World Color Press

World Color Press Inc.

Type	Subsidiary of Quad/Graphics
Industry	Commercial and industrial printing
Founded	1903
Headquarters	Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Key people	Mark Angelson, Chairman and CEO
Revenue	$4,016.9 million USD (2008)
Number of employees	20,000 (2009)
Website	worldcolor.com

World Color Press Inc. ("Worldcolor") (formerly Quebecor World) was a company which provided high-value and comprehensive print, digital, and related services to businesses worldwide. World Color and its subsidiaries printed various commercial products, including comic books, magazines, brochures, direct mail and newspaper inserts, and directories, while also providing clients a broad range of pre-press services, such as desktop production and assembly.

World Color was the first printer to make comic book printing a major part of its business plan, and throughout most of its history was the dominant North American printer of comics and associated publications. During its history, World Color was also at the forefront of many new technologies and printing innovations, including use of web offset presses, "pool shipping," rotogravure printing, computer technology, digital registration systems, and flexography.

World Color merged with Quebecor Printing in 1999; at the time World Color was the largest printer of consumer magazines in the United States and the third largest commercial printer in North America. Worldcolor was acquired by Quad/Graphics in early 2010.

World Color Press was founded in 1903 by the owners of the St. Louis Star under the name World's Fair Color Printing. The wholly owned subsidiary was created to handle color printing for the upcoming 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, and was expected to disband at the World Fair's conclusion. Instead, the company name was shortened to World Color Printing and continued as a commercial printer, focusing on a new business: the color "funnies" section of the Sunday newspaper.

Robert Grable and Roswell Messing, Sr., two St. Louis Star senior employees, purchased the company in 1922. As the popularity of the Sunday color comic section increased, the funnies quickly evolved into an American institution, and metropolitan papers increasingly began featuring comic supplements. As the first major printer of color sections, World Color Press was often the first choice for printing these sections, and by the early 1930s, the company had printing contracts with newspapers nationwide.