Gary Groth

Groth at the 2007 Alternative Press Expo.

Gary Groth (born 1954) is an American comic book editor, publisher, and critic. He is editor in chief of The Comics Journal and a co-founder of Fantagraphics Books.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, young Groth published Fantastic Fanzine, a fanzine and a pun on the Marvel Comics title Fantastic Four. Later Groth worked as an assistant to artist Jim Steranko.

In 1976 Groth founded Fantagraphics Books Incorporated with Mike Catron, and took over an adzine named The Nostalgia Journal and soon renamed it The Comics Journal. Groth's Comics Journal applied rigorous critical standards to comic books. It disparaged the more formulaic superhero books and their work-for-hire publishers in favor of artists like R. Crumb and Art Spiegelman and creator ownership of copyrights. It featured lengthy, freewheeling interviews with comics professionals, often conducted by Groth himself.

Groth, a strong supporter of art, intellectualism, and creator ownership, is no stranger to controversy. His supporters and detractors differ on whether he has a contentious personality or a strong will, either of which might be causually associated with several feuds and lawsuits in a comics industry and world with no shortage of strong wills and vested interests. Interviewer Peter Bagge once asked Groth if being hated by some was distressing; Groth replied it was not, since "a man should be judged by the quality of his enemies."

One of Groth's most infamous long-running feuds was with The Buyer's Guide for Comics Fandom founder/publisher Alan Light (who was co-editor of Fantastic Fanzine). This is extensively described in Ron Frantz's Fandom: Confidential along with details on the role of Groth's interactions with the WE Seal of approval program in the launching Comics Journal.

Quotes

Harlan Ellison: "Apart from much of the crap Groth publishes, they are like serial child molesters who publicly do Good Works, and privately indulge in heinous behavior. The Comics Journal and other publications exuded by Groth are the nidus of mendacity and crapulous attack, hypocrisy by the month."<ref>http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/briefings/letters/7640/,

Bibliography

• Frantz, Ron. Fandom: Confidential. Mena, Arkansas : Midguard Publishing, 2000. ISBN 0-9678273-0-2

• Groth, Gary, and Robert Fiore, eds. The New Comics: Interviews from the Pages of The Comics Journal. New York : Berkley, 1988. ISBN 0-425-11366-3.

• Spurgeon, Tom and Jacob Covey. Comics As Art: We Told You So. Seattle, WA : Fantagraphics. (forthcoming) ISBN 1560977388

External links

• Sequential Tart: Interview with Gary Groth (2000)
• Bookforum: Stand-up Comics Fantagraphics' Thirtieth Anniversary
• Comics Reporter: Short Interview with Gary Groth and Kim Thompson
• Comics Reporter: Short Interview With Greg Sadowski and Gary Groth (On Fantagraphics' Harvey Kurtzman TCJ library book)
• Inkstuds: One-hour podcast interview with Gary Groth and Kim Thompson