In the standard category of directed graphs, graph morphisms map edges to edges. By allowing graph morphisms to map edges to finite paths (path homomorphisms of graphs), we obtain an ambient category in which we determine subcategories enjoying covariant functors to categories of algebras given by constructions of path algebras, Cohn path algebras, and Leavitt path algebras, respectively. Thus, we obtain new tools to unravel homomorphisms between Leavitt path algebras and between graph C*-algebras. In particular, a graph-algebraic presentation of the inclusion of the C*-algebra of a quantum real projective plane into the Toeplitz algebra allows us to determine a quantum CW-complex structure of the former. It comes as a mixed-pullback theorem where two