FantaCo Enterprises is an American comic book store and publishing company founded and created by Thomas Skulan and based in Albany, New York. As a publisher, FantaCo was known for its idiosyncratic line-up of mostly black-and-white titles, including the humorous Hembeck Series and the horror title Gore Shriek. FantaCo also published "The Chronicles Series", which cataloged top-selling Marvel Comics titles. In its later years, FantaCo published mostly horror comics and a small number of "good girl art".
FantaCo began as a mail order company and comic book store before branching out into publishing books, magazines, and comics. From 1979 through 1990, it also hosted FantaCon, a popular Albany-area comics and horror convention. (After FantaCo closed its brick & mortar store in 1998, Skulan continued with the mail order division while taking time to re-imagine the overall business for the 21st century.)
History
FantaCo Enterprises began in 1978 as a mail order company and comic book store located at 21 Central Avenue in Albany.[1] The name was short for either "Fantasy Company" or the "Fantastic Company," depending on Skulan's mood.[1] Many of the store's employees, including publisher/owner/editor Tom Skulan, Mitch Cohn, Roger Green, and Raoul Vezina, worked on FantaCo titles in many creative capacities.
Comics
FantaCo's first foray into publishing was Raoul Vezina's Smilin’ Ed, about a rat with the personality of a 1950s children TV host.[1] Smilin'Ed was also the store's emblem.[1] Vezina drew Smilin’ Ed from 1980 until his death in 1983.[2]
The company made its mark in the early 1980s with The Hembeck Series, seven volumes of comics by Fred Hembeck. These magazine-sized black-and-white books poked loving fun at the mainstream comics industry, with Hembeck himself appearing as a cartoon interlocutor with the superheroes he interviewed. During this period, FantaCo also published The Fantaco Chronicles Series, edited by Mitch Cohn and Roger Green, which exhaustively documented popular Marvel Comics titles such as the X-Men, Fantastic Four, Daredevil, Avengers, and Spider-Man. A two-issue series was published during this period, Gates of Eden, which featured comics about the 1960s by an impressive array of talent, including John Byrne, Steve Leialoha, Michael T. Gilbert, Trina Robbins, Hembeck, Foolbert Sturgeon, P. Craig Russell, Rick Geary and Spain Rodriguez.
1986 saw the debut of the horror anthology Gore Shriek, initially edited by Skulan, and later issues by Stephen R. Bissette, who also contributed stories to each issue. Besides Skulan and Bissette, other Gore Shriek creators of note included Greg Capullo, Bruce Spaulding Fuller, Eric Stanway and Gurchain Singh. Gore Shriek Volume 1 ran for three years, and is still fondly remembered by horror fans as one of the top comics in that genre.[citation needed]Gore Shriek Delectus (1989) collects much of the best material from the first volume.
FantaCo revived Gore Shriek in 1990 and started a new line of horror and zombie-related titles and one-shots. This period was noteworthy for the career jump-starts it gave to young creators like Chynna Clugston (Bloodletting), Steve Niles (Night of the Living Dead: London), and Jim Whiting (King of the Dead, Kill Me Slowly, Scab, and Uptown Zombies).
From about 1995, the company's titles shifted to the good girl art of Tom Simonton's Amazon Woman comics, and titillating titles like Babes & Biomechanics, Lady Dracula, and Dead Chicks in Lace: Bloodletting Lingerie Special.
FantaCo/Tundra
From 1991 to 1994, the company co-published a number of Kevin Eastman projects with Eastman's company Tundra Press. Books under the FantaCo/Tundra imprint included Infectious, No Guts or Glory, and Zombie War. These projects petered out once Tundra folded in 1993. (Eastman and Skulan revived Zombie War in full color under the IDW Publishing imprint, with a graphic novel released in the summer of 2014.)
Books and magazines
FantaCo published books and magazines in addition to comics. Their first book being Mug Shots in 1980, a book of cartoons by John Caldwell. Later on, FantaCo published more trade books on the subjects of horror films; splatter films; exploitation films; an early guide to horror, science fiction, and fantasy films on videocassette; and even a straight-ahead horror novel, Ninth and Hell Street. John McCarty authored three books published by FantaCo, and Chas Balun wrote four.
In a similar horror vein, they put out the FantaCo Horror Yearbook and Price Guide every year from 1978 until 1996; magazines like Barbara Steele: An Angel for Satan, Demonique 4, and the Comics Enquirer; twelve issues of Dread: The Official Clive Barker Newsletter in 1992–1993; and Clive Barker and Zombie War commemorative card sets.
The book Amazon Women: The Art of Tom Simonton, edited by Tim D'Allaird, was FantaCo's final publication in the 1990s, right on the eve of their storefront closure in 1998. Mr. Skulan went into semi-retirement and FantaCo Enterprises remained dormant until 2013.
After a 23-year hiatus, Skulan launched FantaCon's revival, which took place on September 14 and 15, 2013, at the Marriott Hotel in Albany.[3] The City of Albany, including Mayor Jerry Jennings, wholeheartedly embraced and promoted the event with two additional days of events on September 12 and 13. Mayor Jennings kicked off the event at The Palace Theatre, followed by the official 45th-anniversary showing of the original 1968 cult classic film Night of the Living Dead. Following the film, some of the original cast members (Russ Streiner, Judith O'Dea, George Kosana, Judith Ridley, John A. Russo and Kyra Schon) came on stage for an intimate Q&A session.
Storefront closure
With the mid-1990s bursting of the speculation bubble, combined with the decline in demand for comic books, in general, in conjunction with an untenable situation with a large corporate distributor,[citation needed] Skulan decided to close the storefront. [3] FantaCo's mail order operations continued. In 2016 FantaCo Publishing was revived with the publication of Smilin' Ed Comics, in honor of FantaCo co-founder Raoul Vezina. The company currently publishes about one title per month.
Mug Shots: A Splendid Collection of Cartoons, by John Caldwell (1980)
Splatter Movies: Breaking the Last Taboo: A Critical Survey of the Wildly Demented Sub-Genre [sic?] of the Horror Film That Is Changing the Face of Film Realism Forever, by John McCarty (1981) ISBN978-0-938782-01-8
Video Screams: The Official Source Book to Horror, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Related Films on Videocassette and Disk, by John McCarty (1982) ISBN0-938782-02-9
