

For example, Richard Hugo House Zine Archives and Publishing Project (ZAPP) coordinator Alissa Nielsen and Fine Comix member Elijah Brubaker are moving to Portland this month. ZAPP has offered exposure to both the Fine Comix collective and the comics-based multimedia performances dubbed Slide Rule. Lasky says that the Fine Comix collective is planning a second issue of its zine-format title, Moxie, to be scripted by Mark Campos, and much of the material in the upcoming Moxie will be seen in a future Slide Rule.

ZAPP will continue under codirectors Abby Bass and Slide Rule impresario Davey Oil. Slide Rule events will also continue. "On February 28, we are going to be part of an art opening/multimedia event called Rabbits and Robots. It's going to be at Secluded Alley Works," Oil told me. "On March 22, at the Deep Down Lounge, which is in Temple Billiards in Pioneer Square, we're performing at Fourthcity's weekly Monday-night event." Expect to see Slide Rule events at Confounded Books as well. In the past, these events have featured cartoonists and small-press creators, frequently on tour (think "rock band in a van").

Nonetheless, Oil sees less activity of late. "Even the most active, self-motivated cartoonists don't seem to be making all that many zines right now," he says of Seattle. "Although--maybe they're not spending as much time out or making as many connections because they are working more, really hard, on long material."

Not every local cartoonist sees this transformation of comics into art--let alone performance art--as unambiguously good. Ever the iconoclast, Peter Bagge expresses frustration with a tendency that comes, he feels, when a medium has lost its mass audience, much as jazz did after the Second World War. "The only people who are really keeping the medium alive are people who love the form first," he says, including himself in his indictment. "They love it as an art form and that's really for the most part what matters more than anything else."

Bagge also criticizes what he sees as alternative comics' creators self-consciously positioning their work "for a great write-up in the [New York] Times, or the New Yorker, or the Village Voice, so it's always something that's gonna appeal to college-educated white people who are very self-conscious about reading comics, so they wanna make sure that the comic they read looks and feels like a quote-unquote smart comic."

Last year, Portland-based artist/writer Craig Thompson's Blankets, the best-reviewed American graphic novel in several years, got that "great write-up" in a Sunday New York Times. (It also got a rave in The Stranger.) The 600-page memoir of first love deserved the praise--and it was published in Portland, not Seattle, by Top Shelf. "The Seattle scene is one of my main reasons for moving to the Northwest," Thompson says. "It's sort of accidental that I ended up in Portland instead."

Confounded Books owner Brad Beshaw believes Seattle and Portland are linked. "I would say they're both twins in that they're both big advocates of zines and small presses," he says. Both formats are "very strong both in Portland and Seattle."

Considered economically, Portland may have already become a center of alternative comics that rivals or surpasses Seattle. Fantagraphics employs about 30 people here while Dark Horse alone employs about 80 in Portland. This doesn't mean that Fantagraphics' editorial product is in decline, mind you. It does mean that as Fantagraphics refocuses, the Portland publishers may be in a better position to break new artists. In a way, Fantagraphics can claim an aesthetic victory--the current crop of alt-comics houses owe much to Fantagraphics' vision. But the company may be settling into a less cutting-edge role after last year's crisis, and Portland's growing stature will likely draw more attention--and artists--over time.