Michael Catron

Catron met Gary Groth while they were both enrolled at the University of Maryland. In 1974, Catron and Groth put on a Washington, DC-area rock and roll convention that ended in financial failure. Nonetheless, he and Groth dabbled in music publishing with the short-lived magazine Sounds Fine,[3] which they co-published until 1979. During this period, Catron also worked as a public relations assistant for Mike Gold, at the time employed by DC Comics.[4]

In 1976, Catron and Groth co-founded Fantagraphics Books, at that point located in College Park, Maryland. They took over an adzine named The Nostalgia Journal, quickly renaming it The Comics Journal.[5] Catron acted as Fantagraphics' co-publisher until 1985, also handling advertising and circulation for The Comics Journal from 1982 to 1985, when he left the company.[4]

In 1986, Catron established Apple Comics, which began as a packager for Wendy & Richard Pini's WaRP Graphics but with its own financing structure.[6] Soon, Apple branched out to publishing original titles, and became known for publishing war comics, particularly the long-running title Vietnam Journal (as well as many spin-offs and one-shots). Apple Comics went defunct in 1994.

From 2000 to 2008, Catron served as a board member for the Grand Comics Database.[7]

Catron has been the agent for the estate of Superman co-creator Joe Shuster.[8]

In early 2012, Catron relocated to Seattle and returned to Fantagraphics as editor with the publishing company he co-founded 36 years earlier.[9][10] There he has edited such projects as collections of Warren Publishing's Blazing Combat (featuring Wallace Wood); Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge stories by Carl Barks and Don Rosa; and EC Comics artists' collections.

• "Michael Catron's Home Pager". Archived from the original on February 4, 2012.