Writer-artist Wally Wood, who by 1969 had had a critically admired two decades in comic books, self-published the first issue of his mature-audience comic "Heroes, Inc. Presents Cannon" that year, after having already self-published a similar anthology, "witzend". These comics, along with such titles by other publishers as "Star Reach" (1974), "Big Apple Comix" (1975), and "American Splendor" (1976), helped bridge the gap between the countercultural underground comics and traditional mainstream fare, providing genre stories for an adult audience. Like those other examples, it was a forerunner of the late-1970s rise of the modern graphic novel and the 1980s independent-comic publishing boom.