Fantagraphics is the Motown, the Blue Note, the Beat Generation and late-’70s CBGB of the underground comic world all rolled into one. The list of featured artists in the publisher’s upcoming 30 Years of Fantagraphics retrospective art exhibit reads like a lovingly assembled all-star team of the names that have shaped the industry for the past 40-odd years: from pioneers like Robert Crumb, fantasy painter Frank Frazetta and Zippy creator, Bill Griffith, to more contemporary names like Chris Ware, Dan Clowes, Tony Millionaire and Los Bros Hernandez. These are the people who have elevated the public perception of the art form from the much-maligned literary equivalent to the back of a cereal box, to the intellectual fodder of today’s highbrow society. A celebration of the history of Fantagraphics is a celebration of the last three decades of UG comics, those artists who dared push sequential art past the well-defined, spandex clad boundaries set for the medium early last century—with the added bonus of being able to enjoy works hung from gallery walls, like so much honest-to-god pieces of art.

Through Oct. 21. Museum of American Illustration at the Society of Illustrators, 128 E. 63rd St. (betw. Park & Lexington Aves.), 212-838-2560; free.