A hearty and heartfelt congratulations to publisher Chris Pitzer on the ninth anniversary of the formation of his fine line of comics, AdHouse Books (and more recently its distribution wing, AdDistro). Pitzer is marking the occasion by telling the stories behind nine of the company's releases, and the result is a mix insight into the kinds of challenges any small-press comics publisher must face, and the qualities that make this particular small-press comics publisher such a valuable one.

With an output ranging from high-end art books like Paul Pope's Pulphope and James Jean's Process Recess to thoughtful graphic novels like Josh Cotter's Skyscrapers of the Midwest and Adam Hines's Duncan the Wonder Dog, it's tough to say exactly what "an AdHouse book" will be like, but with Pitzer's attention to design and reproduction behind every one, you generally can count on it being gorgeous. And as the stories told by Pitzer about books like Pulpatoon Pilgrimage, Skyscrapers, Duncan and so on indicate, the chances are also good that he's gone to bat for a largely unknown and unpublished talent. That's an admirable thing for a publisher to do once, let alone over and over again for nearly a decade.