When my friend Jonathan Helland was seventeen, he used to pour Zippo fluid into his cupped palm, spark it, and use his flaming hand to light his cigarettes. So I wasn't surprised when he dropped out of college, moved from Minneapolis to New York, and started a comic book publishing company with his best friend Ben Wood. Three years and $30,000 later, Phenomenon Comics is self-distributing the first 5,000 copies of their new title, Blackpool.