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History of Illustration Susan Doyle, Jaleen Grove & Whitney Sherman (editors)

Chapter 26: Countercultures: Underground Comix, Rock Posters, and Protest Art, 1960-1990 R.W. Lovejoy

ISBN: 9781501342110

CSULB Library Permalink: https://csu-lb.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01CALS_ULB/d7ul0l/alma991015984308502910

Doyle, Susan, et al., editors. History of Illustration. Fairchild Books, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018.

Cou ntercu ltu res: U nderg round Comix, Rock Posters, and Protest Art, 1960-1990 R. W. Lovejoy

Figure 26.1 Andy Warhol, Campbell 's Soup Can (Tomato), 1965. Synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen ink on canvas, 36 x 24''. Warhol, who won many awards throughout the 1950s for his illus tration, typically used printmakin g techniques topic ture products in multiples. He then used this strategy of repeating images to critique mass production and consumerism in what was soon dubbed Pop Art. Here, his hand made screenprint of the iconic soup can resembles billboard or poster advertis ing art- but it was intended for gallery display instead.

Image and artwork

Licensed by Art ists Rights Society.

432 Part V: The Evolution of Illustration in an Electronic Age

The 1960s witnessed cultural and political events that fundamentally changed American life: the August 1963 March on Washington and resulting Civil Rights Act of 1964; the Black Power movement and the Voting Rights Act of 1965; and the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., which rocked previously held assumptions of social constructs and stirred repressed hatred in the nation. The 1963 publication of Betty Friedan's revolutionary feminist book The Feminine Mystique questioned the primacy of motherhood over career, while the introduction of "The Pill" offered women unprecedented contraceptive control, a key to changing women's economic role. Dissent over the Vietnam War prompted sit-ins and peaceful demonstrations all over the country-some violently attacked by police.

It was the heyday of experimentation, bringing Pop Art ( which turned popular culture themes and products of mass culture into ironic gallery art objects while satirizing commercial art) (Figure 26.1); new wave film and psychedelic music; and the emergence of underground comix (independent comic strips and books that originated with the alternative press), a movement that redefined the comics medium. Filled with events both devastating and progressive, this period shook political and cultural foundations in the United States and elsewhere, inspiring the search for an alternative culture founded upon egalitarian values, civil rights, and peace.

Alternative Press

The "hippie" culture, most associated today with the political and social movements of the 1960s, was an outgrowth of the subculture of politically left-leaning poets, writers, jazz musicians, and other nonconformists that formed the Beat Generation, stereotypically called "beatniks:' The political roots of countercultures are also located in the Civil Rights movement and anti-Cold War protests of the 1950s that later coalesced around the peace movements of the 1960s and '70s in protest of the U.S. military presence in Vietnam. These movements were connected and fueled by the alternative press independent publishers who sought to provide journalism and information neglected by large media corporations. The accessibility of print technologies offset printing, automated typesetting machines, and rub-down transfer display lettering such as Letraset used in paste-up mechanicals ( camera-ready art and text assembled on a white board in preparation for photographic transfer to a printing matrix)-combined with the relatively cheap cost of newsprint and postage meant that for a few hundred dollars, anyone could become a publisher. These resources, relatively easy for untrained individuals to learn, allowed novice publishers to experiment with the visual style of their publications. Distribution networks were arranged through music stores and drug paraphernalia shops, called "head shops;' that catered to a young audience and helped the counterculture networks collectively called "the underground" to flourish.

As increasing numbers of people became politically active, the alternative press reports on politics became vital lines of communication and engaged readers who empathized with counterculture activities, even if they were not activists themselves. Soon many major cities had thriving underground newspapers. Although readership was small compared to mainstream newspapers, the alternative press gained a devoted audience, often supported by sales and by advertisers Seeking to reach the growing youth audience. The Berkeley Barb had a circulation of approximately 20,000 in 1967, and the Los Angeles Free Press, at its height, had a readership of 95,000. Smaller alternative papers' circulations ranged between 1,000 and 10,000. However small the numbers appeared, these newspapers were often kept and shared, thus reaching an audience much larger than the circulation figures.

Initially, alternative newspapers focused on local stories and community events and were largely published in isolation from one another. In 1966, one of The East Village Other (EVO)'s founders, Walter Bowart (American, 1939- 2007), along with Alan Katzman and John Wilcox, brought together twenty-five underground papers in the Underground Press Syndicate (UPS). In 1967, other leftist news and feature distributors such as the Liberation News Service (LNS) emerged. These alternative news agencies enabled publishers to share news stories, columns, comics, photographs, and other resources, thus economically printing more and better content and cultivating larger audiences. The newspapers were disseminated through record shops, independent bookstores, head shops, and by

Chapter 26: Countercultures: Underground Com ix, Rock Posters, and Protest Art, 1960- 1990 433

local street vendors. Communities found their experience and interests reflected in the art and articles, creating a shared sense of cultural identity that linked local expression to national movements (Figure 26.2).

Psychedelic Posters

Blues, folk, and jazz formed the basis for the emerging musical forms of rock 'n roll and bebop, respectively-the new choice for young audiences of the 1950s. Typical early blues or jazz concert posters were dominated by the names of the musicians in plain text with headshots and decorative elements such as musical notes or stars, designs that rarely reflected the emotions of the music. This trend changed in the 1960s with psychedelic rock concerts and the emergence of San Francisco as its epicenter. Posters became less explicit in their message and more conceptual in their approach, embracing experimental graphics that visualized the immersive experience of hallucinogenic drugs.

Figure 26.2 Kim Dei tch, cover, East Village Other, October II , 1968. Counterculture newspapers like The East Village Other (EVO) published the ea rly work of many underground cartoo nists, including Robert Crumb, Kim Deitch, and Trina Robbins. Underground newspaper designs ranged from visually elaborate to plain text. Experimentation with layou t and gradient color techn iques sometimes made the stories illegible, but this freedom of design and lack of professional po lish signified the noncommerc ial values of the countercul ture. This cover by EVO staff artis t Kim Deitch includes his signature charac ters Sunshine Girl and Waldo the Cat.

Image: Fant agraphics, © Kim Deitch. Courtesy of Fant agraphics (fantagraphics.corn).

Music, drugs, long hair, flamboyant dress, light shows, and dance were combined for the first time at The Charlatans' 1965 concert, and promoted with a poster known as "The Seed;' created by band members George Hunter (American, birth year unknown) and Michael Ferguson (American, 1942-1979). The poster is densely packed with loosely drawn portraits of the band members and hand-lettered band name and event information. The poster style influenced the creation of even more sophisticated use of hand-lettering and drawn images in visually stimulating yet increasingly complex compositions.

