I doubt it's fraud, but $17.50 is way too much for one comic sold at cost. Either Eric has a really trash printing contract, which happens as sometimes people start with one printer and stay with them not realizing you can switch to one with more volume to have less than half the cost, or Eric is factoring in a lot of other costs like artist royalties, employee labor costs, warehousing, etc. I'd think Eric would have asked the artists to drop royalties for charity and the like, but who knows.
Realistically I'd guess $5-10 is probably cost to print a book with his volume, but there are other costs as well after that.