Gary Groth (born 1954) is an American comic book editor, publisher and critic. He is editor-in-chief of The Comics Journal and a co-founder of Fantagraphics Books.

Groth is the son of a U.S. Navy contractor and was raised in the Washington, D.C. area.

Inspired by film critics like Andrew Sarris and Pauline Kael, and gonzo journalists like Hunter S. Thompson, the teenage Groth published Fantastic Fanzine, a comics fanzine (whose name referenced the Marvel Comics title Fantastic Four). Later, after turning down an editorial assistant position at Marvel Comics in 1973, Groth worked briefly as a production and layout assistant at the movie and comics magazine Mediascene, which was edited by Jim Steranko.

After dropping out of his fourth college in 1974, Groth and his financial partner Michael Catron put on a rock and roll convention that ended in financial failure. Nonetheless, he and Catron dabbled in music publishing with the short-lived magazine Sounds Fine.

In 1976 Groth founded Fantagraphics Books, Inc. with Catron, and took over an adzine named The Nostalgia Journal—quickly renaming it The Comics Journal. Groth's Comics Journal applied rigorous critical standards to comic books. It disparaged formulaic superhero books and work for hire publishers and favored artists like R. Crumb and Art Spiegelman and creator ownership of copyrights. It featured lengthy, freewheeling interviews with comics professionals, often conducted by Groth himself.

Robert Dennis Crumb (born August 30, 1943)—known as Robert Crumb and R. Crumb—is an American artist, illustrator, and musician recognized for the distinctive style of his drawings and his critical, satirical, subversive view of the American mainstream.

Crumb was a founder of the underground comix movement and is regarded as its most prominent figure. Though one of the most celebrated of comic book artists, Crumb's entire career has unfolded outside the mainstream comic book publishing industry. One of his most recognized works is the "Keep on Truckin'" comic, which became a widely distributed fixture of pop culture in the 1970s. Others are the characters Devil Girl, Fritz the Cat, and Mr. Natural.

He was inducted into the comic book industry's Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1991.

Robert Crumb was born on August 30, 1943 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is of English and Scottish ancestry, and is related to former U.S. president Andrew Jackson on his mother's side. His father, Charles, was a career officer in the United States Marine Corps; his mother, Beatrice, a housewife who reportedly abused diet pills and amphetamines. Their marriage was unhappy and the children — Robert, Charles, Maxon, Sandra and Carol — were frequent witnesses to their parents' loud arguments.

Abraham Jaffee (born March 13, 1921), known as Al Jaffee, is an American cartoonist. He is notable for his work in the satirical magazine Mad, including his trademark feature, the Mad Fold-in. As of 2010, Jaffee remains a regular in the magazine after 55 years and is its longest-running contributor. Only one issue of Mad has been published since 1964 without containing new material by Jaffee. In a 2010 interview, Jaffee said, "Serious people my age are dead."

In 2008, Jaffee was honored by the Reuben Awards as the Cartoonist of the Year. New Yorker cartoonist Arnold Roth said, "Al Jaffee is one of the great cartoonists of our time." Describing Jaffee, Peanuts creator Charles Schulz wrote, "Al can cartoon anything."

Born in Savannah, Georgia, Jaffee spent six years of his childhood in Lithuania, returning to America in advance of the Nazi takeover. He studied at The High School of Music & Art in New York City in the late 1930s, along with future Mad personnel Will Elder, Harvey Kurtzman, John Severin and Al Feldstein.

Arnold Roth (born February 25, 1929) is an American freelance cartoonist and illustrator for advertisements, album covers, books, magazines and newspapers.

Novelist John Updike wrote, "All cartoonists are geniuses, but Arnold Roth is especially so."

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Roth graduated in 1950 from the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art (now the University of the Arts) and began freelancing in 1951.

The following year, he married Caroline Wingfield, and the couple later moved to New York City. They have two sons, Charles and Adam.

Roth's art is in the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Museum of Cartoon Art (San Francisco), Philadelphia's Rosenbach Museum and Library and the Karikature and Cartoon Museum (Basel, Switzerland), plus many private collections.

His traveling solo exhibition, Free Lance, A Fifty Year Retrospective (2001-04), was seen in Philadelphia, Columbus, San Francisco, New York City, London and Basel. He has staged solo exhibitions at the Philadelphia Print Club, University of the Arts, New York's Century Association and Swarthmore College.