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.
Dorothea Antoinette "Dori" Seda was an artist best known for her underground comix work in the 1980s. She occasionally used the pen name "Sylvia Silicosis." Her comics combined exaggerated fantasy and ribald humor with documentation of her life in the Mission District of San Francisco, California.
Aline Kominsky-Crumb was an American underground comics artist. Kominsky-Crumb's work, which is almost exclusively autobiographical, is known for its unvarnished, confessional nature. In 2016, ComicsAlliance listed Kominsky-Crumb as one of twelve women cartoonists deserving of lifetime achievement recognition. She was married to cartoonist Robert Crumb, with whom she frequently collaborated. Their daughter, Sophie Crumb, is also a cartoonist.
Mary Fleener is an American alternative comics artist, writer and musician from Los Angeles. Fleener's drawing style, which she calls cubismo, derives from the cubist aesthetic and other artistic traditions. Her first publication was a work about Zora Neale Hurston, called Hoodoo (1988), followed by the semi-autobiographical comics series Slutburger, and the anthology Life of the Party (1996). She is a member of the rock band called The Wigbillies.
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.
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.
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.
Sophia Violet "Sophie" Crumb is an American-French comics artist.
Phoebe Louise Adams Gloeckner is an American cartoonist, illustrator, painter, and novelist.
Wimmen's Comix, later retitled (respelled) as Wimmin's Comix, is an influential all-female underground comics anthology published from 1972 to 1992. Though it covered a wide range of genres and subject matters, Wimmen's Comix focused more than other anthologies of the time on feminist concerns, homosexuality, sex and politics in general, and autobiographical comics. Wimmen's Comix was a launching pad for many cartoonists' careers, and it inspired other small-press and self-published titles like Twisted Sisters, Dyke Shorts, and Dynamite Damsels.
Diane Robin Noomin was an American comics artist associated with the underground comics movement. She is best known for her character DiDi Glitz, who addresses transgressive social issues such as feminism, female masturbation, body image, and miscarriages.
The Narrative Corpse is a chain story, or comic jam, created by 69 all-star cartoonists in the early-to-mid 1990s. A graphic novel compilation of the result was published in 1995.
Dennis P. Eichhorn was an American writer, best known for his adult-oriented autobiographical comic book series Real Stuff. His stories, often involving, sex, drugs, and alcohol, have been compared to those of Jack Kerouac, Ken Kesey, and Charles Bukowski.
Tits & Clits Comix is an all-female underground comics anthology put together by Joyce Farmer and Lyn Chevli, published from 1972 to 1987. In addition to Farmer and Chevli, contributors to Tits & Clits included Roberta Gregory, Lee Marrs, and Trina Robbins.
Krystine Kryttre is an American alternative comics artist, painter, animator, writer, and performer from San Francisco. currently based in Los Angeles. Her work is dark, often explicit, and visually distinctive." Her work has been exhibited in galleries since the late 1980s, including a number of solo shows in Los Angeles.
Cat-Head Comics was an American alternative/underground comics publisher that operated from 1980 to 1998. Founded by cartoonist Steve Lafler as a vehicle for his own work, Cat-Head was later joined by writer/poet/editor Stephen Beaupre. Cat-Head's longest-running title was the anthology Buzzard, which lasted 20 issues.
Young Lust was an underground comix anthology published sporadically from 1970 to 1993. The title, which parodied 1950s romance comics such as Young Love, was noted for its explicit depictions of sex. Unlike many other sex-fueled underground comix, Young Lust was generally not perceived as misogynistic. Founding editors Bill Griffith and Jay Kinney gradually morphed the title into a satire of societal mores. According to Kinney, Young Lust "became one of the top three best-selling underground comix, along with Zap Comix and The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers".
Cartoonists Co-op Press was an underground comix publishing cooperative based in San Francisco that operated from 1973 to 1974. It was a self-publishing venture by cartoonists Kim Deitch, Bill Griffith, Jerry Lane, Jay Lynch, Willy Murphy, Diane Noomin, and Art Spiegelman. Cartoonist Justin Green's brother Keith acted as salesman/distributor, and the operation was run out of Griffith's apartment.
Angela Bocage is a bisexual comics creator who published mainly in the 1980s and 1990s. Bocage was active in the queer comics community during these decades, publishing in collections like Gay Comix,Strip AIDS USA, and Wimmen's Comix. Bocage also created, edited, and contributed comics to Real Girl, a comics anthology published by Fantagraphics.
