United States The United States underground comics scene emerged in the 1960s, focusing on subjects dear to the
counterculture:
recreational drug use, politics,
rock music, and
free love. The underground comix scene had its strongest success in the United States between 1968 and 1975, Underground comix often featured covers intended to appeal to the drug culture, and imitated
LSD-inspired posters to increase sales. American comix were strongly influenced by 1950s
EC Comics and especially magazines edited by
Harvey Kurtzman, including
Mad (which first appeared in 1952). Shelton's own
Wonder Wart-Hog appeared in the college humor magazine
Bacchanal #1-2 in 1962.
Jack Jackson's
God Nose, published in Texas in 1964, has also been given that title. One guide lists two other underground comix from that year,
Vaughn Bodē's
Das Kampf and
Charles Plymell's
Robert Ronnie Branaman.
Joel Beck began contributing a full-page comic each week to the
underground newspaper the
Berkeley Barb and his full-length comic
Lenny of Laredo was published in 1965. Another underground paper, the
East Village Other, was an important precursor to the underground comix movement, featuring
comic strips by artists including Crumb, Shelton,
Kim Deitch,
Trina Robbins,
Spain Rodriguez, and
Art Spiegelman before true underground comix emerged from San Francisco with the first issue of
Zap Comix.
Zap and many of the first true underground comix publications began with reprints of comic strip pages which first appeared in underground papers like the
East Village Other, the
Berkeley Barb, and
Yarrowstalks.
1968–1972: Underground's "Golden Age" In February 1968, in San Francisco,
Robert Crumb published (with the help of poet
Charles Plymell and
Don Donahue of
Apex Novelties) his first solo comic,
Zap Comix. The title was financially successful and almost single-handedly developed a market for underground comix. Within a few issues,
Zap began to feature other cartoonists — including
S. Clay Wilson,
Robert Williams,
Spain Rodriguez, and
Gilbert Shelton — and Crumb launched a series of solo titles, including
Despair,
Uneeda (both published by
Print Mint in 1969),
Big Ass Comics, ''R. Crumb's Comics and Stories
, Motor City Comics
(all published by Rip Off Press in 1969), Home Grown Funnies
(Kitchen Sink Press, 1971) and Hytone Comix
(Apex Novelties, 1971), in addition to founding the pornographic anthologies Jiz
and Snatch'' (both Apex Novelties, 1969). Just as importantly, the major underground publishers were all based in the area:
Don Donahue's
Apex Novelties,
Gary Arlington's
San Francisco Comic Book Company, and
Rip Off Press were all headquartered in the city, with
Ron Turner's
Last Gasp and the
Print Mint based in
Berkeley. Last Gasp later moved to San Francisco. By the end of the 1960s, there was recognition of the movement by a major American museum when the
Corcoran Gallery of Art staged an exhibition,
The Phonus Balonus Show (May 20-June 15, 1969). Curated by
Bhob Stewart for famed museum director
Walter Hopps, it included work by Crumb, Shelton,
Vaughn Bodē,
Kim Deitch,
Jay Lynch and others. Crumb's best known underground features included
Whiteman,
Angelfood McSpade,
Fritz the Cat, and
Mr. Natural. Crumb also drew himself as a character, caricaturing himself as a self-loathing, sex-obsessed intellectual.
