Predecessor | Hassle Free Press |
---|---|
Founded | 1975 |
Founder | Tony Bennett Carol Bennett [1] |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Headquarters location | London |
Distribution | Turnaround Publisher Services [2] |
Publication types | Comics |
Fiction genres | Underground comix |
Owner(s) | Toskanex Limited [3] |
Official website | www |
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.
The company was founded in 1975 by Tony and Carol Bennett as Hassle Free Press, a U.K. publisher of underground titles like Gilbert Shelton's The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers and Fat Freddy's Cat , as well as work by British creators such as Hunt Emerson and Bryan Talbot. Around 1978 or 1979 the company changed its name to Knockabout Comics. It has published works by Robert Crumb (My Troubles With Women, R. Crumb Draws the Blues, R. Crumb's America). In the 1980s 13 issues of the eponymous Knockabout anthology were produced.
Graphic designer and cartoonist Rian Hughes was the company's chief designer from 1985 to 1992.
Knockabout has frequently suffered from prosecutions from U.K. customs, who have seized work by creators such as Crumb and Melinda Gebbie, claiming it to be obscene [4] [5] or promoting drug use. [3]
The company currently has a diverse catalogue of titles and, with Top Shelf Productions has co-published The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume III: Century and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume IV: The Tempest , both by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill. (The previous installments were published by Wildstorm, Vertigo, and America's Best Comics, all of which are imprints of DC Comics.)
Since the late 1990s, when Rip Off Press essentially stopped publishing comics, Knockabout has become the main English-language publisher for Gilbert Shelton, including such titles as The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers , Wonder Wart-Hog , Fat Freddy's Cat , and Not Quite Dead .
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (LoEG) is a comic book series co-created by writer Alan Moore and artist Kevin O'Neill which began in 1999. The series spans four volumes, an original graphic novel, and a spin-off trilogy of graphic novella. Volume I and Volume II and the graphic novel Black Dossier were published by the America's Best Comics imprint of DC Comics. After leaving the America's Best imprint, the series moved to Top Shelf and Knockabout Comics, which published Volume III: Century, the Nemo Trilogy, and Volume IV: The Tempest. According to Moore, the concept behind the series was initially a "Justice League of Victorian England" but he quickly developed it as an opportunity to merge elements from many works of fiction into one world.
Kevin O'Neill was an English comic book illustrator who was the co-creator of Nemesis the Warlock, Marshal Law, and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
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.
Fat Freddy's Cat is a fictional orange Tabby cat, nominally belonging to Fat Freddy Freekowtski, one of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, a trio featured in Gilbert Shelton's underground comix.
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.
A1 is a graphic novel anthology series published by British company Atomeka Press. It was created in 1989 by Garry Leach and Dave Elliott. In 2004 it was restarted, publishing new and old material.
Top Shelf Productions is an American publishing company founded in 1997, originally owned and operated by Chris Staros and Brett Warnock and a small staff. Now an imprint of IDW Publishing, Top Shelf is based in Marietta, Georgia.
The Bojeffries Saga is a series of comics stories written by Alan Moore and drawn by Steve Parkhouse which have been published by a number of different companies since their debut in 1983 in the UK comics anthology Warrior.
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.
This is a bibliography of works by British author and comic book writer Alan Moore.
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.
Maxwell the Magic Cat was a British comic strip written and drawn by Alan Moore under the pseudonym "Jill de Ray". Moore produced the strip for the weekly Northants Post from 1979 to 1986.
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.
The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic is an upcoming hardcover work by Alan Moore and Steve Moore. Both men have written comics and together co-founded the private magical order known as The Moon and Serpent Grand Egyptian Theatre of Marvels. The book is listed as "a future release" from Top Shelf Productions. Knockabout Comics has confirmed a publication date of 2023.
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.
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.