Fantagraphics is an American publisher of alternative comics, classic comic strip anthologies, manga, magazines, graphic novels, and the erotic Eros Comix imprint. Many notable cartoonists have published their work through Fantagraphics, including Jessica Abel, Peter Bagge, Ivan Brunetti, Charles Burns, Daniel Clowes, Mary Fleener, Roberta Gregory, Joe Sacco, Chris Ware, and the Hernandez brothers.
Alternative comics cover a range of American comics that have appeared since the 1980s, following the underground comix movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Alternative comics present an alternative to mainstream superhero comics which in the past have dominated the American comic book industry. Alternative comic books span a wide range of genres, artistic styles, and subjects.
Daniel Gillespie Clowes is an American cartoonist, graphic novelist, illustrator, and screenwriter. Most of Clowes's work first appeared in Eightball, a solo anthology comic book series. An Eightball issue typically contained several short pieces and a chapter of a longer narrative that was later collected and published as a graphic novel, such as Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron (1993), Ghost World (1997), David Boring (2000) and Patience (2016). Clowes's illustrations have appeared in The New Yorker, Newsweek, Vogue, The Village Voice, and elsewhere. With filmmaker Terry Zwigoff, Clowes adapted Ghost World into a 2001 film and another Eightball story into the 2006 film, Art School Confidential. Clowes's comics, graphic novels, and films have received numerous awards, including a Pen Award for Outstanding Work in Graphic Literature, over a dozen Harvey and Eisner Awards, and an Academy Award nomination.
A minicomic is a creator-published comic book, often photocopied and stapled or with a handmade binding. In the United Kingdom and Europe the term small press comic is equivalent with minicomic, reserved for those publications measuring A6 or less.
Al Columbia is an American artist known for his horror and black humor-themed alternative comics. Comics writer Heidi MacDonald has described him as a "cartoonist’s cartoonis[t] whose body of work is as unforgettable as it is slim." His best-known published works include the comic book series The Biologic Show, the graphic novel/art book Pim & Francie: The Golden Bear Days, and short stories such as "I Was Killing When Killing Wasn't Cool" and "The Trumpets They Play!". He also works in other media including painting, illustration, printmaking, photography, music, and film.
The Ignatz Awards recognize outstanding achievements in comics and cartooning by small press creators or creator-owned projects published by larger publishers. They have been awarded each year at the Small Press Expo since 1997, only skipping a year in 2001 due to the show's cancellation after the September 11 attacks. As of 2014 SPX has been held in either Bethesda, North Bethesda, or Silver Spring, Maryland.
Rick Altergott is an American alternative cartoonist and illustrator. Altergott is best known for Doofus, a long-running low-brow, scatological series of strips which chronicle the misadventures of two small-town weirdos, Doofus and Henry Hotchkiss.
Mome was a quarterly full-color comics anthology edited by Eric Reynolds and published by Fantagraphics Books.
Jesse Reklaw is an American cartoonist and painter, author of the syndicated dream-based comic strip Slow Wave.
Kevin Huizenga is an American cartoonist, best known as the creator of the comics character Glenn Ganges, who appears in most of his work.
Modern Cartoonist is a 1997 essay by Daniel Clowes published as a 16-page black, white and red illustrated pamphlet. It was originally bound in with copies of Eightball #18 and was also offered for sale individually. Although the back cover describes it as being published by "The Catholic Federation for Preservation and Advancement of All Things Related to the Comic Book and its Creators, Inc.," the address given for ordering additional copies is that of Fantagraphics Books, presumably its actual publisher. Because of its subject matter, its small dimensions and its illustrations, and its original distribution inside of a comic book, Modern Cartoonist is sometimes classed as a minicomic.
Colin Upton is a Canadian cartoonist and artist who was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba and grew up in Vancouver, British Columbia. Many of his comics are self-published in the minicomic format, although he has also had his work issued by commercial publishers such as Fantagraphics Books and included in anthology collections such as Drippytown Comics & Stories. He is a co-host of the Inkstuds radio program, broadcast on CITR-FM at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
David Heatley is an American cartoonist, illustrator, graphic designer, and musician.
Gabrielle Bell is a British-American alternative cartoonist known for her surrealist, melancholy semi-autobiographical stories.
Buenaventura Press was a publisher and distributor for comics, prints, anthologies and graphic novels based in Oakland, California, run by Alvin Buenaventura.
Noah Van Sciver is an independent American cartoonist. He currently resides in Columbia, South Carolina.
Timothy "Tim" Patrick Goodyear is an American minicomics publisher, distributor, and comics artist from San Jose, California. He has been a contributor to Tim Root's Crappy Comics, Sean Aaberg's PORK, and has compiled several collaborative zines.
Eric Reynolds is a Seattle-based cartoonist, critic and comics editor who is the Vice-President and Associate Publisher for Fantagraphics Books. His work has appeared in The Stranger, The Comics Journal, The New York Times, The New York Press and other publications. He has edited or co-edited The Complete Crumb Comics, Angry Youth Comics, Dirty Stories and MOME, and has inked some of Peter Bagge's comics.
Simon Hanselmann is an Australian-born cartoonist best known for his Megg, Mogg, and Owl series. Hanselmann has been nominated four times for an Ignatz Award, four times for an Eisner Award, once for the Harvey Award and won Best Series at Angouleme 2018.
Patience (2016) is a graphic novel by Daniel Clowes, published by Fantagraphics. A science-fiction love story about time travel, it describes the misadventures of a man, Jack, after he finds his pregnant wife, Patience, murdered in their apartment. Many years later, when grief has destroyed his life, chance leads him to discover a time machine, which he plans to use to save Patience.