1972–1975: Controversy and recognition By 1972–1973, the city's
Mission District was "underground headquarters": living and operating out of The Mission in that period were
Gary Arlington,
Roger Brand,
Kim Deitch,
Don Donahue,
Shary Flenniken,
Justin Green,
Bill Griffith &
Diane Noomin,
Rory Hayes,
Jay Kinney,
Bobby London,
Ted Richards,
Trina Robbins,
Joe Schenkman,
Larry Todd, Patricia Moodian and
Art Spiegelman. Mainstream publications such as
Playboy and
National Lampoon began to publish comics and art similar to that of underground comix. For much of the 1970s, Rip Off Press operated a
syndication service, managed by cartoonist and co-owner
Gilbert Shelton, that sold weekly comix content to
alternative newspapers and
student publications. Each Friday, the company sent out a distribution sheet with the strips it was selling, by such cartoonists as Shelton,
Joel Beck,
Dave Sheridan,
Ted Richards,
Bill Griffith, and
Harry Driggs (as R. Diggs). The syndicate petered out by 1979; much of the material produced for it was eventually published in the company's long-running
anthology Rip Off Comix, which had debuted in 1977. Griffith's strip,
Zippy, which had debuted in 1976 as a weekly strip with the syndicate, was eventually picked up for daily syndication by
King Features Syndicate in 1986. Critics of the underground comix scene claimed that the publications were socially irresponsible, and glorified violence, sex and drug use. In 1976, Marvel achieved success with
Howard the Duck, a satirical comic aimed at adult audiences that was inspired by the underground comix scene. While it did not depict the explicit content that was often featured in underground comix, it was more socially relevant than anything Marvel had previously published. while the
Bijou Funnies book highlighted comics by Lynch, Green, Crumb, Shelton, Spiegelman, Deitch,
Skip Williamson,
Jay Kinney,
Evert Geradts,
Rory Hayes, Dan Clyne, and Jim Osborne. Similarly, and around this time, the publishing cooperative
And/Or Press published
The Young Lust Reader (1974), a "best-of" collection from Griffith and Kinney's
Young Lust anthology, and
Dave Sheridan and
Fred Schrier's
The Overland Vegetable Stagecoach presents Mindwarp: An Anthology (1975). And/Or Press later published the first paperback collections of Griffith's
Zippy the Pinhead comics.
1975–1982: The underground era comes to a close By this time, some artists, including
Art Spiegelman, felt that the underground comix scene had become less creative than it had been in the past. According to Spiegelman: "What had seemed like a revolution simply deflated into a lifestyle. Underground comics were stereotyped as dealing only with Sex, Dope and Cheap Thrills. They got stuffed back into the closet, along with bong pipes and love beads, as Things Started To Get Uglier".
Arcade lasted seven issues, from 1975 to 1976.
Autobiographical comics began to come into prominence in 1976, with the premiere of
Harvey Pekar's self-published comic
American Splendor, which featured art by several cartoonists associated with the underground, including Crumb. In the late 1970s, Marvel and
DC Comics agreed to sell their comics on a no-return basis with large discounts to comic book retailers; this led to later deals that helped underground publishers. British underground cartoonists also created political titles, but they did not sell as well as American political comics. The
punk subculture began to influence underground comix.
1982–present In 1982, the distribution of underground comix changed through the emergence of specialty stores. Other comix with a sexual focus included
Melody (), based on the life story of
Sylvie Rancourt and
Cherry, a comedic sex comic featuring art similar in style to that of
Archie Comics.
United Kingdom British cartoonists were introduced in the underground publications
International Times (
IT), founded in 1966, and
Oz founded in 1967, which reprinted some American material. The first UK comix mag was
Cyclops, started in July 1970 by
IT staff members. In a bid to alleviate its ongoing financial problems,
IT brought out
Nasty Tales (1971), which was soon prosecuted for obscenity. Despite appearing before the censorious
Old Bailey Judge
Alan King-Hamilton, the publishers were acquitted by the jury. In the wake of its own high-profile obscenity trial,
Oz launched
cOZmic Comics in 1972, printing a mixture of new British underground strips and old American work. When
Oz closed down the following year
cOZmic Comics was continued by fledgling media tycoon
Felix Dennis and his company, Cozmic Comics/H. Bunch Associates, which published from 1972 to 1975. While the American underground comix scene was beginning to decline, the British scene came into prominence between 1973 and 1974, but soon faced the same kind of criticism that American underground comix received. The 1990s witnessed a renaissance in the genre in the
United Kingdom, through titles like
Brain Damage,
Viz, and others. ==Archives==