Soon experimental hand-drawn and photographically manipulated lettering, images, and color dominated poster designs. The performers' names and the venue became secondary to visual coding of the concert experience. "The posters looked like what we were playing;' recalled Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart. "They were an open call to come and have fun ... they didn't just announce the concert, they resonated with the style of the times:' The trend toward a more conceptual approach to illustration was seen not just in music posters, but also in protest posters and later in underground comix.

Key among San Francisco psychedelic poster artists were The Big Five: Americans Victor Moscoso (b. 1936), Rick Griffin (1944- 1991), Alton Kelley (1940-2008), Stanley Mouse (b. 1940), and Robert Wesley "Wes" Wilson (b. 1937). Moscoso studied at both Cooper Union and Yale and was one of the few formally trained San Francisco poster artists. He found that he had to rethink the function of his illustrations in order to produce effective psychedelic posters, stating, "[B]y reversing everything that I had learned ... I got with the trip. Lettering should not be legible. A poster should not transmit its message easily

Figure 26.3 Victor Moscoso, poster, The Doors, Steve Miller Blues Band, Avalon Ballroom, I 967. By the mid - l 960s, standard photo graphic portraits and naturalistic illustrations of rock musicians had been replaced by a more conceptual approach to pro moting shows. The overlaying of pho tographic images, Victorian-era letter ing, and vibrating color combinations refl ected the musi cal experience.

Figure 26.4 Robert Wesley

"Wes" Wilson, poster, The Sound, published by Bill Graham Presents, San Francisco, 1966. Lithograph, 24 1/ 1 X ]3 1/ ,' '_

Barely legible lettering, expres sive color, and imagery based on Art Nouveau precedents (see Chapter 15) convey the rapturous, hallucinogenic, mind-altering state of psychedelic con cert audiences.

434 Part V: The Evolution of Illustration in an Elec tronic Age

and simply . . . Once I figured it out, then I was able to bring my schooling into it, and my vibrating colors. I could out-vibrate anyone" (Figure 26.3).

In another pioneering example by Wes Wilson, the title of The Sound dominates the poster and is linked to a sensuous female nude in the center through shared coloration (Figure 26.4). In the background, Wilson's swirling letterforms melt into sinuous shapes and are printed in optically vibrating color combinations that make legibility difficult.

While also functioning as advertisements, psychedelic posters were meant to be contemplated for their own sake- as a complement to the music and to capture the mind-expanding experience of LSD and marijuana, prevalent recreational drugs. The relative accessibility of screenprinting and general affordability of offset lithography provided poster illustrators and designers with the means to publish and promote themselves. Communities outside of California soon established their own dubs and ballrooms and hired local artists to create original posters in the psychedelic style as well. Typically distributed by hand to venues where tickets were sold, remaining posters were tacked up in neighborhoods where young music lovers might see them.

Appropriation of Art Sources

The appropriation of images from fine and popular art sources was an important aspect of psychedelic poster art of the 1960s. Wes Wilson's radically experimental lettering was inspired by the work of Alfred Roller (Austrian, 1864-1935), a painter, designer, and poster artist associated with the Vienna Secession (an influential Austrian art and design group that was an offshoot of the Arts and Crafts movement) . Likewise, Alton Kelley's and Stanley Mouse's design for the Grateful Dead's 1966 concert poster Skull and Roses appropriated a 1913 painting by illustrator Edmund J. Sullivan (English, 1869-1933), a look that eventually became synonymous with the band's visual aesthetic (Figure 26.5) . Outside the psychedelic scene, contemporary Pop Art figures such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and New York illustrators/designers associated with Push Pin Studios (see Chapter 24) also reinterpreted motifs from popular culture, comic books, or Art Nouveau designs.

By 1967, the innovations of psychedelic art had been incorporated into mainstream culture. Wes Wilson discovered to his chagrin that his groundbreaking work was little known in New York art circles, where illustrators such as Peter Max (American, b. 1937) adapted the style of The Big Five for mainstream advertising designed to appeal to the youth market.

Print and the Black Panther Party

The most influential radical African American artist of the counterculture was Emory Douglas (American, b. 1943 ), who worked for the alternative newspaper the Black Panther Community News Service, published by the Black Panther Party (BPP) . Formed in 1966 by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton in Oakland, California, the BPP was a militant activist group that advocated black community resistance against repressive racist government tactics and sought equality for all ethnic minorities through concerted activism. In 1967, Emory Douglas became the Party's "Revolutionary Artist and Minister of Culture:' Douglas shortened the Party newspaper's title to the Black Panther and emblazoned it with his distinctive panther logo.

Douglas moved production from mimeograph to offset press, giving the underground newspaper a professional look with two-color illustrations-usually simplified drawings with bold outlines and flat areas of color drawn with markers. Douglas also produced a full-page political cartoon for the back cover of each issue illustrating an aspect of the Panthers' ten-point program advocating community activism and armed resistance. One-third of the papers were sold in the Bay Area with an additional 10,000 to 20,000 printed and pasted-up as posters throughout Oakland; the rest were distributed throughout the United States.

C hapte r 26: Countercultures: Underground Comix, Rock Posters, and Protest Art, 1960- 1990 435

Douglas's foc us on empowered, militant black activists was revolutionary because it suggested violence and retribution to come (Figure 26.6), in contrast with media images of civil rights protests usually portraying peaceful demonstrators being victimized.

While the BPP's violent rhetoric brought publicity and some limited boosts in membership, it ultimately aggravated relations with police and the government, and was largely rejected by the community. By 1970, the BPP shifted its emphasis to community work such as clothing drives, free lunch programs, and medical services. Douglas's illustrations mirrored this change with posters featuring more modeled, expressive drawings in ink and graphite pencil (Figure 26.7).

Figure 26.5 Al ton Kelley and Stanley Mouse, poster, Skull and Roses/Gratef ul Dead, Oxford Circle, Avalon Ballrootn, San Francisco, 1966. Psychedelic poster arti sts fo und vintage illust ra tions offered powerful mate rial from which to build representations of the new music and cultural scene. Kelley and Mouse appropriated a 191 3 illustration and made it the central image of their Gratefu l Dead concert poster.

Artwork by Stanley Mouse and Alton Kelley. © I 966, 1984, 1994 Rh ino Entertainment

Company. Used with permission. A ll rights reserved .

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Figure 26.6 Emory Douglas, "Warning to America;' the Black Panther, Ju ne 27, 1970. Douglas's dynam ically composed illustrations empha sized the active role of women as com munity leaders and fighters fo r justice, prepared to resist oppression.

Figure 26.7 Emory Douglas, "Hallelujah- The Might and Power of the People is Beginning to Show;' the Black Panther, May 29, 197 1. Finding that sup port for aggressive policies was weak, th e Black Panther Party refocused its effo rts on community socia l development. Posters were an important method of ra llying col lective action when infighting and pressure from government authorities threat ened solidarity.

