Catalan Communications

Catalan Communications
FoundedApril 1983 (1983-04)
FoundersBernd Metz, Herb Spiers, and Josep Toutain
Defunct1991 (1991)
Country of originU.S.
Headquarters location43 East 19th Street
New York City
Key peopleBernd Metz
Tom Leighton
Elizabeth Bell
Publication typesComics, trade paperbacks
ImprintsComCat

Catalan Communications was a New York City publishing company that existed from 1983 to 1991. Operated by Bernd Metz, Catalan Communications mainly focused on English-language translations of European graphic novels. These were presented as high-quality trade paperbacks, or comic albums — a European book format that American comic book readers were not yet accustomed to. Both the physical dimensions and the mature content were unfamiliar to U.S. audiences, who often referred to the format dismissively as "Euro-comics."

Metz became one of the first American publishers to introduce U.S. readership to European-style comics on a larger scale than the niche-market efforts undertaken by HM Communications – publisher of the groundbreaking Heavy Metal magazine – in the preceding decade.