PUBLISHING ACTIVITY
Passionate about comics, Jacques Glénat created in Grenoble, while still a high school student, the comic strip fanzine Smurf, whose first issue appeared on September 1st, 1969.
Later, the fanzine is transformed and becomes Les Cahiers de la bande dessinée.
A total of 89 issues will appear, until June 1990, concerning all the big names in comics. He published Les Gnan-Gnan, Claire Bretécher's first album bringing together the pages published in Spirou, and Humour noir et Hommes en blanc by Claude Serre. These albums quickly became bestsellers. The publishing house is launched and Jacques Glénat now devotes himself to it full-time.
This is the beginning of the structuring of the house: network of sales representatives, Parisian offices, search for distributors in France and abroad, and capital. Gradually, the catalog is built and diversified.
The mountainous environment in Grenoble and the meeting with Samivel in 1981 favored the opening of a new catalog around the mountain. Books about the sea follow very quickly. The initiator this time was Jacques Mayol, a French freediver who inspired Luc Besson to make his film Le Grand Bleu. Many titles appear under the Chasse-Marée label. Finally, gastronomy and its God, Paul Bocuse. 100 Michelin-starred chefs are now published in the catalogue, since Anne-Sophie Pic in 2004. Three areas where Glénat has become the market leader.
Éditions Glénat is now the leading independent publisher on the market. Its offer is articulated around three main areas:
1. Comics, graphic novels and mangas with the labels Glénat, Vents d'Ouest and Glénat Manga: a catalogue of more than 8,000 titles of all genres.
2. The children's book with the labels Glénat Jeunesse and P'tit Glénat (fiction and non-fiction)
3. Beautiful books about the mountains, the sea, gastronomy, art and sport.
After more than 50 years of passion and about 800 new products per year, the Glénat group is a key player in French publishing industry.