Fisticuffs: Book One

Written by: Fred Schwartz

Illustrated by: Stan Yak

SchwartzArt

2026

We meet Nick Roark at a court-ordered meeting for substance abusers. His body language SCREAMS that he does not want to be there. He sips on a soda bottle spiked with hard liquor as he counts down the minutes until he can get completely lit at the local pub.

The proctors at the meetings never check his breath too hard. His mother threatens to charge him rent but she never follows through. A glitch or a mishap at the head office have caused his unemployment checks to go on far longer than they were supposed to. Despite the occasional court-appearance from his drunk driving accident, he leads an incredibly comfortable, low-stakes life.

But that all comes to a CATASTROPHIC end, TONIGHT…

Welcome to FISTICUFFS.

FISTICUFFS is the creation of DeLand-based writer, editor, and creator Fred Schwartz, working under his own SchwartzArt LLC banner — and Book One is where his six-issue miniseries lays its foundation. The pitch, straight from the creators themselves, is disarmingly simple and instantly quotable: how many drinks can one man put away and still function as a vigilante? That’s not marketing shorthand dressed up as a premise — it’s the actual engine of the story, and Book One wastes no time putting it to the test.

The cover art (courtesy of series artist Stan Yak, whose credits include Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin and Broken Gargoyles) does a lot of narrative heavy lifting on its own. A disheveled, man tumbles through a haze of debris — beer cans, a lit cigarette, a shattered bottle, a deck of cards, a stray CD — all rendered in a bruised, blood-red monochrome that makes the whole image feel less like a hero shot and more like a hangover you can see. Robert Nugent’s coloring leans into that queasy warmth rather than fighting it, and the MATURE 18+ stamp in the corner isn’t there for show. This is not a book pulling punches, literally or tonally.

That restraint-free approach extends to the credits page itself, which reads like a small studio’s mission statement. Dave Sharpe handles letters and logo design — no small task on a book whose title has to look like it’s been through a bar fight and still won — while Laurie Foster and John McCormack round out the editorial team as assistant editors. Bryan Silverbax and Sean Lee contribute a variant cover, giving readers and retailers an alternate entry point into the same chaotic world. It’s a tight, credited crew, and that matters in the current indie comics landscape: FISTICUFFS isn’t a one-person Kickstarter vanity project. It’s a genuine collaborative effort with people who’ve worked on established mainstream books (Spawn Kills Every Spawn, Superman: Son of Kal-El, The Avengers among the pedigrees attached to the wider series) choosing to bring that polish to something scrappier and stranger.

What makes Book One worth talking about, beyond the shock value of its premise, is how confidently it commits to a specific kind of protagonist. Comics have given us plenty of morally gray vigilantes, plenty of antiheroes with a drinking problem tucked into their backstory as a character flaw to be overcome. FISTICUFFS flips that script by making the drinking the point — not a flaw to be resolved by Book Six, but the actual condition under which this character operates. It’s less “damaged hero finds redemption” and more “what happens when a coping mechanism becomes a costume.” That’s a riskier narrative bet than it sounds, because it means the book has to find comedy and tension in the same breath, often in the same panel, and from what Book One puts on the page, Schwartz and Yak seem to understand that balance is the whole appeal.

It’s also worth noting where this book sits in the broader indie comics economy. FISTICUFFS built its audience the way most creator-owned mature titles do these days: incrementally, through Kickstarter, with Book One initially funding alongside Book Two before later campaigns bundled in Book Three and beyond. That’s a slow, grassroots climb, and it shows in the confidence of the finished product — this isn’t a first issue padded out to test the waters. It reads like a team that already knew what kind of book they were making and used Book One to plant the flag hard.

For Central Florida convention-goers who’ve crossed paths with SchwartzArt at artist alley tables, Book One is the right place to start before catching up with the rest of the miniseries. It’s unapologetically NSFW, unapologetically Florida in its “hold my beer” energy, and unapologetically committed to a premise most publishers would have sanded down into something safer. Whether that earns your money depends entirely on your tolerance for blood-red covers and comics that treat a hangover as a legitimate character motivation — but if that sounds like your kind of brawl, Book One delivers exactly the gut-punch it promises on the cover.

FISTICUFFS is rated Mature 18+ and is available through SchwartzArt LLC’s ongoing Kickstarter campaigns, with Book Four currently in the works as the series builds toward its six-issue conclusion.

NocedoPhoto Media Group

NocedoPhoto Media Group is an innovative and creative consortium that unites photographers, writers, cosplayers, event promoters, vendors, costume and prop makers, and other creatives under one roof to use their collective skills to maximize their distribution and presence on digital media platforms. Their goal is to create a well-rounded and successful network for all involved.