ABSTRACT
The publication of comics scholarship by academic presses, in some manner or another, can be traced back in America well into the early 20th century. It simply depends on the definition of Comics Studies employed. This chapter begins from the point where Comics Studies was considered a "serious field" within the American academic community using presses, both academic trade and university, to put scholarship into circulation along routes of literary, pop cultural, and cultural anthropological forms. The difference between a smaller press such as Fantagraphics and myriad other presses, in terms of academic publication, generally comes not just in the academic prestige associated with its name but in the consistent quality of the product the press turns out over its history. One of the most prominent trade presses equaling the output of the Bloomsbury group and rising in academic prestige is McFarland and Company.
