Founded | 1972 |
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Founder | Jacques Glénat |
Country of origin | France |
Headquarters location | Grenoble |
Distribution | France, Benelux |
Official website | www |
Glénat Editions SA is a French publisher with its head office in Grenoble. Their products include comic albums and manga in France, Benelux, and in the past Spain; it was founded by Jacques Glénat. The Benelux subsidiary, Glénat Benelux N.V., is located in Brussels, Belgium. The Switzerland subsidiary, Glénat Editions (Suisse) SA, has its headquarters in Nyon. The Spanish subsidiary had its head office in Barcelona.
Jacques Glénat started his comics fanzine Schtroumpf (the French, original, title of The Smurfs) in 1969, when he was still a student. In 1972, only twenty years old, he established his own publishing house, Glénat. The first two books were by Claude Serre and by Claire Bretécher. Two years later, he already received the award for best publisher at the Angoulême International Comics Festival. To support the rapid growth, the company opened warehouses in Orly near Paris, and a flagship store in Paris.
A new comics magazine, Circus, first appeared in 1975 and existed until 1989. But the next few years saw Glénat move more away from the traditional juvenile Franco-Belgian comics and more towards the graphic novel, with an emphasis on their successful historical series by François Bourgeon and André Juillard. A second magazine, Vécu, dedicated to historical comics, was created in 1985 and survived until 2004.