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.
Fantagraphics is an American publisher of alternative comics, classic comic strip anthologies, manga, magazines, graphic novels, and the erotic Eros Comix imprint.
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.
Bondage Fairies is an erotic manga about highly sexual, human-shaped female forest fairies with wings. It was originally a series in publisher Kubo Shoten's Young Lemon magazine in 1990, where it was titled Insect Hunter. The manga is drawn by Teruo Kakuta. The series was later published in the United States with translated English text. It is among the earliest sexually explicit manga (eromanga) commercially published in the United States where it dates from 1994. Jason Thompson in Manga: The Complete Guide mentions it was "the first hit translated adult manga".
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".
Kitchen Sink Press was a comic book publishing company founded by Denis Kitchen in 1970. Kitchen Sink Press was a pioneering publisher of underground comics, and was also responsible for numerous republications of classic comic strips in hardcover and softcover volumes. One of their best-known products was the first full reprint of Will Eisner's The Spirit—first in magazine format, then in standard comic book format. The company closed in 1999.
Antarctic Press is a San Antonio-based comic book publishing company which publishes "Amerimanga" style comic books. The company also produces "how-to" and "you can" comics, instructing on areas of comic book creation and craft.
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.
Richard Moore is an American writer and artist of comic books. His published titles include Far West, Boneyard and Deja Vu.
Erotic comics are adult comics which focus substantially on nudity and sexual activity, either for their own sake or as a major story element. As such they are usually not permitted to be sold to legal minors. Like other genres of comics, they can consist of single panels, short comic strips, comic books, or graphic novels/albums. Although never a mainstream genre, they have existed as a niche alongside – but usually separate from – other genres of comics.
The White Buffalo Gazette (WBG) is a newsletter/zine that covered the "Obscuro Comix & Art." The WBG took the place of Steve Willis' City Limits Gazette (1991–1993) when that publication was retired. WBG was originally inspired by Bruce Chrislip's zine of the same name, as well as Clay Geerdes' Comix World newsletter. Unlike City Limits Gazette or Comix World, which were primarily networking and review publications, WBG was chiefly illustrative in nature.
Mary Wings is an active American cartoonist, writer, and artist. She is known for highlighting lesbian themes in her work. In 1973, she made history by releasing Come Out Comix, the first lesbian comic book. She is also known for her series of detective novels featuring lesbian heroine Emma Victor. Divine Victim, Wings' only Gothic novel, won the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Mystery in 1994.
Ramba is an Italian erotic comic, whose titular protagonist is a hitlady based on the pornographic actress of the same name. The comics are a mixture of action, adventure and adult situations. The comic follows the adventures of Ramba, a mercenary assassin who carries out various murders for hire that drive the storyline, and whose every move is accompanied by sexual activity, with strangers, her employers, and often with her victims.
Jacki Randall is an American cartoonist, tattoo artist, musician, and writer. Born in Los Angeles in 1959, Randall first garnered attention for her lesbian focused cartoons in the Baltimore Gaypaper in 1981. Her comics have been featured in publications such as Gay Comics, The Baltimore Sun, On Our Backs, and Lesbian Connection. Randall is currently based in Baltimore, Maryland, where she works as a tattoo artist.
Gay Comix is an underground comics series published from 1980–1998 featuring cartoons by and for gay men and lesbians. The comic books had the tagline “Lesbians and Gay Men Put It On Paper!”
Larry Fuller is an African-American underground comix writer, publisher, and promoter. Along with other such notables as Richard "Grass" Green, Guy Colwell, and Fuller's long-time business partner and friend, Raye Horne, Fuller made sure that the voices of black comic book creators were heard in a time when their artistic efforts were largely ignored. On the topics of race and sexuality, Fuller mastered the art of delivering social commentary in humorous form.
Bud Plant Inc. was a wholesale comics distributor active in the 1970s and 1980s during the growth of the direct market. The company also published a selection of comics and zines during the same period. Starting in 1970 as a mail-order distributor specializing in underground comix, Bud 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.
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.
Jon Macy is a gay American cartoonist. He began his career in 1990 with the series Tropo published September 1990 – April 1992 by Blackbird Comics. Since then, he has contributed to various LGBT comics anthologies and gay pornographic magazines, but he is best known for his graphic novel Teleny and Camille, which won a 2010 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Erotica.
Carl Vaughn Frick – often credited as Vaughn Frick or simply Vaughn – is an alternative cartoonist known for the exploration of gay, environmental, HIV/AIDS awareness, and radical political themes in his comics. His Watch Out! Comix #1 (1986) was an influential gay-themed comic, one of the first by an openly gay male cartoonist. His work was also included in issues of Gay Comix,Meatmen, Strip AIDS, No Straight Lines, and So Fey, a collection of Radical Faerie fiction.
