FOREWORD
I’m not going to tell you the origin story of Greg and Fake. Mostly because I don’t think anyone really can. Like, legally. There’s some paperwork that’s still sealed, and there were some earnest promises made to white-collar gangsters, the kind best left unbroken. IYKYK, etc.
The tale of what you’re holding in your hands Santos Sisters Volume 2, published by the actual Fantagraphics is more interesting, anyhow.
There’s a thread that reaches back to 1994, when Greg started at a new high school and met Fake (a teenager running his own record label out of the breakroom of the local McDonald’s), building an art partnership that’s persisted across decades and sometimes thousands of miles.
The thread picks up again in 2004, when Fake snatched Greg away to Mexico so they could make cartoons. Working closely with Graham, another longtime friend, they would start sketching the shape and the vibes of the stories, characters, and weirdness that would emerge years later.
Fast forward another decade or so, and the crew had joined forces with Marc and Dave to put out their first American Nature books. And finally, on the eve of a pandemic, pouring it all out, they self-published the first issue of Santos Sisters, introducing us to Ambar and Alana and Madame Sosostris and bringing us their bizarre corner of the world known as Las Brisas.
Opening that first issue, on newsprint no less(!), the magic inside was immediately clear.
Floating World Comics in Portland wisely stepped in as publisher. Jaime Hernandez gave the book his love on social media, helping unlock masses of indie fans who kept stalking the lads at comic conventions. Issue after issue kept coming
out like clockwork. And eventually Fantagraphics added the book to its vast pantheon of greats by collecting the first five issues in a sharply designed Volume 1.
(Oh, and y’know, there was also that bit last summer when the original Pink Power Ranger, Amy Jo Johnson, handed the lads the Eisner Award for Best Continuing Series. YES, THAT MEANS THEY BEAT SPIDER-MAN AND THE FANTASTIC FOUR AND A BUNCH OF OTHER FAMOUS TITLES, TOO!)
As other threads go, mine goes back to 1992, when I met Greg in another dear friend’s suburban basement. He quizzed me about heavy metal bands, decided I passed OK, and I’ve had a front row seat to his brain ever since.
These days, the crew has me working as their editor and proofreader, which means I get to read all of Santos Sisters stories way before anyone else, sometimes before Greg’s pen ever hits paper.
And a few times a year, just because I made my bones working for an alt-weekly and a couple of big daily newspapers, it’s been an extra-special honor to edit and help produce our American Nature Presents magazine.
All these genius kids with a million ideas somehow managed to grow up into genius adults with a million more ideas. (And, one day, maybe even a million-dollar idea… so please buy more comics.)
I’m one of the lucky ones who will always get to say I knew them when. And it’s pretty neat that the whole world — not even just the comics community — gets to see what I always saw, too.
— Denis C. Theriault Editor-in-Chief American Nature Presents