436 Part V: The Evolution of Illustration in an Electronic Age

Theme Box 48: Butler: Gender and Queer Studies by Pernille Holm

Looking at prescribed themes and stereotypes, in the 1970s art historians Griselda Pollock (b. 1949) and John Berger (1926-2017) (see Chapter 9, Theme Box 17, "Ways of Seeing") began to shift the debate about gender from a focus on the identity of the artist to the gender biases and power structures embed ded in visual communication and art. They showed how visual language implies, embodies, and reinforces assumptions about masculinity and femininity. As Berger argues, in visual culture, "Men act, women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at." Film theorist Laura Mulvey (English, b. 1941) elaborated on Berger's argument in the context of tradi tional cinema. She argued that in typical Hollywood films, men are the bearers of the look, whereas women are the spectacle. The male hero is typically active and instru mental in moving the story forward while the female character, cast as an object of desire, is often passive or disrupts the narrative flow as a distracting object. Furthermore, from the point of view of the camera lens, implicitly a heterosexual male's view, the actress is regarded in highly gendered and sexualized ways. Thereby, Mulvey argues, Hollywood cinema reflects and reinforces the ways in which pleasure in looking and the power to look have been assigned to what she calls the male gaze in patriarchal society. Many scholars since have analyzed other media such as pin-ups and medical imaging in terms of the male gaze.

The question of gender informs much feminist discourse on visual communication: how masculinity and femininity are conveyed , what power structures are embedded in visuals, and the significance of the practitioner's gender. Much debate has focused on female,

queer, and cross-gender identi- ties, not to promote them above the male heterosexual identity, but to address areas of culture that have been systematically devalued so that heterosexual men could have an advantage. Feminist and queer discourses aim to redress the balance while unmasking the roots of sexism and challenging the reasons for discrimination.

Many artists and illustrators have challenged gender assumptions and explored the very question of what gender is, from widely varying points of view. In the 1970s, some entertained the idea that there are essential differences between men and women to be celebrated on equal terms. Such views were realized through an engagement with and articulation of women's identities and unique, often personal, female experiences. Hence, the possibility of specifically female visual language (in terms of subject matter and materials) was explored and in some cases adopted. Strands of female traditional culture were retrieved and reevaluated, and time-honored female craft materials were given a new consideration and status. Faith Ringgold's (American, b. 1930) use of quilts to illustrate African American stories stems from this recuperation (Figure TB48.1).

In the 1980s and '90s, women artists and art historians began to question the idea of an innate femininity and the notion that there are essential differJnc~s between men and women, partly because the claim that women are naturally and essentially different to men can easily backfire, rendering women "other" to the norm instead of equal.

American philosopher and gender theorist Judith Butler (b. 1956) greatly influenced some of these ideas. In her books Gender Trouble and Bodies That Matter, she argued that gender

is not an expression of a biologically determined sex but rather culturally and socially constructed through a set of stylized bodily acts that are repeated over time to the point that they seem "natural"-which makes them self-perpetuating and hard to challenge.

In effect, we perform "femi- ninity" or "masculinity," and this performance is what itself creates gender. Butler does not perceive gender performance as a volun- tary choice. On the contrary, she argues we are limited and regulated through various social pressures embedded in speech and manners, which predetermine what gendered identities are permitted and what stylized actions we may perform (for example, women's sports uniforms are more revealing than men's, and we are conditioned to accept a man who speaks assertively more than we are a woman). Coerced to perform these stylized acts, we give the impression of having a coherent and stable gendered identity while in fact we are only exhibiting the norms and conventions produced by social expectations. The key myths this perpetuates are that females are opposite to and lesser than males, and that heterosexuality is preferred.

Rather than trying to define "women" and "men" as fundamental binary opposites, Butler believes we should examine how power shapes our understanding of gender; and furthermore , that we should "free" gender and let it be flexible and multifaceted. Her ideas of identity as elastic, variable, and unbound are key principles in queer theory, the philosophical discourse that chal lenges the assumption that sexual orientation and gender are fixed.

Fine artists of the 1980s and '90s critically reexamined past and present images of women. In particular, the female body was

Chapter 26: Countercultures: Underground Comix, Rock Posters, and Protest Art, 1960- 1990 437

problematized : it was either removed from art altogether, stripped of its erotic connotations, or used in an accusatory or ironic manner. "Femininity" was rejected, exposed as an ideological construct designed to suppress women.

Meanwhile, third wave feminism began to challenge the didactic, cool , and unemotional art associated with this period. Instead of making critical works about the representa tion of women in patriarchal culture, they celebrated, enjoyed, and played with notions of feminin- ity, cross-gender, and the sexed body in all its diversity. While artists recognized femininity as a cultural construct, they took it as one they could explore and play with in order

Figure TB48. l

to seduce both men and women. Irony and parody became key strategic devices. There was also an increased emphasis on personal and individual identity rather than on shared identity. Alternative views of gender are presented in Girls Will Be Boys Will Be Girls: A Coloring Book (2004). The authors chose this medium because they felt that humorous pictures were the most approachable way to communicate the issues.

For illustrators interested in putting gender on the agenda, there is a rich history on which to draw. Most importantly, there are no "innocent" ways of examining or representing gender. Whichever strategy is adopted, certain values

Faith Ringgold, Tar Beach 2, Quilt, 1990. Multicolored screenprint on silk plain weave, printed cotton plain weave, black and green synthetic moire, 66 x 67''. The narrative of living in New York City that the quilt documents was developed into the Caldecott honor-winning children's book Tar Beach.

and views wil l be expressed. The trick is to do it knowingly and with a mind open to the nuances at play.

Further Reading Berger, John, Ways of Seeing {London: Penguin Books, 1972).

Butler, Judith, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 2015).

Butler, Judith, Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex" (New York: Routledge, 2011 ).

Mulvey, Laura, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, " Screen, vol. 16, no. 3, Autumn 1975: 6-1 8.

Pollock, Griselda, "Women, Art, and Art History: Gender and Feminist Analyses-Art History-Oxford Bibliographies-Obo." http:/ /www .oxfordbibliographies.com/view/ document/obo-9780199920105/ obo-9780199920105-0034.xml.

438 Part V: The Evolution o f Illustration in an Electronic Age

Underground Comix

Comic books for adults was a contradiction in terms in the early 1960s. Newspaper comic strips might appeal to adult readers, but comic books were strictly kids' stuff and had been since the imposition of the Comics Code in 1954. By the 1960s, comic art in America was stagnating under its restrictions (see Chapter 23). It was therefore radical when underground comix, independent comic strips, and books that dealt with adult themes in a comic book format emerged with seeming disregard for the Comics Code or the popular marketplace. As independent, noncorporate publications, underground comix avoided the regulatory environment of standard distribution channels, and liberally dealt with topics like sex, violence, drugs, race, politics, mental health, and religion. Outrageous or taboo topics and adult themes within were signaled to readers by the spelling of comics with an x on covers (comix), to indicate the more adult, "X-rated" content.

