NBM Publishing
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NBM Publishing is a publisher of graphic novels located in New York State in the United States.
Nantier Beall Minoustchine Publishing Inc. (NBM) has been publishing graphic novels in the United States since 1976. The company specializes in non-superhero comic genres and has translated and published over 150 graphic novels from Europe and Canada, as well as several works by Americans. It publishes materials for all ages, and also publishes mature materials under its 'Eurotica' and 'Amerotica' lines.
To quote from the company's website: "From humble beginnings, NBM has grown to become the second largest indie comics press after Fantagraphics with close to $3MM in yearly retail sales on over 200,000 graphic novels sold a year plus tens of thousands of comic books and magazines. Founded in 1976 by publisher Terry Nantier while still studying at Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Communications, NBM (at the time, Flying Buttress Publications) was among the very first to bring the concept of graphic novels over to these shores. It started by publishing Europeans such as Enki Bilal. Struggling Flying Buttress was way ahead of its time. It took until the mid-eighties for the company to take off with such series as The Mercenary and Corto Maltese. It also developed a great name for itself in classic reprints by proving, in the early eighties, there was an audience ready to pay for library-worthy volumes of Terry and the Pirates.
"Ironically considered an 'alternative' publisher in comics simply because it does not publish superheroes, NBM is in fact a general interest publisher in its field. Uninterested in "niches", outre margins or otherwise alienated side voices which appeal to just as narrow an audience of fans as superheroes, NBM has always sought as wide an audience as any good novel or movie may reach. Its editorial choices are always motivated by that one single goal. In this, it takes its cue from the large and well-respected European comics scene. NBM pioneered general bookstore distribution as early as 1980. In 1986, it was the first comics pub to get a distributor when it signed with Publishers Group West. In 1988, it took over its own distribution and became the first to distribute Dark Horse graphic novels into that market. NBM's books are now available in a wide array of different retailing organizations. As a result, NBM continues to grow and attract big names. It also attracts way more than its fair share of press and media acclaim for its widely recognized very high level of quality. Whether in ComicsLit, its showcase literary imprint, or in mass appeal horror & SF, NBM never compromises its very high standards."
[edit] Flying Buttress Comics Library
Under this name, NBM reprinted several classic newspaper strips. This included Milt Caniff's Terry and the Pirates, Roy Crane's Wash Tubbs and Captain Easy, and the Tarzan strips done by Hal Foster and Burne Hogarth. Most were done in hardback, but some were also released in paperback.
[edit] Notable works
- The three volumes in the Attitude: The New Subversive Cartoonists series and other works by Ted Rall
- Boneyard by Richard Moore
- Click and other works by Milo Manara
- Dungeon and other works by Lewis Trondheim
- Fantastic Art and other books of illustration by Luis Royo
- A Treasury of Victorian Murder by Rick Geary
