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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.
Alternative comics cover a range of American comics that have appeared since the 1980s, following the underground comix movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Alternative comics present an alternative to mainstream superhero comics which in the past have dominated the American comic book industry. Alternative comic books span a wide range of genres, artistic styles, and subjects.
A minicomic is a creator-published comic book, often photocopied and stapled or with a handmade binding. In the United Kingdom and Europe the term small press comic is equivalent with minicomic, reserved for those publications measuring A6 or less.
Last Gasp is a San Francisco-based book publisher with a lowbrow art and counterculture focus. Owned and operated by Ron Turner, for most of its existence Last Gasp was a publisher, distributor, and wholesaler of underground comix and books of all types.
Furrlough is a furry comic book originally published by Antarctic Press and continued by Radio Comix. It is edited by Elin Winkler and is nicknamed (dubbed) "Your Funny Animal Anthology".
Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc. is an American comic book distributor serving retailers in North America and worldwide. They transport comic books and graphic novels, as well as other popular culture products such as toys, games, and apparel from comic book publishers or suppliers to retailers. Diamond distributes to the direct market in the United States and has exclusive distribution arrangements with several major U.S. comic book publishers, including Dark Horse Comics, Image Comics, and IDW Publishing.
Radio Comix is an alternative comic book publishing company based in San Antonio, Texas, United States. Founded in 1996 by former Antarctic Press employees Elin Winkler and Pat Duke, Radio Comix has published hundreds of comics from many genres, from both American-created and translated Japanese manga to anthropomorphic to adults-only books under their Sin Factory imprint. Their Furrlough title is the longest-running comic anthology in the US.
British small press comics, once known as stripzines, are comic books self-published by amateur cartoonists and comic book creators, usually in short print runs, in the UK. They're comparable to similar movements internationally, such as American minicomics and Japanese doujinshi. A "small press comic" is essentially a zine composed predominantly of comic strips. The term emerged in the early 1980s to distinguish them from zines about comics. Notable artists who have had their start in British small press comics include Eddie Campbell, Paul Grist, Rian Hughes, Jamie Hewlett, Alan Martin, Philip Bond and Andi Watson.
Blackthorne Publishing, Inc. was a comic book publisher that flourished from 1986–1989. They were notable for the Blackthorne 3-D Series, their reprint titles of classic comic strips like Dick Tracy, and their licensed products. Blackthorne achieved its greatest sales and financial success with their licensed 3-D comics adaptations of the California Raisins, but the financial loss suffered by the failure of their 3-D adaptation of Michael Jackson's film Moonwalker was a major contributor to the publisher's downfall.
The direct market is the dominant distribution and retail network for American comic books. The concept of the direct market was created in the 1970s by Phil Seuling. The network currently consists of:
Big Apple Comix is an early independent comic book published by Flo Steinberg in 1975. A historically important link between underground comix and what would later be called alternative comics, this 36-page, 63⁄4" × 93⁄4" hybrid with glossy color covers and black-and-white interiors contains 11 sometimes sexually frank stories by such mainstream creators as Neal Adams, Archie Goodwin, Denny O'Neil, Herb Trimpe, Al Williamson, and Wally Wood. The creators were mainly friends of Steinberg, working for a low page rate. Most of its stories revolve around New York City during a particularly low ebb in the city's finances, crime situation, race relations, and infrastructure.
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.
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.
Capital City Distribution was a Madison, Wisconsin-based comic book distributor which operated from 1980 to 1996 when they were acquired by rival Diamond Comic Distributors. Under the name Capital Comics, they also published comics from 1981 to 1984.
Bud Plant was a wholesale comics distributor active in the 1970s and 1980s during the growth of the direct market. He also published a selection of comics and zines during the same period. Starting in 1970 as a mail-order distributor specializing in underground comix, Plant absorbed some of his smaller rivals in the 1980s, and then sold his business to Diamond Comics Distributors in 1988. He still, as Bud Plant's Art Books, sells quality reprints and graphic novels.
Heroes World Distribution Co., originally named Superhero Enterprises, was an American comic book distributor. It was founded by Ivan Snyder, active from 1975 to 1997, during the growth and consolidation of the direct market. Heroes World was acquired by Marvel Comics in late 1994 to act as the publisher's sole distributor. This ill-fated move, combined with other marketplace factors of the time, resulted in the financial failure of many other comics distributors and retailers — and the near collapse of the entire North American comic book market.
Comix Book is an underground comic book series published from 1974 to 1976, originally by Marvel Comics. It was the first comic of this type to be published by a mainstream publisher. Edited by Denis Kitchen, Comix Book featured work by such underground luminaries as Justin Green, Kim Deitch, Trina Robbins, Art Spiegelman, and S. Clay Wilson. 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.
Wisconsin Independent News Distributors (WIND) was an alternative left-wing news distributor founded in 1971 in Madison, Wisconsin by Jack Dunn, Roger Metcalf, Bill Morris, and Roney Sorenson. All were students or otherwise involved in the radical student movement of the times at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. The collective expanded through the 1970s to involve over 20 people, and expanding its operations throughout northern Illinois, Wisconsin, and eastern Minnesota.
ICv2 is an online trade magazine that covers geek culture for retailers. ICv2's main areas of focus are comic books, anime, gaming, and show business products. The site offers news, reviews, analysis, and sales information for retailers and librarians. ICv2 holds an annual trade conference in conjunction with the New York Comic Con; the company also periodically publishes ICv2 Retailer Guides in hard copy format.
Milton Griepp is an American businessman who has spent the bulk of his career involved with American comic books. He was the co-founder and CEO of Capital City Distribution, a distributor of comic books and related material, from 1980 to 1996. In 2001, he founded the online trade magazine ICv2 and acts as its CEO.
References
- ↑ Gearino, Dan. Comic Shop: The Retail Mavericks Who Gave Us a New Geek Culture (Ohio University Press, 2017).
- ↑ "Who We Are: Milton Griepp," ICv2.com. Accessed October 15, 2009.