Fantagraphics Books

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State of Fantagraphics Books, Stumptown Comics Fest, 2006

Fantagraphics Books is an American comic book publisher that publishes alternative comics , collections of classic comic strips , magazines and graphic novels . Fantagraphics also publishes pornographic comics under the imprint Eros Comix .

history

Fantagraphics was founded in 1976 by Gary Groth and Mike Carson. Originally, the publisher only served to publish the comic magazine The Nostalgia Journal , which Groth had bought shortly before and renamed The Comics Journal in January 1977 . Kim Thompson joined Fantagraphics in the summer of 1977 and soon became a co-owner. Fantagraphics' headquarters changed frequently in the first few years, first the company was based in Washington DC, then in Stanford, Connecticut, then in Los Angeles, California. In 1989 Fantagraphics moved to Seattle, Washington, where the company is currently based.

In addition to the Comics Journal, Fantagraphics began publishing comics in the early 1980s. The first Fantagraphics comic was Los Tejanos , a 150-page graphic novel by Jack Jackson in 1981 . According to Groth, it was 1982 and the beginning of Los Bros. Hernandez's Love and Rockets that made Fantagraphics a serious comic book publisher. Love and Rockets proved to be a great success and was partly responsible for the rise of alternative comics in the 1980s, which had almost disappeared from the scene after the decline of underground comics around 1976.

In addition to alternative comics, the publisher also began to publish reprints of the work of comic greats such as Robert Crumb and Bernard Krigstein as well as classic newspaper comic strips such as George Herriman's Krazy Kat , Walt Kellys Pogo or Hal Foster's Prinz Eisenherz .

In 2003 Fantagraphics just missed bankruptcy. In an open letter dated May 29, 2003, Kim Thompson announced that the company would need $ 80,000 in additional income within a month, or the end of Fantagraphics would be inevitable. The report was disseminated online and with the support of the alerted customers it was possible to raise the necessary money.

In the spring of 2004 Fantagraphics succeeded in winning the rights to hardcover reprints of the Peanuts comic strips and securing the financing of the company for the next few years.

Publications (excerpt)

comics
Magazines
Graphic novels
Hardcover reprints

Web links