Fantagraphics will carve out a dedicated home for East Asian comics and graphic novels with a new imprint, Takumigraphics, the indie comics publisher announced today.
Takumigraphics will put out 16 titles per year beginning next spring, with Fantagraphics editor Conrad Groth, president Eric Reynolds, and associate publisher Gary Groth leading acquisitions. The imprint’s inaugural slate will include Wandering Cat’s Cage by Akane Torikai, translated by Jocelyne Allen (May 26), Lovers of the Empire Volume 1 by Yudori (June 23), Wandering Son Volume One & Two by Shimura Takako, translated by Rachel Thorn (July 7), and On Their Frontlines: The Lives of Japanese War Brides Volume 1 by Marina Lisa Komiya, translated by Diana Taylor (August 11). Future titles include work by Brain Damage author Shintaro Kago.
“Ever since Fantagraphics was founded in 1976, we’ve sought out graphic works that are imaginative, daring, and aesthetically compelling,” the editors wrote in a statement, adding that Takumigraphics’s launch is aligned with the publisher’s “vital editorial mission.” Though Fantagraphics mostly published English-language cartoons for the first 30 years of its existence, the press has expanded its offerigns in the last few decades, making its first serious foray into manga in 2010.
As a part of Takumigraphics, Fantagraphics will continue its partnership with Mangasplaining, a publisher that serializes original comics on Substack and collaborates with print presses, like Fantagraphics, to put them in book form.
Takumigraphics will begin in the world of Japanese comics, but its catalog will eventually expand beyond manga, the editors said. Future titles will include comics by authors from Korea, China, Singapore, Taiwan, the Philippines, and other Asian countries. The editors hope that homing this wide-ranging work under the roof of one imprint will highlight the shared aesthetic and visual language that many comic artists in the region share, something that they “believe readers will recognize and appreciate.”
In Japanese, the word “takumi” refers to excellence or ingeniousness, as well as a person who embodies those qualities. The editors said they feel the word “exemplifies the aesthetic caliber of the books that will comprise this imprint—works of mastery and vision.”