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Founded by Gary Groth in 1976.1
Founding
Fantagraphics was founded in 1976 by Gary Groth and Michael Catron in College Park, Maryland. The company took over an adzine named The Nostalgia Journal, which it renamed The Comics Journal, transforming it from an adzine into a magazine of news and criticism that just happened to carry advertisements.
Kim Thompson joined the company in 1977, using his inheritance to keep the company afloat. He soon became a co-owner.
The company moved from Washington, D.C., to Stamford, Connecticut, to Los Angeles over its early years, before settling in Seattle in 1989.
Beginning in 1981 Fantagraphics (under its Redbeard Inc. imprint) published Amazing Heroes, a magazine which examined comics from a hobbyist's point of view, as another income stream to supplement The Comics Journal. Amazing Heroes ran for 204 issues (plus a number of specials and annuals), folding with its July 1992 issue.
Comics publisher
Beginning in 1979, Fantagraphics began publishing comics, starting with Jay Disbrow's The Flames of Gyro. They gained wider recognition in 1982 by publishing the Hernández brothers' Love and Rockets, and moved on to such critically acclaimed and award-winning series as Acme Novelty Library, Eightball, and Hate.
The company moved operations to Greater Los Angeles in 1984.
Catron acted as Fantagraphics' co-publisher until 1985 (also handling advertising and circulation for The Comics Journal from 1982 to 1985), when he left the company.
The Kirby Awards and the Harvey Awards
From 1985 to 1987, Fantagraphics coordinated and presented (through their magazine Amazing Heroes) The Jack Kirby Award for achievement in comic books, voted on by comic-book professionals. The Kirby Award was managed by Dave Olbrich, a Fantagraphics employee (and later publisher of Malibu Comics). In 1987, a dispute arose when Olbrich and Fantagraphics each claimed ownership of the awards. A compromise was reached, and, starting in 1988, the Kirby Award was discontinued and two new awards were created: the Eisner Awards, managed by Olbrich; and the Fantagraphics-managed Harvey Awards, named for cartoonist Harvey Kurtzman.
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Relocation to Seattle
In 1989, Fantagraphics relocated from Los Angeles to its current location in the Maple Leaf neighborhood of Seattle, Washington.
In 1990, the publisher introduced Eros Comix, a lucrative line of erotic comics that provided a replacement revenue stream for Amazing Heroes and which helped the company again avoid bankruptcy.
Longtime employee Eric Reynolds joined Fantagraphics in 1993, first as news editor for The Comics Journal from 1993, before moving to marketing and promotion in 1996. Groth and Thompson acknowledged Reynolds was key to the company's rise to profitability.
Tom Spurgeon, later known as the publisher of The Comics Reporter, was editor of The Comics Journal from 1994 to 1999.
Financial ups and downs
In 1998, Fantagraphics was forced into a round of layoffs; and in 2003 the company almost went out of business, losing over $60,000 in the wake of the 2002 bankruptcy of debtor and book trade distributor Seven Hills Distribution. One employee quit during the subsequent downsizing while denouncing Fantagraphics' "disorganization and poor management." As journalist (and former Fantagraphics employee) Michael Dean wrote, "the publisher has alternated between flourishing and nearly perishing over the years."
Fantagraphics was saved by a restructuring and a successful appeal to comic book fandom that resulted in a huge number of orders. After restructuring, the company has had greater success with such hardcover collections as The Complete Peanuts, distributed by W. W. Norton & Company.
In 2009, Fantagraphics ceased publishing the print edition of The Comics Journal, shifting from an eight-times a year publishing schedule to a larger, more elaborate, semi-annual format supported by a new website.
European line
Starting in 2005, Fantagraphics began a European graphic novel line, starting with the co-publication of the Ignatz Series, edited and produced by the Italian artist Igort. The publisher announced a deal with Jacques Tardi in March 2009 that would see co-publisher Thompson translate a large number of his books.
New challenges
In 2006, Fantagraphics opened its own retail store, Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery, in Seattle's Georgetown neighborhood.
In 2009 Jacq Cohen started as the publicist for Fantagraphics.
Co-publisher Kim Thompson left Fantagraphics due to illness in March 2013, and died of lung cancer a few months later. His absence left the company without a number of titles it had been counting on for the summer and fall of 2013; and, in November, Fantagraphics started a Kickstarter campaign to raise $150,000, which it surpassed in four days.
In August 2020 the company rebranded, from Fantagraphics Books to just Fantagraphics. At the same time it introduced a more compact logo featuring a stylized ink pen nib and a torch.
In 2023, Fantagraphics began reprinting comics from Atlas Comics under license from Marvel Comics. To date, they have released eight volumes devoted to series and three devoted to creators. In April 2025 they began a series of hardcovers called "Lost Marvels." The first volume, released in April, collects Tower of Shadows. The second, scheduled for August, focuses on Howard Chaykin and includes Dominic Fortune, Monark Starstalker, and Phantom Eagle. The third, scheduled for November, reprints Savage Tales (vol. 2).
From Wikipedia’s article on Fantagraphics, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4