Many underground cartoonists had been avid comics readers as children and enjoyed pre-Comics Code horror and science fiction titles, as well as Harvey Kurtzman's pioneering satirical periodical MAD (see Chapter 23). Early newspaper comic strips were another major influence, particularly Chester Gould's (American, 1900-1985) Dick Tracy, Harold Gray's (American, 1894-1968) Little Orphan Annie, and George Herriman's (American, 1880-1944) Krazy Kat. Several comix took root in fanzine and small press publications that paid little or no money because they offered freedom from censorship, which attracted many artists. "Hurricane" Nancy Kalish (American, b. 1941), Kim Deitch (American, b. 1944), and Manuel "Spain" Rodriguez (American, 1940-2012) were among the artists submitting comix to underground papers like The East Village Other. With EVO and other publications paying for comix, the work was profitable enough to help support the artists. However, it was the ability to explore adult themes in stand-alone comix books and the public's interest in reading in this format that fully established underground comix as a movement.

Creative Variety in Comix

The difference between underground and mainstream cartoonists was as much a matter of aesthetic sensibility as it was of subject matter. Underground cartoonist and comic historian Trina Robbins recalled, "Plot was not considered important .. . The underground artist, more concerned with design than content, simply put felt tipped pen to paper and let it flow, man:' Yet for some, political and social content remained paramount.

Underground comix flourished at a time when mainstream comic book plots were generic and publishers forced the creator to adopt a common "house style" and to specialize as writer, penciller, inker, letterer, or colorist. Underground cartoonists, by contrast, typically wrote, lettered, and illustrated their own stories with total

editorial control. They embraced a wide range of formal aesthetics and ideologies with little stylistic or narrative similarity in underground comix as a whole.

The first wave of undergrounds included a wide range of subjects from Gilbert Shelton's (American, b. 1940) Wonder Warthog, a violent satire of superhero tropes; to ex-soldier Vaughn Bode's (American, 1941-1975) Das Kampf (1963), a satire of the military; to Allen ''A. Jay" J. Shapiro's (American, 1932-1987) Harry Chess (1966) (Figure 26.8), a comic that addressed homosexuality. Drawn in an appealing bold line, this lighthearted, pun-filled parody of the spy genre carried real political weight at a time when homosexuality was illegal and frequently prosecuted. Other taboo themes, including religious satires such as Frank Stack's (American, b. 1937) The Adventures of Jesus (1964) and Jack Jackson's (American, 1941-2006) God Nose (1964) appeared; as did Joel Beck's (American, 1943-1999) Lenny of Laredo (1965), a comic inspired by the life of controversial comedian Lenny Bruce. Many of these

Figure 26.8 Allen "A. Jay" J. Shapiro, Harry Chess: That Man from A. UN. TI. E., 1966. One of the first comics to feature a gay lead character, Harry Chess was ini tially publi shed as a co mi c strip for th e Phil adelphia-based gay newspaper Drum. The comic parodied the popular television seri es The Man from UN.C L. £. ( 1964- 1968) . T he strips were issued in a collec ted edition in 1966 just as the first wave of underground com ix was being published.

Chapter 26: Countercultures: Underground Corn ix, Rock Posters, and Protest Art, 1960- 1990 439

artists were soon drawn to San Francisco's poster and music scene, where they helped establish that city as a center of underground publishing.

Before moving to San Francisco, Robert Crumb (American, b. 1943 ), a former illustrator for the American Greetings card company, had published cartoons in magazines and counterculture newspapers (Figure 26.9). Drawn with distinctive cross-hatching, using a rapidograph (a drafting pen that produces a uniform line thickness) , Crumb's drawings stylistically recalled early American newspaper comic strips and animation of the 1920s and '30s. The exuberant familiarity of Crumb's style, however, was in startling contrast to his subject matter, which included satire, explicit sex and violence, and LSD-inspired visions. The 1967 publication of Robert Crumb's Zap signaled the maturation of the underground comix form and led to an avalanche of underground comix that included a stand-alone comix tabloid titled Gothic Blimp Works published in 1969 by the EVO.

Crumb's characters were based on types of people commonly found within the counterculture: the hip but hypocritical Fritz the Cat, the con man turned spiritual guru Mr. Natural, and hippie-turned-feminist

Mr. Natural, disguised as a vacuum cleaner salesman, ti:ilks to the Housewives of America.

Figure 26.9 Robert Crumb, East Village Other, October 25 , 1968. Robert Crumb's Mr. Natural, part con man and part spiritual guru , uses com mercial products to demonstrate a spiritual lesson. The underground paper the East Village Other was one of the first alternative papers to publish the cartoons of the first wave of underground cartoonists.

Honeybunch Kominsky. Racial issues were addressed head on, as in the character of statuesque African Angel food McSpade, a personification of female racial and sexual stereotypes; and Whiteman, the embodiment of white male repression and suppressed violence. Featured in Zap's first issue, Whiteman, a businessman confronted by the stresses of everyday life, struggles to maintain his upright fayade, but anxiety reveals his sexual and violent fantasies (Figure 26.10).

The first two issues of Zap were solo efforts by Robert Crumb. By its third issue, Crumb transitioned Zap into an anthology owned collectively by the contributors who thereafter voted to invite additional cartoonists. Contributors included S. Clay Wilson (American, b. 1941), a pen-and-ink artist whose violent sex-fueled fantasies pushed the boundaries of acceptability, in a style redolent of Art Nouveau illustrator and author Aubrey Beardsley (see Chapter 15). Thereafter, perhaps inspired by Wilson's approach, Crumb's own style became

Figure 26.10 Robert Crumb, "Whiteman:' Zap# l , 1967. In hi s business suit and dark-rimmed glasses, Whiteman resembles mild- mannered Clark Kent, Superman's everyman persona. Whereas Clark Kent hides the hero within the everyday person, Crumb's average man reveals the suppressed feel ings of lust and rage triggered by the workaday rou tine. Crumb's drawi ng style changes as Whiteman becomes increasingly grotesque, fighting "hidden desires" only through supreme effort of will or by drinking at the local bar.

Figure 26.11 Robert Crumb, "Don't Touch Me1"

Snatch #3, 1969. Influenced by the often-violent themes of under ground cartoonist

S. Clay Wilson, Robert Crumb's work began to explore darker sub jects. Crumb uses sequential panels to create dramatic

tension by zooming in on the renderc<f detail of the mania cal attacker in this exa mple.

Figure 26.12 Jay Lynch , Th e Best of Bijou Funnies, 1975. The interaction between comic duo Nard-a bald-headed conservative human-and his hip, black, bohe mian cat Pat resembled classic comedy duos like Mutt and Jeff, or Laurel and Hardy, albeit with plenty of sex an d nudity to underscore its underground credentials.

Cou rtesy of Jay Lynch. © Jay Lynch.

