Nobody else will care about this but I was teenager living in Maryland in the '70s and the local comic book shop - which was a tiny space sublet from the local coin dealer, started carrying a tabloid called The Nostalgia Journal which had some comic book and strip-related content.
As I recall the last issue of that newspaper had an announcement that something big was coming, and the following issue was retitled The NEW Nostalgia Journal, which was published in Maryland and which might be the reason why my local shop carried it. It was either free or very cheap at the time.
The New Nostalgia Journal was published by Gary Groth and Mike Catron, and eventually morphed into the Comics Journal, which was also originally published in Maryland before the founding of Fantagraphics and the move to the Seattle area.
The Comics Journal meant a lot to me at the time because there wasn’t really a lot of writing about comics available back then, especially non-superhero stuff. It was nothing like what is available now with the Internet, and Hollywood (sometimes unfortunately) churning out tons of comic book movies.
Small press publishing seemed super creative and liberating and though I never tried it myself I started reading more comics-related 'zines and sought out more fun and creative non-comic stuff. It’s been decades since I’ve read any of them though.
So anyway, it was nice seeing the video of Groth talking about the early years of Fantagraphics. Thanks.
Thanks for sharing this story! I liked it.
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