The Comics Journal

In 1976, Gary Groth and Michael Catron acquired The Nostalgia Journal, a small competitor of the newspaper adzine The Buyer's Guide for Comics Fandom. At the time, Groth and Catron were already publishing Sounds Fine, a similarly formatted adzine for record collectors that they had started after producing Rock 'N Roll Expo '75, held during the July 4 weekend in 1975 in Washington, D.C.

The publication was relaunched as The New Nostalgia Journal with issue No. 27 (July 1976), and with issue No. 32 (January 1977), it became The Comics Journal ("a quality publication for the serious comics fan").[5] Issue No. 37 (December 1977) adopted a magazine format. With issue #45 (March 1979), the magazine moved to a monthly schedule; at that point it had a circulation of 10,000.[6]

In addition to lengthy interviews with comics industry figures, the Journal has always published criticism—and received it in turn.[2] Starting in the early 2000s, the Journal published a series of annual specials combining its usual critical format with extended samples of comics from specially selected contributors.

With issue No. 300 (November 2009), The Comics Journal ceased its semi-monthly print publication.[7] TCJ shifted from an eight-times a year publishing schedule to a larger, more elaborate, semi-annual format supported by a new website.[8][9] This format lasted until 2013 with issue #302. The print magazine then went on hiatus, returning to a magazine format in 2019 with issue #303.

The Journal features critical essays, articles on comics history and lengthy interviews, conducted by Gary Groth and others. Noteworthy interviews include Gil Kane in No. 38, Steve Gerber in No. 41, Harlan Ellison in No. 53, Dennis O'Neil in No. 64, Robert Crumb in No. 113, and Charles M. Schulz in #200.

The Journal's combination of forthright news coverage and critical analysis – although the norm for traditional journalistic enterprises – was in sharp contrast to the affectionate and promotional methods of publications like Comics Buyer's Guide and (later) Wizard. In 1995, publisher Gary Groth joked that his magazine occupied "a niche that nobody wants."[23]

Gary Groth has been the Journal's publisher and nominal editor for almost all of its existence. Staff members and regular contributors have included Kim Thompson, Greg Stump, Eric Millikin, Eric Reynolds, Ng Suat Tong, R. Fiore, R.C. Harvey, Kenneth Smith, Don Phelps, Robert Boyd, Tom Heintjes, Michael Dean, Tom Spurgeon, Robert Rodi, Gene Phillips, Marilyn Bethke, Cat Yronwode, Heidi MacDonald, Lee Wochner, Bhob Stewart, Arn Saba, Ted White, Bob Levin, Carter Scholz, and Noah Berlatsky. Guest contributors have included Dave Sim and Trina Robbins.

The Journal published a 20th-century comics canon in its 210th issue (February 1999). To compile the list, eight contributors and editors made eight separate top 100 (or fewer than 100 for some) lists of American works. These eight lists were then informally combined, and tweaked into an ordered list. Krazy Kat topped the list, followed by Peanuts, Pogo, and Art Spiegelman's Maus.[31] Harvey Kurtzman had the most entries of any creator, five: his original run on Mad (#8), his "New Trend" EC war comics (#12), the 1959 Jungle Book graphic novel (#26), his Hey Look! gag cartoons (#63), and the Goodman Beaver stories (#64).

The Village Voice cited the survey's ad hoc criteria:

"Putting Bernard Krigstein and Al Feldstein's eight-page story "Master Race," Hal Foster's 34 years of work on Prince Valiant, Al Hirschfeld's theatrical caricatures, all the horror comics EC published in the first half of the '50s and Robert Crumb's sketchbooks in the same category suggests that they've cast their net a bit wide."[32]

Among the controversial omissions to the Top 100 was Dave Sim's Cerebus series. Sim and the Journal had periodically found themselves at odds in the years preceding the list's formulation.[33] Issue No. 213 included eight pages of responses to, and defenses of the list; Journal columnist R. Fiore wrote "Dave Sim must now think you have a personal vendetta against him," and co-publisher Kim Thompson conceded, "If I had to do it over again, I'd squash together the Hernandez material into two entries [and] put Cerebus and two other things in the vacant spots."[34] Twelve years later, the omission was still being acknowledged by the Journal, which noted that Dave Sim's Cerebus "was conspicuously excluded."[35]

Less surprisingly, given the magazine's longstanding editorial standards and preferences, the list was also light on the dominant genre of superhero comics. Editor and survey participant Tom Spurgeon wrote, "I voted for most of the men-in-spandex titles that made the list – Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Plastic Man – despite the sheer lousiness of some of those works' contributing elements."[36] Ultimately, the Top 100 included six superhero works, including the deconstructionist Watchmen. Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns was one well-regarded mainstream superhero project that was considered but ultimately not chosen, according to co-publisher Kim Thompson.[33]

• List of Comics Journal interview subjects—provides issue numbers with interview subjects
• Comic Art
• Sequart Organization

• Groth, Gary (editor), Spurgeon, Tom (executive editor). The Comics Journal #210. Fantagraphics Books, February 1999. ISSN 0194-7869
• Dean, Mike; Moore, Elizabeth Anne. "Timeline". The Comics Journal No. 235 (July 2001), p. 82.
• Dean, Mike. "The Comics Journal Examines Its Own Navel," The Comics Journal No. 235 (July 2001).
• Groth, Gary, and Robert Fiore, eds. The New Comics: Interviews from the Pages of The Comics Journal. New York : Berkley, 1988. ISBN 0-425-11366-3.
• Complete collection of The Comics Journal and The Nostalgia Journal held by the Michigan State University Comic Art Collection.

• Official website
• TCJ Covers, Contents and Mastheads at The Comics Reporter
• History of The Nostalgia Journal