Comico

Comico: The Comic Company

Former type	Comic publisher
Industry	Comics
Founded	1982
Founder	Gerry Giovinco, Bill Cucinotta
Defunct	1997
Headquarters	Norristown, Pennsylvania
Key people	Geraldine Pecht (art director) Bob Schreck (administrative director) Mark Hamlin (sales and marketing rep)

Comico: The Comic Company was an American comic book publisher, headquartered in Norristown, Pennsylvania. Its best-known comics include the Robotech adaptations, the Jonny Quest continuation written by co-creator Doug Wildey, and Matt Wagner's Mage: The Hero Discovered and Grendel. Once considered a major contender on the American market, Comico went into bankruptcy in 1990, although it continued to sporadically publish books until 1997. In 2009, two of Comico's original founders launched an original webcomics site called CO₂ Comics, which they claim is the reincarnation of Comico.

Comico was founded in 1982 by a group of artists and publishers who had previously printed a local school paper called Duckwork in the Norristown area. Their first book, Primer #1, attempted to establish a large black-and-white line, featuring the premiere stories of Victor, Slaughterman, Az, Mr. Justice and Skrog. Slaughterman, Az, and Skrog made it out of the pages of Primer #1 and into their own brief titles. Victor would appear in each issue of Comico Primer.

Primer #2 would premiere what would be Comico's flagship title for most of its existence: Grendel. Matt Wagner's Grendel quickly leaped from Primer into three issues of its own black-and white-series before Comico ended its black-and-white titles in 1984 with Primer #6. (Sam Kieth's character The Maxx—later to have his own Image Comics title—was first seen in Primer #5.)Comico Primer #6 would also debut Chuck Dixon's Evangeline which would go on to its own standalone title.

In March 1984 Comico introduced its color line of comics with:

Although an ownership dispute led to Evangeline moving to First Comics to be continued for two more years, Comico landed a major license in Robotech. 1985 saw the debut of three Robotech series (with a schedule that released a Robotech comic book once every two weeks), as well as Next Man in 1984 and Justice Machine in 1986. (Another ownership dispute led to Next Man moving to another publisher, but this was offset by Comico's acquiring Elementals from the defunct Texas Comics.)

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