FantaCo Enterprises
 |
|
| Status | Defunct (1998) |
|---|---|
| Founded | August 28, 1978 |
| Founder | Thomas Skulan |
| Country of origin | U.S. |
| Headquarters location | 21 Central Avenue, Albany, New York |
| Key people | Roger Green, Raoul Vezina |
| Publication types | Comics, magazines |
| Fiction genres | Horror, humor |
FantaCo Enterprises was an American comic book store and publishing company founded and created by Thomas Skulan and based in Albany, New York. As a publisher, FantaCo was known for its idiosyncratic line-up of mostly black-and-white titles, including the humorous Hembeck Series and the horror title Gore Shriek. FantaCo also published "The Chronicles Series", which cataloged top-selling Marvel Comics titles. In its later years, FantaCo published mostly horror comics and a small number of "good girl art".
FantaCo began as a mail order company and comic book store before branching out into publishing books, magazines, and comics. From 1979 through 1990, it also hosted FantaCon, a popular Albany-area comics and horror convention. (After FantaCo's demise, Skulan brought back FantaCon in 2013.)
FantaCo Enterprises began in 1978 as a mail order company and comic book store located at 21 Central Avenue in Albany. The name was short for either "Fantasy Company" or the "Fantastic Company," depending on Skulan's mood. Many of the store's employees, including publisher/owner/editor Tom Skulan, Mitch Cohn, Roger Green, and Raoul Vezina, worked on FantaCo titles in many creative capacities.
FantaCo's first foray into publishing was Raoul Vezina's Smilin’ Ed, about a rat with the personality of a 1950s children TV host. Smilin'Ed was also the store's emblem. Vezina drew Smilin’ Ed from 1980 until his death in 1983.
The company made its mark in the early 1980s with The Hembeck Series, seven volumes of comics by Fred Hembeck. These magazine-sized black-and-white books poked loving fun at the mainstream comics industry, with Hembeck himself appearing as a cartoon interlocutor with the superheroes he interviewed. During this period, FantaCo also published The Fantaco Chronicles Series, edited by Mitch Cohn and Roger Green, which exhaustively documented popular Marvel Comics titles such as the X-Men, Fantastic Four, Daredevil, Avengers, and Spider-Man. A two-issue series was published during this period, Gates of Eden, which featured comics about the 1960s by an impressive array of talent, including John Byrne, Steve Leialoha, Michael T. Gilbert, Trina Robbins, Hembeck, Foolbert Sturgeon, P. Craig Russell, Rick Geary and Spain Rodriguez.
...
Wikipedia