Underground comix are small press or self-published comic books that are often socially relevant or satirical in nature. They differ from mainstream comics in depicting content forbidden to mainstream publications by the Comics Code Authority, including explicit drug use, sexuality, and violence. They were most popular in the United States in the late 1960s and 1970s, and in the United Kingdom in the 1970s.
The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers is an underground comic about a fictional trio of stoner characters, created by the American artist Gilbert Shelton. The Freak Brothers first appeared in The Rag, an underground newspaper published in Austin, Texas, beginning in May 1968, and were regularly reprinted in underground papers around the United States and in other parts of the world. Later their adventures were published in a series of comic books.
Gilbert Shelton is an American cartoonist and a key member of the underground comix movement. He is the creator of the iconic underground characters The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, Fat Freddy's Cat, and Wonder Wart-Hog.
Hunt Emerson is an English cartoonist. He was closely involved with the Birmingham Arts Lab of the mid-to-late 1970s, and with the British underground comics scene of the 1970s and 1980s. His many comic strips and graphic novels have been translated into numerous languages.
Paul Mavrides is an American artist, best known for his critique-laden comics, cartoons, paintings, graphics, performances and writings that encompass a disturbing yet humorous catalog of the social ills and shortcomings of human civilization. Mavrides worked with underground comix pioneer Gilbert Shelton on The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers from 1978 to 1992. Mavrides has been noted for "adding new dimensions to the political comic" in the underground comix press of the 1970s and '80s.
A topper in comic strip parlance is a small secondary strip seen along with a larger Sunday strip. In the 1920s and 1930s, leading cartoonists were given full pages in the Sunday comics sections, allowing them to add smaller strips and single-panel cartoons to their page.
Frank Huntington Stack is an American underground cartoonist and fine artist. Working under the name Foolbert Sturgeon to avoid persecution for his work while living in the Bible Belt, Stack published what is considered by many to be the first underground comic, The Adventures of Jesus, in 1964.
Knockabout Comics is a UK publisher and distributor of underground and alternative books and comics. They have a long-standing relationship with underground comix pioneer Gilbert Shelton.
Wonder Wart-Hog is an underground comic book character, a porcine parody of Superman, created by American cartoonist Gilbert Shelton and first published in 1962. Over the years, Shelton has worked on the strip in collaboration with various writers and artists, including fellow UT Austin alums Tony Bell, Bill Killeen, and Joe E. Brown Jr.
Rip Off Press Inc. is a comic book mail order retailer and distributor, better known as the former publisher of adult-themed series like The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers and Rip Off Comix, as well as many other seminal publications from the underground comix era. Founded in 1969 in San Francisco by four friends from Austin, Texas — cartoonists Gilbert Shelton and Jack Jackson, and Fred Todd and Dave Moriaty — Rip Off Press is now run in Auburn, California, by Todd.
Jay Kinney is an American author, editor, and former underground cartoonist. Kinney has been noted for "adding new dimensions to the political comic" in the underground comix press of the 1970s and '80s.
Rip Off Comix was an underground comix anthology published between 1977 and 1991 by Rip Off Press. As time passed, the sensibility of the anthology changed from underground to alternative comics.
Grass Roots is a proposed British-American adult clay film based on the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers underground comic strip created by Gilbert Shelton.
Up in Flames is a 1978 pornographic film and unauthorized adaptation of the underground comix The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers by Gilbert Shelton and Mr. Natural by Robert Crumb. The film's title also parodies the contemporarenous Cheech & Chong movie Up in Smoke.
Randolph Holton Holmes was a Canadian artist and illustrator probably best known for his work in underground comix. His work was of a higher level of quality than was seen elsewhere in the field, and is considered comparable to such creations as Gilbert Shelton's The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers and Robert Crumb's Mr. Natural.
Dave Sheridan was an American cartoonist and underground comix artist. He was the creator of Dealer McDope and collaborated with Gilbert Shelton and Paul Mavrides on The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. As creative partner with fellow underground creator Fred Schrier, using the name "Overland Vegetable Stagecoach," they worked on Mother's Oats Funnies, published by Rip Off Press from 1970 to 1976.
Bijou Funnies was an American underground comix magazine which published eight issues between 1968 and 1973. Edited by Chicago-based cartoonist Jay Lynch, Bijou Funnies featured strong work by the core group of Lynch, Skip Williamson, Robert Crumb, and Jay Kinney, as well as Art Spiegelman, Gilbert Shelton, Justin Green, and Kim Deitch. Bijou Funnies was heavily influenced by Mad magazine, and, along with Zap Comix, is considered one of the titles to launch the underground comix movement.
Theodore Richards was an American web designer and cartoonist, best known for his underground comix.
God Nose is a 42-page American comic book produced in 1964 by Jack "Jaxon" Jackson and is considered one of the first underground comix. God Nose centers on philosophical discussions between God and the "fools he rules".
Feds 'N' Heads is an underground comic book, created and self-published by Gilbert Shelton, which introduced the world to the Shelton characters Wonder Wart-Hog and The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. In the spring of 1968, cartoonist Gilbert Shelton, already somewhat known in college humor and underground comix circles for his Superman parody Wonder Wart-Hog, self-published a 28-page one-shot, Feds 'N' Heads Comics, much of the material of which had previously appeared in the Austin, Texas, underground paper The Rag. Feds 'N' Heads was later reprinted an additional 13 times by the Bay Area underground publisher the Print Mint, selling over 200,000 total copies by 1980.
