By now most of you have heard the news: Chaos! Comics has filed for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy and closed its' doors. Of course, if you're like me, you're probably thinking "Oh my gosh! Who'll supply all the soft porn comics now?" But of course the answer to that one is that someone certainly will. There's always a market for scantily clad "bad girls" and some low rent publisher will almost certainly rush to fill the void left by Chaos!. They also most likely won't do it nearly as well. Like them or loath them, Chaos! found a niche that they made their own and it will be hard to see impossibly proportioned bad girls without thinking of the company that defined the genre. It's possible that someone will purchase some or all of the characters and continue Lady Death, Purgatori, Evil Ernie or any of the others.

This is not the Chapter 13 Bankruptcy that Marvel filed for a few years back. That was basically a "get the creditors off our backs", reorganization plan. It allowed for Marvel to continue putting books out without interruption and pull themselves back into the black. Chapter 7 is a straight bankruptcy, which involves liquidating the assets of the company to pay off its debts. Of course, the main assets that Chaos! owns are its characters. Lady Death is certainly the most popular, but Evil Ernie, Purgatori, Bad Kitty, Chastity and Jade also had their own flirtations with popularity.

The first irony is that Chaos! fails at a time when the comic industry is finally pulling out of its' long downward sales spiral. Just a couple of years ago, all you heard in the trade magazines was cries of the end of everything comics. Monthly reports of massive comic shop closings, stories of declining comic sales and tales of publisher insolvency were the norm. A number of small publishers folded during that era, but none of them were really significant. Valiant didn't exactly fold, but its' publishing schedule ground to a halt during the end of the speculator boom. Kitchen Sink and Innovation went belly up, but despite Kitchen Sinks stellar track record with alternative creators, none of the companies that folded really made any noticeable absence on the comic racks. Now, things are improving steadily. We've seen some slow growth in most every area of the comic market, save for the distribution system. All of which makes the news of the demise of Chaos more surprising. This is a company which had pretty successfully marketed its brand of sex and violence into an instantly recognizable mix.

Chaos! was a company none for its sexy covers and bad girl pin up interiors, but was never known for its stories. In fact, many comic fans dismissed Chaos! as lightweight, brainless T & A fest. So the second irony is that this news comes just as Chaos had been recently employing some well respected "name" writers. John Ostrander and Peter David had both written regular books for Chaos! in the past year. They had, by all accounts, done their best to elevate the image of Chaos! with solid stories. Stories that they will now most likely not be paid for. Peter David had created a series called The Haunted, which he seemed genuinely excited about. Of course, Chaos! went to great lengths to lure him to their company in hopes of dispelling their image of poor writing, and then failed to put his name anywhere of the cover of many of the issues.

It could be argued that Chaos! is the last publisher that was truly identified with the speculator boom of the early '90s. the early Lady Death issues once commanded outrageously high prices. Many of their books sported the gimmick de jour- chrome, foil enhanced or glow in the dark. As their books were high of sexy women in improbable pin up poses, but light on a coherent story, they made the ideal book for people who didn't actually want to read their books. Countless Chaos! books were undoubtedly shoved directly into bags to be saved for prosperity. Now they will outlast the company that made them.

It probably says something about the state of comics today that there was no room for Chaos in the improving comic market. Despite Marvel's recent attempts to revive the gimmick cover, most fans loathe the days when companies spent all the attention on shiny enhancements and often included a story only as an afterthought. For the first time in comics history, writers have become the selling point for "hot" books. Marvel's recent success owes much to Brian Michael Bendis, J. Michael Strazynski and Grant Morrison. More fans faithfully follow the work of Warren Ellis and Garth Ennis than any flashy artist. Rob Liefelds constant attempts to reinsert himself into the comic scene are met with comfortable laughter. Even Spawn, the poster child for storyless comics, is meeting smaller sales and greater apathy with every issue.

Would it be too much to surmise from the demise of Chaos! that fans no longer are willing to accept mindless sex and violence in the comics unless it has a story to go with them? Probably not. Sex and violence are as much a part of comics as the splash page and hero wise cracks. But something has changed and Chaos! will be remembered for marking the end of an era. Their books once seemed fresh and interesting to a fairly large group of comic buyers. Chaos! did nothing to change their books. It was the fans who bought comics that changed. They begin to want more in their books. they will be getting more. Just not from Chaos!