Fantagraphics Books has been a leading proponent of comics as a legitimate form of art and literature since it began publishing the critical trade magazine The Comics Journal in 1976. By the early 1980s, Fantagraphics found itself at the forefront of the burgeoning movement to establish comics as a medium as eloquent and expressive as the more established popular arts of film, literature, poetry, et al. Fantagraphics quickly established a reputation as an advocacy publisher that specialized in seeking out and publishing the kind of innovative work that traditional comics corporations who dealt almost exclusively in super-heroes and fantasy either didn’t know existed or wouldn’t touch: serious, dramatic, historical, journalistic, political, and satirical work by a new generation of alternative cartoonists as well as many artists who gained prominence as part of the seminal underground comix movement of the '60s. Fantagraphics has since gained an international reputation for its literate and audacious editorial standards and its exacting production values.

The work of artists such as R. Crumb, Peter Bagge, Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez, Dan Clowes, Joe Sacco, Chris Ware, Carol Tyler and others has continued to gain commercial momentum and critical recognition over the last three decades by combining the social relevance of the previous generation of underground comix artists, attention to personal and psychologal veracity, and formal experimentation and innovation.

When in Seattle, visit the Fantagraphics Bookstore and Gallery, located just off Airport Way in the Georgetown neighborhood:

1201 S. Vale St.

Seattle, WA 98108

(206) 658-0110

Google Maps link

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Image Use: You are welcome to use images from our photostream on your blog or website for purposes of review, analyisis or commentary (or any other purpose that constitutes "fair use"). Please link back to the photo in our photostream and/or to the fantagraphics.com website. All images are copyright their respective creator. Press inquiries, please contact Jacq Cohen via our website.