Matt Howarth is a long-time fan of The Residents and has even included them as guest stars in some of his books. After hearing The Tunes of Two Cities he wrote the first issue of The Comix "as a tangent of silliness which [he] felt compelled to pursue". It was sold at one of the San Francisco Mole Show concerts. Howarth went on to write a total of twelve issues, but only issues 1 through 6 were published (by Howarth's Howski Studios and Ralph Records together) as mini-comics. Later, all 12 issues were released as a run of six regular comics (two issues per book) by AEON.