Diary of a Nine-Year-Old Underground Comix Fanatic
by Drew FriedmanIn late 1968 I was unleashed into a downtown bookstore in Manhattan and happened upon a stack of comic books on the floor in the back. I picked one up and thumbed through it, but I was confused at what I was looking at. It was titled Zap. A black and white comic book? For “Adult Intellectuals Only”? 35 cents? And all that crazy art, which looked old but was obviously new… by one guy named “R. Crumb”? At age nine I realized I was way too young to be looking at this and was effectively breaking the law. But I couldn’t look away, it was forbidden fruit and I had a sense it would shift my life’s trajectory. Up until then I thought Mad magazine was the most subversive thing going, but this? x
1968: Nine-year-old underground comix fanatic Drew Friedman
I had to own and slowly absorb some of these strange comics within the confines of my bedroom, but how? I discretely slipped a few Zaps, a Bijou Funnies, and a Feds ‘n’ Heads within the pile of books stacked up at the cashier’s desk that my dad was purchasing, assuming he’d think they were just comic books and wouldn’t notice that they were for adults only. I’m still slowly absorbing them.
A few years ago, I created two books of portraits paying tribute to the creators who entered the world of mainstream comic books between the mid-’30s to the mid-’50s, when the newly imposed Comics Code appeared and EC Comics among others would soon disappear. Comic books for the most part became homogenized and stagnant. But jump a decade… young artists influenced by Harvey Kurtzman’s iconoclastic and trailblazing satirical publications Mad, Trump, and Humbug, throw in some Tijuana Bibles and Paul Krassner’s The Realist, and dispense it out to an eager comic book-weaned, antiestablishment counterculture, and the Underground Comix revolution exploded, redefining the potential of comics, creating a major paradigm shift and blowing the lid off the traditional comic book.
This is my tribute to those underground comix creators, covering the freewheeling decade 1967–1977. Jay Kennedy’s book The Underground Comix Price Guide lists over 3,000 artists who contributed to underground comix. I’ve narrowed that list down to an essential 101, including some lesser known and some forgotten subjects, but all worthy of inclusion. To varying degrees, this radical, egalitarian, artistically innovative movement created funny, thought-provoking, horrifying, silly, provocative, whimsical, antisocial, self-indulgent, spacey, perverted, dumb, outrageous, and in many cases brilliant comics work. l
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Drew Friedman and R. Crumb, March 2019 (The Bowery Hotel, New York City). Photo by Andrew Cooke.
Richard “Grass” Green
(1939–2002)
From Fort Wayne, Indiana, Green was the first and most prominent black artist to regularly contribute to underground comix. Beginning in the early ’60s he wrote and drew for comics fanzines and later would contribute to Charlton Comics before he switched over to create work for the undergrounds. Green’s comics featuring his black-themed superhero parodies were published in the top selling Super Soul Comix #1 from Kitchen Sink in 1972, highlighting his characters Wildman and Rubberroy. His work also appeared in Good Jive Comix, Snarf, Bizarre Sex, Commies From Mars, L.A. Comics, and many more.
Rory Hayes (1949–1983)
Born in San Francisco with a childhood illness that would leave him with vision only in his right eye, Hayes was self-taught and became an underground comix modern primitive, his work celebrated and supported by fellow UG artists including Bill Griffith and R. Crumb. His hallucinatory and disjointed comics featuring decomposing old crones, bloodsucking bogeymen, and a cute, tormented teddy bear were featured within the pages of Bogeyman, Bijou Funnies, Skull Comix, San Francisco Comic Book, Jiz, Snatch, Arcade, and his solo Cunt Comix. Hayes became a speed addict and died from an accidental overdose of multiple pills at age 34. Bill Griffith’s “The Rory Story” appeared in 1974’s San Francisco Comic Book #5 and was reprinted in Weirdo #12 after Hayes died, along with a special tribute by Griffith. Where Demented Wented (Fantagraphics Books), an anthology of Hayes’ work by Dan Nadel and Glenn Bray, was published in 2008.
Trina Robbins (1943–)
Robbins, from Brooklyn, was inspired by the psychedelic comics of Nancy Burton, a.k.a. Panzika, that ran in The East Village Other in the mid-’60s.
By 1969, she was contributing her own comics to EVO and its comics offshoot, Gothic Blimp Works. In 1969, Robbins and her then-partner, Kim Deitch, relocated from New York to San Francisco, part of the massive underground comix influx. With Willy Mendes, she edited and drew the cover art for the first feminist comic book, 1970’s It Ain’t Me, Babe (Last Gasp). Her comics appeared in San Francisco Comic Book, Swift Premium Comics, ProJunior, and Bijou Funnies #8 (featuring her parody of Spain’s Trashman). She edited and contributed to the all-woman comics Wet Satin, Girl Fight, and Wimmen’s Comix. Robbins, in recent years, has written numerous acclaimed books about women in comics history, including a 2017 memoir, Last Girl Standing (Fantagraphics).
