Quality Communications is a publishing company founded by Dez Skinn in 1982, initially to publish the groundbreaking anthology title Warrior. From 1986, Quality published a line of reprint anthologies presenting repackaged and colourised old British comics material, much of it from 2000 AD but also from other IPC/Fleetway titles (examples being the Steel Claw and Amadeus Wolf), for the American market (these titles were also available in Britain). They took over publication of this line, which carried the name Quality Comics, from Eagle Comics, who had held the 2000 AD reprint licence from 1983 to 1986 (Quality Comics was also the name of the comic shop which for a time the company operated out of).
After about a year, though, Dez Skinn and his associates pulled out and the licence for the IPC reprints was taken over by an American company, SQ Production (named for its head, Sal Quartuccio), registered in New Jersey, who continued the numbering of the Quality titles (and continued to use the Quality logo, without permission). From about 1990, this line (now a collaborative effort between SQ and Fleetway) carried the publisher information Fleetway/Quality (most of the reprints being in black and white by then), but there was no connection with the original Quality Comics (though they are listed here as Quality titles for the sake of convenience) and on the early titles, production quality was much reduced.
From 1990 to 2006, Quality themselves also published the trade magazine Comics International, and in 2008 they took over publishing The Jack Kirby Quarterly.
See Also: Weird Fantasy
Quality and SQ Publications[]
