This sounds like it was during the Helfer/Maguire era of the JL

Good guesses, but wrong.

Here's a hint-- it was not a DC Universe comic (although there was a kinda crossover moment at one point)

Was it Vertigo? Maybe Hellblazer or Sandman?

Pre-vertigo, but had Vertigo been around, it certainly would have been a Vertigo book.

I may have picked a slightly obscure one!

(are you afraid of) Ghosts?

or
Unexpected?

And I thought this book had a cult following. Perhaps not!

Here's another hint-- the title was used only a few years later by either Vertigo or Piranha Press for a comic full of morbid one-panel gag cartoons.

Hmm, that might make this even harder....

Piranha Press put out something other than Epicurus the Sage, Gregory and the Great Big Books?

Yeah, a one-off that shared a title with this other comic.

What's bugging me now is that the one-off was by a writer and artist that at the time I had really liked, and now I can't even remember who they were! And searching the web has been no help, as neither of these comics (being outside the DCU) have much about them online.

Oh, I finally remembered who the team on the other book was. Wow, they disappeared.

I don't think anyone is going to get it. Looks like you win "Bonus points" for stumping the HCRealmers.

Ask another question.

Would it be Wasteland?

That's the only title I know that was re-used for Pirhana but had nothing to do with the original (I didn't read either BTW, but I was always curious about the Ostrander series).

Wasteland is correct! I guess I didn't stump the panel after all.

Both are good, but the Ostrander/Close series (ran 18 issues) was pretty #### cool. Highlights were autobiographical stories from Del Close (and improv comedy icon, who trained a lot of the early SNL people and Seconf City people), teh aforementioned Dead Detective story, and a lot of wierd little one-offs.

In this day and age of a lot of small press comics and all sorts of things published on the web and eslewhere, it might not seem so exciting, but at the time it was fabulous.

It also had a particularly charming story called "All the world's a stage" which I presume was a major inspiration for the Truman Show. STarts the same way, similar premise.

OK,
Who was Esak? Who was his mentor that he betrayed? And who finally killed him?


(I might not be back until Monday... If someone's reasonably sure of the answer, they can post the next question.)