440 Part V: The Evolu tion of Illustration in an Electron ic Age

darker and included stories that featured explicit violence (including the murder of Fritz the Cat) and sexual assaults on his female characters (Figure 26.11).

Chicago was the Midwestern headquarters of'60s counterculture. There, Jay Lynch (American, 1945-2017) and fellow cartoonist Skip Williamson (American, 1944-2017), inspired by Robert Crumb's Zap, started

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their own anthology Bijou Funnies featuring, along with their own stories, the work of cartoonists Gilbert Shelton (American, b. 1940) and Art Spiegelman (American, b. 1948) (Figure 26.12).

Spiegelman embraced formal experimentation. For him, each story was a new challenge that required a different visual technique and style appropriate to

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its narrative: one story would call for scratchboard tools and brush, whereas another was better expressed with a rapidograph. In "Ace Hole, Midget Detective" (Figure 26.13 ), Spiegelman combines stylistic references to popular art, comics, film noir, pulp fiction art, and fine-art movements like Expressionism and Cubism, in a detective story that investigates the very nature of visual narrative.

Shelton's technique was more traditional. His pen-and-ink work was polished and expressively cartoonish, in stories with witty plots and punch lines that had both political impact and humor (Figure 26.14). Over time, his signature characters, The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, satirized and critiqued a range of different cultural trends from hippiedom and Punk Rock to religious fundamentalism, international terrorism, and globalization.

In 1969, Shelton, Jack Jackson, Fred Todd, and Dave Moriarty founded Rip Off Press, one of the most successful underground publishing groups to emerge from San Francisco-and eventually established the Rip Off Syndicate to distribute comic strips to college newspapers and alternative publications. Other major publishers of underground comix included Don and Alice Schenker's

Chapter 26: Countercultures: Underground Corn ix, Rock Posters, and Protest Art, 1960- 1990 441

the Print Mint, Ron Turner's Last Gasp, and Denis Kitchen's Milwaukee-based Krupp (later Kitchen Sink).

As many looked to Eastern religions and altered states as paths to enlightenment, some underground cartoonists turned to the power of visual narrative to explore spiritual themes. Barbara "Willy" Mendes' (American, b. 1948) comic narrative "Realm of Karma Comix" (Figure 26.15) depicts two anthropomorphic horses strategizing on how to achieve cosmic consciousness. In her work, Mendes symbolizes subjective reality and a hierarchy of spiritual forces as intricate designs that framed the more naturalistic elements of her stories. The splash page is partitioned by a series of arcs contained within a heavy decorative border whose circular oculi contain symmetrical medallions. The central image is a frontal example of horror vacui, a design space entirely filled with artistic detail; and is reminiscent of metal cuts, an engraving on metal, with its light-on-dark approach; while the lower narrative panels use linear perspective to spatially describe narratives. Although clothed in mystical ornamentation, the story is grounded in humor, with the animal protagonists concluding, "That karma is heavy stuff!"

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Figure 26. 13 Art Spiegelman, "Ace Hole, Midget Detective:' Short Order Com ix# I, 1974. For th is narrative, Spiegel man renders each character using a different tool to replicate styles related to each: a crowquill pen for the Picasso woman, rapido graph for Mr. Potato Head, and brush for Ace Hole (in the style of pulp art).

Collect ion of the author. Graphic Novel Excerpt from Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&'! by Art Spiegelman, copyright © 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008 by Ar t Spiegelman. Used by permission of Pantheon Books, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Portrait of the Ar tist as a Young%@&~! by Art Spiegel man (Pantheon, 2008). Copyright © 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 by Art Spiegelman, used by permission of The Wylie Agency I.LC.

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Gilbert Shelton, Th e Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, 1971. Shelton's most famous characters, The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, were a bur lesque of hippie culture whose adventures revolved around the eternal quest for drugs. Here, Shelton parodizes contemporary documentaries commonly shown to you th in schools that used sca re tactics to dissuade drug use.

Figure 26.15 Barbara "Willy" Mendes, "Realm of Karma Comix;' All Girl Thrills, 1971. Willy Mendes' comix explore the spiritual through illustrations influ enced by her study of Eastern philos ophy and Latin American art.

Collect ion of the author. © Barbara Mendes.

Figure 26.16 Justin Green, Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary, 1972. Green was a pioneer of autobi ograp hi ca l comix. His flflturalistic re ndering retains elements of car toon exaggeration that expressively communicates the tortuous efforts of Binky Brown to control the light rays he believes are emitted from his body when- ever he has sexual thoughts.

Collec tion of the author. © Justin Green.

442 Part V: The Evolution of Ill ustration in an Electronic Age

In the autobiographical Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary (Figure 26.16), Justin Green (American, b. 1945) depicts a young protagonist's spiritual struggle to reconcile his sexual awakening with his religious beliefs. Green's bold line-drawing style with broad passages of dark and light, stream of consciousness narrative, and bawdy humor take us through Binky's fanatical attempts to remain pure of mind and body.

Manuel "Spain" Rodriguez was a working-class artist interested in socialist and revolutionary politics. Informed by his experience in a motorcycle gang, Spain's work often centered on the clash of violent forces. His long-running science fiction adventure series Trashman: Agent of the 6th International tells the story of a world ruled by vast corporations and the revolutionaries who fight them for liberty. Drawn in an aggressive bold line style similar to mainstream comics, Trashman was a decidedly blue- collar protagonist: a former auto mechanic turned armed and dangerous hero (Figure 26.17).

Kim Deitch, like Rodriguez, entered the underground through his illustrations for the EVO. By 1967, the two artists were earning $40 a week producing illustrations as well as paste-up and layout (arranging typeset words, images, lettering, line art, and so on,

Figure 26.17 Manuel "Spain" Rodriguez, Subvert Comics #2, 1972. Spain's revolutionary hero Trash man, who first appeared in 1968 in The East Village Other, engages in dynamic action sequences that show the influence of mainstream comic book artist jack Kirby.

Figure 26. I 8 Guy Colwell, Inner City Romances # I, 1972. Colwell trained as a realist painter and did not have a backgro und in comics before publishing Inner City Romances. He combines blac k-and -white contour drawings with heavy hatching, using small sable brushes. Realistic narratives focus ing on A frican Americans we re so rare in American comics

that it was often mistakenly assumed that Colwell himself was black.

Collec tion of the author. © Guy Colwel l.

Chapter 26: Cou ntercu ltures: Underground Cornix, Rock Posters, and Protest Art, 1960- 1990 443

in a design) work for EVO-a meager living at a time when mainstream comic book artists were paid $40 to $60 per page. The drawing style and narratives of Kim Deitch, the son of cartoonist and animator Gene Deitch (American, b. 1924), refer to historical animation and magazine art. This can be seen in his character Waldo, a mischievous blue cat with the large round eyes and white gloves reminiscent of early animated characters such as Oswald the Rabbit (1927) and Felix the Cat (1923). Deitch's dense use of texture enlivens compositions jam-packed with smaller background figures and animated objects moving across the page (Figure 26.2).

