Robert Dennis Crumb is an American cartoonist who often signs his work R. Crumb. His work displays a nostalgia for American folk culture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and satire of contemporary American culture.
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.
Zap Comix is an underground comix series which was originally part of the youth counterculture of the late 1960s. While a few small-circulation self-published satirical comic books had been printed prior to this, Zap became the model for the "comix" movement that snowballed after its release. The title itself published 17 issues over a period of 46 years.
Manuel Rodriguez, better known as Spain or Spain Rodriguez, was an American underground cartoonist who created the character Trashman. His experiences on the road with the motorcycle club, the Road Vultures M.C., provided inspiration for his work, as did his left-wing politics. Strongly influenced by 1950s EC Comics illustrator Wally Wood, Spain pushed Wood's sharp, crisp black shadows and hard-edged black outlines into a more simplified, stylized direction. His work also extended the eroticism of Wood's female characters.
Wallace Allan Wood was an American comic book writer, artist and independent publisher, widely known for his work on EC Comics's titles such as Weird Science, Weird Fantasy, and MAD Magazine from its inception in 1952 until 1964, as well as for T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, and work for Warren Publishing's Creepy. He drew a few early issues of Marvel's Daredevil and established the title character's distinctive red costume. Wood created and owned the long-running characters Sally Forth and Cannon.
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.
An American comic book is a thin periodical originating in the United States, on average 32 pages, containing comics. While the form originated in 1933, American comic books first gained popularity after the 1938 publication of Action Comics, which included the debut of the superhero Superman. This was followed by a superhero boom that lasted until the end of World War II. After the war, while superheroes were marginalized, the comic book industry rapidly expanded and genres such as horror, crime, science fiction and romance became popular. The 1950s saw a gradual decline, due to a shift away from print media in the wake of television and the impact of the Comics Code Authority. The late 1950s and the 1960s saw a superhero revival and superheroes remained the dominant character archetype throughout the late 20th century into the 21st century.
Richard Alden "Rick" Griffin was an American artist and one of the leading designers of psychedelic posters in the 1960s. As a contributor to the underground comix movement, his work appeared regularly in Zap Comix. Griffin was closely identified with the Grateful Dead, designing some of their best-known posters and album covers such as Aoxomoxoa. His work within the surfing subculture included both film posters and his comic strip, Murphy.
Sisterson! was a short-run comic book which ran for three or four issues around 1990 and was circulated among London comic shops. "Sisterson!" was a "jam comic", i.e., a collection of comic strips each of which was an unplanned collaborative effort, with one creator drawing the first panel and then passing it on to another to be continued, usually resulting in a comic strip far more strange and unpredictable than any one artist would be likely to devise. Essentially, the comic was used as a method to teach sequential thinking and for studying the approach of other artists and creators.
Steve Clay Wilson was an American underground cartoonist and central figure in the underground comix movement. Wilson attracted attention from readers with aggressively violent and sexually explicit panoramas of lowlife denizens, often depicting the wild escapades of pirates and bikers. He was an early contributor to Zap Comix.
Victor Moscoso is a Spanish–American artist best known for producing psychedelic rock posters, advertisements, and underground comix in San Francisco during the 1960s and 1970s. He was the first of the rock poster artists of the 1960s era with formal academic training and experience. He was the first of the rock poster artists to use photographic collage in many of his posters.
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.
The Checkered Demon is a fictional character created by S. Clay Wilson, one of the leading underground comix artists of the 1960s. The character debuted in 1967 in Groulish magazine; his comix debut was in Zap Comix #2, in 1968.
Michael Terry Gilbert is an American comic book artist and writer who has worked for both mainstream and underground comic book companies.
John Workman is an American editor, writer, artist, designer, colorist and letterer in the comic book industry. He is known for his frequent partnerships with writer/artist Walter Simonson and also for lettering the entire run of Grant Morrison/Rachel Pollack's Doom Patrol.
Max Douglas is a Canadian comic book creator. Since approximately 1996, he has worked under the pen name of Salgood Sam which is derived from a reverse spelling of his name.
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.
Donald Richard Donahue was a comic book publisher, operating under the name Apex Novelties, one of the instigators of the underground comix movement in the 1960s.
Comics has developed specialized terminology. Some several attempts have been made to formalize and define the terminology of comics by authors such as Will Eisner, Scott McCloud, R. C. Harvey and Dylan Horrocks. Much of the terminology in English is under dispute, so this page will list and describe the most common terms used in comics.
Yellow Dog was an underground comix newspaper and later comic book published by the Print Mint in Berkeley, California. It published 22 issues from 1968 to 1973, featuring many of the period's most notable underground cartoonists, including Robert Crumb, Joel Beck, Robert Williams, Rick Griffin, Greg Irons, and Trina Robbins. Other frequent contributors included Andy Martin, Franz Cilensek, John Thompson, Buckwheat Florida, Jr., Jim Osborne, Ronald Lipking, and Hak Vogrin. The founding editor was Print Mint co-publisher Don Schencker.
