Gary Groth

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Gary Groth (born 1954) is an American comic book editor, publisher, and critic. He is editor in chief of The Comics Journal and a co-founder of Fantagraphics Books.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, young Groth published Fantastic Fanzine, a fanzine and a pun on the Marvel Comics title Fantastic Four. Later Groth worked as an assistant to artist Jim Steranko.

In 1976 Groth founded Fantagraphics Books Incorporated with Mike Catron, and took over an adzine named The Nostalgia Journal and soon renamed it The Comics Journal. Groth's Comics Journal applied rigorous critical standards to comic books. It disparaged the more formulaic superhero books and their work-for-hire publishers in favor of artists like R. Crumb and Art Spiegelman and creator ownership of copyrights. It featured lengthy, freewheeling interviews with comics professionals, often conducted by Groth himself.

Groth, a strong supporter of art, intellectualism, and creator ownership, is no stranger to controversy. His supporters and detractors differ on whether he has a contentious personality or a strong will, either of which might be causually associated with several feuds and lawsuits in a comics industry and world with no shortage of strong wills and vested interests. Interviewer Peter Bagge once asked Groth if being hated by some was distressing; Groth replied it was not, since "a man should be judged by the quality of his enemies."