Cartoonists and comics dealing with the experiences of marginalized social groups were nearly nonexistent. Among the exceptions was Guy Colwell's (American, b. 1945) (Figure 26.18) Inner City Romances, an underground comix that presented narratives about prison life (where Caldwell had spent two years for refusing to comply with the draft), urban culture, and revolutionary politics. Colwell tells a story of three ex-convicts (two black, one white) who must decide whether to return to drugs and crime or to become political activists once they leave prison.

Feminist Perspectives

Most of the first wave of underground cartoonists were white males. Nonwhite characters were generally stereotyped, and female characters were typically nude at some point in the story, regardless of the plot. Feminism interested the majority of male underground cartoonists only to the extent that it could be satirized, and for the most part, male cartoonists seemed unsympathetic to the movement. Little was published from a female perspective until the 1970s.

It Ain't Me Babe (1970) was the first all-women's underground comix in the United States. Trina Robbins (b. 1938), a regular contributor to EVO and numerous other underground papers, along with Mendes, produced the one-shot comic book featuring narratives with active female protagonists and feminist points of view. The cover by Robbins depicts classic female cartoon characters such as Little Lulu and Wonder Woman marching together as activists (Figure 26.19).

In 1972, Robbins and nine other female artists formed the Wimmen's Comix Collective. They published an eponymous anthology that was equally owned by the artists with rotating editorship to ensure that no one vision dominated the series. Their groundbreaking stories dealt with controversial social issues of particular importance to women, including ''A Teenage Abortion" by Lora Fountain (issue #l); and other topics untouched by male cartoonists, such as menstruation, masturbation, lesbians, and feminists. "So, Ya Wanna Be an Artist" (from issue #2) by Lee Marrs offered practical advice to novice artists (Figure 26.20).

Figure 26.19 Trina Robbins, It Ain't Me Babe, 1970. Although female ca rtoonists had been published in underground news papers as early as 1965, underground comix publishers, for all their pro gressive ideals, were reluctant to print the work of fe male artists. It Ain't Me Babe was the first all-female under ground comix ever published. The cover features classic cartoon characters includ ing Olive Oyl, Wonder Woman , and Little Lulu marching for wom en's liberation.

Collection of the author. © Trina Robbins.

Figure 26.20 Lee Marrs, "So, Ya Wanna Be an Artist;' WimmenS Com ix #2, 1973. Marrs had worked for mainstream publisher DC Comics and others, along with working in undergro und com ix. Her didactic montage layout utilizes curving, tightly packed all -caps lettering to guide the reader through the real ities of a woman becoming an artist.

Collection of the

author. © Lee Marrs.

444 Part V: The Evolution of Illustration in an Electronic Age

Like the Wimmen'.s Comix anthologies, Tits 'n' Clits, a collection of stories by women edited by Joyce Farmer (American, 6. 1938) and Lyn Chevely (who also worked under the pseudonyms "Chin Lyvely" and "Lyn Chevli") (American, 1931-2016) candidly explored neglected areas of women's experience, including birth control, sexuality, women's rights, and dialogue between the sexes and among women themselves. The title purposely challenged the sex-laden and often misogynist underground comix produced by S. Clay Wilson, Robert Crumb, and other male illustrators. Farmer and Chevely also produced the groundbreaking Abortion Eve (1973), a story informed by their work as counselors at a women's free clinic following Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion in the United States.

An anti-abortion organization, Right to Life, also published a response to the court decision in comic form: a religious tract titled Who Killed Junior? (1973). The fact that both prochoice and prolife groups chose comics as a medium for debate indicates how far comics storytelling had progressed since 1965-from cheap thrills and titillation to subject matter that included current events and serious social debates.

Gay and Lesbian Comix

Gay and lesbian characters and themes had appeared sporadically in underground comix since the publication of Harry Chess in the mid-1960s. Beginning in 1967, the Advocate briefly published single-panel cartoons by Joe Johnson (Miss Thing, Big Dick). The first comix about a lesbian was Trina Robbins's "Sandy Comes Out;' published by the Wimmen's Comix Collective (Figure 26.21).

Mary Wings (American, 6. 1949) then published her own Come Out Comix (1973), the first exclusively lesbian comic book, in response to Robbins's "Sandy Comes Out;' because she felt the earlier story lacked the "emotional and spiritual side to coming out" (Figure 26.22). Wings's expressive art gave voice to a story that, in the true underground comix manner, was both universal and, as the cover declared, "One Person's Experience!" The following year cartoonist Roberta Gregory (American, 6. 1953) came out as a lesbian cartoonist through her stories in Wimmen'.s Comix, and in 1976, she self-published Dynamite Damsels, also in response to Robbins's "Sandy Comes Out:' Between 1976 and 1981, Larry Fuller (American, birth year unknown), one of the few African Americans working in underground comix, produced three issues of a gay male romance anthology titled Gay Heartthrobs, modeled on the mainstream romance comic Heart Throbs.

Denis Kitchen (American, 6. 1946), a cartoonist and publisher under the label Kitchen Sink, saw the potential for a new publication exploring lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (LGBTQ) life. He asked comix veteran Howard Cruse (American, 6. 1944), one of the few openly gay underground cartoonists, to be

Figure 26.21 Trina Robbins, "Sandy Comes Out;' Wimmen's Com ix , 1972. The Wimmen's Comix Collective offered a venue for female cartoon ists to explore a variety of subjects. The versatile Trina Robbins drew both humor ous and adventure-themed underground comix. Her "Sandy Comes Out" was the first lesbian comix story, inspired by Sandy Crumb, sister of artist Robert Crumb, who was Robbins's roommate at the time.

its editor. Cruse accepted, despite fearing the potential loss of his income as a mainstream illustrator once his sexual orientation became public. In 1980, they published the first issue of Gay Comix, an annual anthology that would run for twenty-five issues with contributions from established underground artists that included Roberta Gregory, Lee Marrs (American, 6. 1945), and Rand Holmes (Canadian, 1942- 2002).

Cruse's "Billy Goes Out" from the first issue displays the insight and emotional authenticity that Cruse asked of his contributors. The story takes the reader into the gay singles scene by following Billy as he copes with the loss of a partner and eases his depression, at least temporarily, by finding "sex and/or love:' Cruse innovatively combines words and illustrations in thought balloons, a graphic device used in comics to indicate that the words included in the form were being thought rather than spoken, as Billy moves through the more naturalistically drawn central narrative. His thoughts become a surreal montage of memories, satirical commentary on the gay singles scene, and reflections on Billy's own actions (Figure 26.23).

