Week Six: Underground Comics



Cover from Cheech Wizard by Vaughn Bode

Underground Comics originated in the campus humour magazines of the early 1960s and were given popular exposure in the alternative newspapers that grew up in most cities during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Just as the comic strips of the early part of the 20th century helped establish the readership of mainstream newspapers, underground comics had a similar symbiotic relationship with underground newspapers, helping to create a wider and regular readership for alternative papers like the East Village Other, The Berkeley Barb and the Los Angeles Free Press. When excess capacity was available on the printing presses that were used to print rock posters, the opportunity arose for the creation and distribution of underground comic books. The primary distribution system for underground comics was the networks of head shops that grew up around the country in response to the spreading youth counter-culture of the early 1970s. With the enaction of anti-paraphernalia laws and the suppression of the "head" shops in the late 1970s and early 1980s, underground comics began to morph into the alternative comics and art comics movements that established new channels of distribution in comics collectible shops and mainstream bookstores. The underground comics helped create an audience for adult storytelling in graphic narrative which led directly to the development of the graphic novel and literary expectations for long-form comics.
For this week's class read from the underground comics on the Course Resources page. We will be discussing the work of Robert Crumb and Aline Kominsky Crumb and a number of other important underground comics and comics artists especially Mr. Natural,  Zap and Air Pirates Funnies. Listen to the appropriate soundtrack while reading the Underground Comix for a more virtual 60s experience.

As stated in class, most underground comics are by definition offensive, they are intended to offend and to push the borders of taste and propriety.  You will find nudity, sex, violence, racism, sexism, pretty much any and all offensive material you can imagine represented here.  For those who wish to limit the offensive material they encounter might try the following suggestions, these works are related to underground comics but don't directly feature sex, nudity, drug use or significant violence:

Howard the Duck
Barefootz by Howard Cruise
Yellow Submarine
Comics by Basil Wolverton

click here to go directly to this week's Activity Page for resources and a more detailed explanation of this week's assignment

 "If you feel safe in the area that you're working in, you're not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you're capable of being in; go a little bit out of your depth. And when you don't feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you're just about in the right place to do something exciting."

David Bowie as quoted by Eric Stephenson