Founded in 2003 by skilled illustrator and DJ Franki Chan, IHEARTCOMIX! has quickly become one of the most innovative and fun brands in the indie scene. IHC started off as an outlet for Chan to throw parties and publish his own comic books. After Chan established himself in Los Angeles with a string of successful weekly parties, he developed IHC into a multi-faceted enterprise with the addition of a record label in 2005. The label’s music ranges from the bouncy, high-energy punk created by the popular duo Matt & Kim to the hard electro house of Le Castle Vania.

Chan has built a reputation for being at the forefront of the indie DJ movement and has successfully introduced and showcased many new artists to the scene through IHC’s events production company. With its effective grassroots marketing campaigns and ability to stay on top of current trends, IHC continues to grow at a rapid pace and shows no signs of losing momentum anytime soon. Starting on October 24th, Chan and the Toxic Avenger will be embarking on a 14 date U.S. tour that finishes up on November 12th at Vessel in San Francisco.

We managed to catch up with Franki for a few minutes during one of his hectic workdays.

MetroWize: How did you get involved with DJing and throwing parties?

Franki Chan: I started DJing in 2000. I had been playing drums in bands for a long time and doing shows. I was living in Washington state in this town called Bellingham, which is pretty small. Basically what happened is after we would do these punk shows I noticed that since it was a small town there wasn’t anything else going on besides going to a bar and drinking. So I would just begin playing music at after parties and that eventually evolved into DJing full time and throwing parties. I moved to Seattle and started doing a lot of after-hours dance parties there and eventually moved to Los Angeles and kinda took that concept even larger. When I began playing, I was spinning more hip-hop and 80’s. Right around the time I moved to Los Angeles, I began to become exposed to electronic music. The electronic sound that I was hearing began to have things in common with rock music and it began to have enough going on in it that I could latch on to and get really pumped about. That led to not only doing shows for rock bands but also for all these electronic acts like Justice, Boys Noize, and MSTRKRFT. That helped us get our record label off the ground and it’s just been building ever since.

MW: Tell us about some of IHC’s upcoming music releases.

FC: This month we have three new albums coming out. One is from HEARTSREVOLUTION, who are based out of New York. They are a two piece, guy and a girl, who kinda have a punk rock, electronic sound. Another one is from Totally Michael, who lives in Indiana. His sound is between Matt & Kim and Blink-182, just kinda like pop punk. The third album is from Designer Drugs, who are also based out of New York. They’re more along the lines of electro and dubstep; hard electronic music that makes you wanna dance.

MW: IHC is pretty multi-faceted and it seems like you guys have your hand in everything. Do you have any plans for expanding your operations beyond what you’re doing now?

FC: I think one focus for next year will be on clothing. That’s what I feel like we’ve been missing the most. We have a pretty good roster of bands for 2009 so you’ll definitely see a lot more albums. We’re going to do less weekly parties and do larger shows to help roll out more merchandise.

Catch Franki Chan on tour with Toxic Avenger:

Oct 24 2008 Chicago @ Sonotheque
Oct 25 2008 Brooklyn @ Williamsburg Music Hall
Oct 29 2008 Seattle @ Chop Suey
Oct 30 2008 Portland @ Rotture
Oct 31 2008 San Diego @ The Loft
Nov 4 2008 Tulsa @ The Marquee
Nov 5 2008 Oklahoma City @ Electro Lounge
Nov 6 2008 West Palm Beach @ Respectable Street
Nov 7 2008 Miami @ The Vagabond
Nov 8 2008 Atlanta @ Sloppy Seconds
Nov 9 2008 Austin @ Fun Fun Fest
Nov 11 2008 Los Angeles @ Dance
Nov 12 2008 San Francisco @ Vessel