Chapter 26: Countercultures: Undergro und Comi x, Rock Posters, and Protest Art, 1960- 1990 445

Figure 26.22 Mary Wings, Come Out Com ix, 1973. Prior to Wings's and Robbins's work, fe w underground comix existed with gay and lesbian characters that were not burlesques in the mode of Harry Chess. Wings would later self-publish a second comix, Dyke Shorts (1978) , and contribute stories to the anthology Gay Comix.

Censorship and Decline of Comix

In the 1970 legal case People v. Kirkpatrick, Robert Crumb's Zap #4 (Figure 26.24) became the first comic book to be found legally obscene in the United States because it included several sexually explicit stories. Despite the artists having previously published far more taboo material for other titles, the court found Crumb's "Joe Blow" the most offensive. A satire on suburban middle-class family values, Crumb's story exposed the degeneracy beneath a seemingly normal fac;ade, revealing a family that solved its problems through pills (''A simple pill called 'Compoz' ... And I'm a new man!") and happily engaged in incestuous relations.

Then in 1973 the underground comix community was affected as the court ruled that local community standards determined if publications were pornographic under the law. These events resulted in increased police raids on head shops and music stores that carried underground comix. Since it was illegal to send pornography through the U.S. Postal Service, and few bookshops yet specialized in comic books, no alternative system existed to distribute comix once vendors grew reluctant to offer risque titles. Meanwhile, the market itself witnessed a general downturn in sales due to an oversaturation oflow-to-mixed-quality

Figure 26.23 Howard Cruse, "Billy Goes Out;' GayComix#l , 1980. Throughout the story, Cruse juxta poses Billy's night out as he adjusts to the death of hi s partner Brad with images roam ing through his 111ind, shown in the thought bal loons. This device illustrates Billy's character, history, and emotional states triggered by the night's journey.

Figure 26.24 Robert Crumb, "Joe Blow;• Zap #4, 1969. Drawings of car toon characters having sex was one of the major taboos of the Comics Code, and anathema to anti -comics crusad ers. With incest as a theme, "Joe Blow" pushed the limits of acceptability even within the counterculture.

446 Part V: The Evolution of Illust ration in an Electron ic Age

Theme Box 49: Freedom of Speech and Censorship in Cartoons by Jaleen Grove

On January 7, 2015, in Paris, two men assassinated the editor and cartoonists of the satirical period ical Charlie Hebda (many others were also kil led or injured in this attack and its aftermath, including the gunmen) . It is understood that the perpetrators, who were aligned with the militant group Al Qaeda, took exception to the magazine's deliberately offensive depiction of the Prophet Muhammad. In previ ous years, threats had been made against other cartoonists about the portrayal of the Prophet in Danish newspapers. These events are a divisive issue among illustrators and cartoonists, with some decrying depictions that knowing ly offend, and others defending them. The following two polemic essays pres ent opposing views on the matter that have been voiced in actual published articles, roundtables, and Internet discussions. The reader

is encouraged not to adopt one or the other position but rather to reflect on what contingencies would render portions of each argument acceptable or unacceptable, and

to consider what is not addressed by either the pro or con sides presented here.

An Argument for Unfettered Freedom of Speech It is an artist's prerogative and a

cartoonist's responsibility to raise issues and make people think. They perform a service to soci- ety. Accordingly, even the most

controversial expression should be protected.

Nothing should be too sacred for satire, because shock value is a useful , effective tool to raise awareness. Some cartoons are therefore designed to offend, and naturally, use imagery objection able to some. In France, these cartoons are called gouaille and are considered a venerable tradi tion. Such images need to be seen in context and cannot be properly understood without their captions or other supporting text-which often demonstrate the intent of the cartoon . Typically cartoonists must use well-known tropes to visually communicate a character's identity, and doing so is not automatically bad. Using a feather headdress to indicate a Native American, for example, is not racist if the gag is sympathetically arguing a Native American point of view.

Since there is no rule in the Ouran against depicting Prophet Muhammad, a cartoon that does so is not a religious case for offense. Even if it were, one person's belief should not consti tute a limit on someone else's, because each individual must decide for themselves what is right. Furthermore, blasphemy and racism are not the same thing; just because a cartoon insults a specific religious leader does not mean the cartoon is racist- it is dangerous rhetoric to conflate a person with an entire body of people.

If the artist's intent was not to be racist , then the work is only racist according to subjective interpre tation-one that misunderstands the artist's goal. To identify a real racist

intent, a pattern must be estab lished; a cartoonist or magazine that equally lampoons all groups is being even-handed and ought not to be condemned over one cartoon.

Catering to people's sensitivities by caving in to censorship demands actually reinforces notions of weak ness and victimhood , and panders to the idea that there is no other option besides taking violent offense. People who feel insulted could demonstrate their strength through critical argument, by rising above what offends them, or making their own cartoons.

Freedom of speech is the most important right of all: without it you cannot defend other rights . Nobody should ever be able to dictate what other people can or can't look at, because it is impossible to fairly decide what should be censored and any attempt to do so gives too much power to the deciders. Even degrees of restriction (as for certain kinds of pornography) are tantamount to censorship. A true democracy is free, and anything less than total freedom of speech is fascism.

If everyone else enjoys freedom of speech, so should cartoonists . It's just a cartoon-and cartoons don't kill (terrorists do). Social change on difficult matters will never occur without offending somebody or challenging laws. To imply that cartoonists who offend cause their own assassinations is victim-blaming and lets the assassins off the hook. When cartoonists and other artists suffer because of what they depict, the blame needs to be put right on

the shoulders of the perpetrators not the messengers of what are often just uncomfortable truths.

Defending total freedom of speech in democratic countries is therefore an important role model for the rest of the world. If citizens give up their freedoms, fascists, dictators, and special interest groups who do not represent the major- ity win. Artists need to speak and create without having to worry about whether the targets of their jokes and others not even directly involved will get offended.

An Argument for Restrictions on Freedom of Speech An offensive cartoon is never "just" a cartoon - they hurt and they have bad effects.

It is simply arrogant for a hand ful of artists to decide for everyone else what is appropriate to mock. Unlimited freedom of speech risks perpetuating hate and inequity.

Cartoonists who oversimplify complex social conflicts and employ gratuitous shock effects discour- age people from looking at issues seriously or fairly. Such inflamma tory creations prevent sides from learning tolerance and respect. If a given artwork does not make things better and may make society worse, perhaps it shouldn't be published at all.

If an artist does not belong to a given cultural or religious group, he or she has no right to dictate what is or is not appropriate in reference to them. Worse, when artists take on issues that are not their own , they may usurp the voice of the very

Chapter 26: Countercultures: Underground Cornix, Rock Posters, and Protest Art, 1960- 1990 447

groups they believe they are helping. It is understandable (although not excusable) that some citizens feel violence is their only option, when their own perspectives are repeat edly insulted or shut out.

