Patrick Coyle Returns! Bixby Grant: Fangs & Brimstone #5 | Comic Crusaders Podcast #773

Patrick Coyle is back on the Comic Crusaders Podcast, and this time we are heading deeper into Harbor City as Bixby Grant: Fangs & Brimstone #5 pushes the supernatural detective story closer to its finale.

Patrick has been building this strange, grimy little corner of horror-noir for a while now, and by Issue #5 the pieces are no longer just being introduced. They are colliding. Bixby Grant, an immortal mummy working as a private detective, is still dealing with demonic cults, family damage, ancient secrets and the kind of supernatural nonsense that would make a normal investigator quit by lunch. Instead, Bix keeps moving forward, usually with his rockabilly vampire companion Diego right there getting dragged into the mess.

That basic setup is already wild, but what keeps Fangs & Brimstone from becoming just another monster mash is the emotional baggage underneath it. Bixby’s relationship with his brother Max continues to hang over the series, and the deeper Patrick pushes into that family history, the more obvious it becomes that the real danger is not always whatever creature is hiding in the shadows. Sometimes the ugliest thing in the room is everything the characters never dealt with when they had the chance.

Issue #5 also moves the story toward a major reveal involving the true villain behind the larger conflict. We kept things spoiler-light during the conversation because this is the kind of reveal readers should experience inside the book, not in a headline. What Patrick could talk about was the process of building toward that moment and making sure the answer feels earned rather than dropped in simply because the series is approaching its final chapter.

We also got into Diego, because every supernatural detective apparently needs a vampire with enough personality to make a terrible situation even more entertaining. Diego could have easily stayed the comic-relief sidekick, but over the course of the story he has become an important part of how readers understand Bix. Sometimes the person standing next to you sees your damage more clearly than you do, and that dynamic gives the book a lot more heart than the monsters and mayhem might suggest at first glance.

Then there is Zombietown, the backup story following Detective Maritza Ramirez as she searches for her missing father and gets pulled deeper into Harbor City’s undead criminal world. Patrick has created a zombie Mafia called Il Cosa Muerte, led by Don Scarpino, which is exactly the kind of ridiculous name I can respect because it knows what kind of comic it lives in.

The more interesting part is that Zombietown is becoming much more than bonus material attached to the main feature. Maritza offers another way to look at Harbor City, its corruption and the things festering beneath the surface. Bixby and Maritza may be dealing with different cases, but both stories keep circling back to institutions, power, missing people and the ugly things a city learns to live with because everybody assumes somebody else will fix them.

That also gave us room to talk about the creative team behind the book. Gonzalo Martínez handles the main interior artwork, Arthur Hesli provides colors, Heather Antos edits the series, and Gonzalo Ruggieri handles the Zombietown artwork. Patrick also letters the book himself, which means he gets the joy of being responsible for yet another part of the production process when he probably already has enough things keeping him awake at night.

The cover lineup for Issue #5 is no joke either. Veronica Fish and Francesco Francavilla are among the artists contributing covers, giving the campaign a strong visual identity while Patrick continues balancing the collector side of crowdfunding with the much more important goal of getting people to actually read the story inside.

That balance became one of the more interesting parts of our conversation. Crowdfunding has created enormous opportunities for independent comic creators, but it has also turned them into publishers, marketers, fulfillment managers, customer-service departments and social-media teams on top of being writers and artists. A successful campaign is not the same thing as building a sustainable readership, and Patrick has now had enough experience with Kickstarter to understand the difference.

His earlier campaign for Issues #1 through #4 brought in more than 450 backers, and that kind of support means something. The harder question is how you turn those backers into people who follow the characters beyond one campaign. That is where independent publishing becomes more than simply raising money. You are building trust one issue at a time.

Bixby Grant: Fangs & Brimstone #5 is currently on Kickstarter, with the campaign scheduled to run through November 12, 2026. The 32-page issue features 20 pages of the main story and eight pages of Zombietown, continuing both threads as Patrick moves toward Issue #6 and the conclusion of the current storyline.

Check out my conversation with Patrick Coyle on the Comic Crusaders Podcast as we talk about Bixby, Diego, Maritza, zombie organized crime, building toward the finale, working with an expanding creative team, crowdfunding, creator ownership and what Harbor City might look like after this first major story finally wraps.

Independent comics do not happen because somebody somewhere gives a creator permission. They happen because creators like Patrick keep putting the work in, building their audience and getting the next issue finished.

Support the books you want to see survive.

THE CRUSADE NEVER ENDS! WEPA!

SUPPORT THE KICKSTARTER:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pulp-explosion/bixby-grant-fangs-and-brimstone-5
Follow Patrick on Social Media at @PatrickMakesComics