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.
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.
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.
High Times is an American monthly magazine that advocates the legalization of cannabis as well as other counterculture ideas. The magazine was founded in 1974 by Tom Forcade. The magazine had its own book publishing division, High Times Books, and its own record label, High Times Records.
Comics Buyer's Guide, established in 1971, was the longest-running English-language periodical reporting on the American comic book industry. It awarded its annual Comics Buyer's Guide Fan Awards from 1983 to circa 2010. The publication ceased with the March 2013 issue. The magazine was headquartered in Iola, Wisconsin, after originally being published in the Quad Cities region.
Weirdo was a magazine-sized comics anthology created by Robert Crumb and published by Last Gasp from 1981 to 1993. Featuring cartoonists both new and old, Weirdo served as a "low art" counterpoint to its contemporary highbrow Raw, co-edited by Art Spiegelman.
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.
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.
Bernard "Hap" Kliban was an American cartoonist.
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.
Jack Edward Jackson, better known by his pen name Jaxon, was an American cartoonist, illustrator, historian, and writer. He co-founded Rip Off Press, and some consider him to be the first underground comix artist, due to his most well-known comic strip God Nose.
Wonder Wart-Hog is an underground comic book character, a porcine parody of Superman, created by 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.
.info was a computer magazine covering Commodore 8-bit computers and later the Amiga. It was published from 1983 to 1992.
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.
Jay Malcolm Kennedy was an American editor and writer. The author of The Official Underground and Newave Comix Price Guide, he was a long-time editor at King Features Syndicate, eventually rising to the position of editor-in-chief.
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.
Fred Schrier is an artist, writer, and animator, best known as partner to the underground comic book artist Dave Sheridan. Together, using the name "Overland Vegetable Stagecoach," they worked on Mother's Oats Funnies, published by Rip Off Press from 1970 to 1976.
Science Fiction Monthly was a British science fiction magazine published from 1974 to 1976 by New English Library. It was launched in response to demand from readers for posters of the cover art of New English Library's science fiction paperbacks, and was initially very successful, its circulation reaching 150,000 by the third issue. It reprinted artwork by Chris Foss, Jim Burns, Bruce Pennington, Roger Dean, and many others. Well-known writers who appeared in its pages included Brian Aldiss, Bob Shaw, Christopher Priest, and Harlan Ellison. The high production costs meant that a high circulation was necessary to sustain profitability, and when circulation fell to about 20,000 after two years NEL ceased publication. A new magazine, S.F. Digest, was launched in its stead, but lasted only one issue.
The Texas Ranger was the undergraduate humor publication of the University of Texas at Austin (UT), published from 1923 to 1972. A number of people who later went on to become key members of the underground comix scene — including Frank Stack, Gilbert Shelton, and Jaxon — were Texas Ranger editors and contributors during the period 1959–1965. Other notable contributors to The Texas Ranger over the years included Robert C. Eckhardt, John Canaday, Rowland B. Wilson, Harvey Schmidt, Bill Yates, Liz Smith, Robert Benton, Bill Helmer, Robert A. Burns and Wick Allison.
