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]