These comics creators are thinking outside the cereal box

Harrington, who spent years crafting sports cartoons for the Philadelphia Daily News, doesn’t usually like long-form projects. A 28-page, full-color comic was new territory for him but Steinberg’s vision for the comic series and publishing label drew him in.

“If it didn’t have a humorous edge to it I don’t know if I would’ve been able to stick it out,” said Harrington, who is the president of the Philadelphia Sketch Club. “But because [Steinberg] has such a great sense of humor and he works in a lot of cool funny things, it took me back to our days when we really loved Mad Magazine.”

Along with Cereal, the two creators have produced Chunks of Tomorrow, a sci-fi anthology series that’s a cross between Mad Magazine and Netflix’s Black Mirror, Steinberg said.

As an independent publisher, Harrington said he and Steinberg still wrestle with the idea of a print product. The general demand, for some time now, has been on the decline.

But like vinyl records to music lovers, a floppy comic book brings readers into closer proximity to the artform, and Cereal has slowly gained traction at comic book expos and landed on the shelves of local shops in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, including Bucks County’s Phantasm Comics.

Owner Gregory Zuerblis met the two creators at a zine show in Lambertville, New Jersey. “We’re always interested in supporting indie creators and anyone that has a professional, fully finished comic book,” he said. “And that’s what they had.”

Along with the Moore Comic Expo, Harrington and Steinberg want to publish a graphic novel, and possibly return to the origins of their project. Like Amazon Prime Video’s The Boys and Invincible, Steinberg hopes to turn Cereal into a TV or streamed series.

“We’re trying something, which means we don’t have this well-paved road for our audience,” Steinberg said. “It’s crossing different genres, and we’re working on finding people who really appreciate it.”