Offensive cartooning like gouaille cannot be defended on "traditional" grounds when current national makeups are multicultural. Much of what has caused controversy and murder is just plain bad art: good cartoonists can make their point without frustrating others; they need not fall back on cheap shock tactics and easy antiquated tropes. Cartoons that use old racial stereo types such as feathers on Native Americans are still racist, even if the context or intent is non- or anti-racist. This is because images communicate apart from words whether we want them to or not, and a symbol that has been widely used with racist intent in the past (feathers connoting "savages") will continue to evoke that racism no matter what. This is especially true online where images are frequently passed around and repurposed minus the original caption or context , or when there's a language barrier.

Audiences make their own interpretations-and just because an artist may be unaware of how their work signifies in various places does not mean the work is inoffensive. Nor is mocking all groups equally any proof of fairness because that leaves existing inequalities intact and unexamined. Thus, even when a given artist is not personally racist , the effect of their work may uphold

systemic racism (inequality perpet uated by established customs and institutions).

When a given image is displayed in public and impels the antag onism of one segment of a community towards another, the disadvantaged group cannot simply ignore it. In fact, American law states that everybody has freedom of speech and press (with two exceptions: violating local stand ards and aiding terrorism). As well, according to law, those exercising their freedom must also "suffer the consequences" -artists , editors, publishers, and distributors can and should be held to account for intended and unintended consequences.

Taking a hands-off approach to censorship means dominant groups will bully the less power ful. Restricting damaging images acknowledges the faq that certain groups are just not as privileged as others; that some need accom modation and protection in order to get a fair chance at equality. Restrictions against What can or can't be seen (and when or where) would enhance social cohesion and are a reasonable alternative to all-out censorship.

A true democracy is ruled by the people through elected represent atives, where interests and policy are determined by consensus. Restrictions or even censorship decided by such a government process are therefore exemplary of a good democracy.

Figure 26.25 Colin Upton, Self Indulgent Comics #13, 200 1. In the tradition of autobiographica l com ix, Upton gives an unvarnished accoun t of hi s pe rso nal li fe. In this example, he self-refl ex ive ly analyzes his obses sion with making mini -con1ics, concluding that he makes them because "D nnving comics makes me fee l less useless. If you don't like it, shut up and go to hell! "

448 Part V: "foe Evolution oflllustration in an Electroni c Age

publications. Concurrently, paper costs rose, increasing production expenses and resulting in losses for underground publishers and dist ributors, who cut staff and discontinued titles in an attempt to keep publishing. The counterculture dreams that had begun nearly a decade before were over, and it seemed that the underground comix would be one more relic of the psychedelic era.

Comix in the '80s and Beyond

After a lull in the late 1970s, the social values and DIY (do-it-yourself) sensibility of the underground would continue in the democratic punk culture, where the important thing was not how well you drew or wrote, or how polished your publication looked, but how well you expressed yourself. The proliferation of affordable photocopy machines gave rise to the 'zine, an abbreviation of the word "magazine"; and mini-comic, a small comic format arising in the 1980s that is self-published. The rudimentary handmade quality of the publications further underscored the importance of bringing unbridled personality and obsessions to the crafted object.

One of the longest-practicing mini -comics cartoonists is Colin Upton (Canadian, b. 1960). Since 1984, he has drawn stories about his personal life and struggle with diabetes, a variety of pet interests such as military history and tea, the punk scene, the vagaries of the fine-art world, and the social strata of his hometown of Vancouver, Canada (Figure 26.25).

After a hiatus from publishing in the late 1970s, Robert Crumb made a strong return in the 1980s. In 1981, he founded Weirdo, establishing a venue for alternative cartoonists including Dori Seda (American,

195 1- 1988) (Lonely Nights, Dori Stories) , Peter Bagge (American, b. 1957) (Hate), and Daniel Clowes (American, b. 1961) (Eightba/1, Ghost World), as well as old colleagues such as Spain Rodriguez, and Crumb's wife, Aline Kaminsky-Crumb (American, b. 1948) , all of whom carried on in the underground comix tradition or were informed by them. Weirdo focused on raw expressiveness rather than artistic polish. After a seven-year break, Wimmen's Comix was revived in 1984. The issue featured stories by the first wave of underground cartoonists and work by up-and-coming illustrators like Phoebe Gloeckner (American, b. 1960) and Caryn Leschen (American, b. 1966). Using the same rotating editorship and collectivist spirit upon which it had been founded, Wimmen's Comix continued publication into the 1990s (Figure 26.26). "By the time we finally ended in 1992, there were more women in comics than ever before;' recalled Trina Robbins in a Comics Journal interview; "We really did open the door for women to do comics:'

Fran~oise Mouly's (French, b. 1955) and husband Art Spiegelman's ground-breaking periodical RAW (1980- 1991) featured avant-garde alternative cartoonists such as Mark Newgarden (American, b. 1959), Richard McGuire (American, b. 1957), Charles Burns (American, b. 1955), and Gary Panter (American, b. 1950), and offered reprints

Figure 26.26 Lee Marrs, Wimm en's Comix #9, 1984. Marrs's cove r for the "Women at Work" issue presents women of different races and occupations all united by the same question: "H mmn ... How did she ever get into that job'" In the 1980s, under a rotating ed itorship, Wirnmen's Corn ix prov ided an entryway fo r a new generation of female alter native arti sts.

Chapter 26: Countercultures: Underground Co mix, Rock Posters, and Protest Art, 1960- 1990 449

Figure 26.27 Art Sp iegelman, Raw #7, 1985. Raw, like Weirdo, was an anthology showcasing alternative comix. Sp iegelman's cover simulates a collage constructed from pieces of artwork by that issue's contributors. Spiegelman and co-editor Fran~oise Matily tore off the top corner of each magazi ne; they then taped th e torn piece to the inside cover of a different copy of the same issue.

of classic comic strips such as Winsor McCay's Little Nemo in Slumberland (see Chapter 23) (Figure 26.27).

Spiegelman's most publicized success is Maus, a full length autobiographical Holocaust story (see Chapter 23) that was serialized in Raw, having been expanded from an original short story published in the underground comix Funny Aminals (sic) in 1972. Substituting mice for Jews and cats for Nazis, Maus tells the story of his parents' experiences during World War II as Jewish prisoners in a German concentration camp. The tale is interwoven with a present-day narrative of Spiegel man's relationship with his disapproving father. Typical of Spiegelman's interest in metanarratives, the author comments throughout on the story itself. Influenced by Frans Masereel (Flemish, 1889- 1972; see Chapter 23), Maus is drawn in a simplified style reminiscent of woodcut, with innovative page layouts. The 1992 collected edition became the first graphic novel to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize.

Conclusion

During the social upheavals of the 1960s, alternative comics grew out of a transgressive underground sensibility. Comix (with an x for adult content) expanded

the narrative possibilities of the comic medium, which had become, for the most part, enfeebled by corporate publishers constrained by the Comics Code. Along with the short-term gains of groundbreaking topics and stylistic freedom, underground publishing of the l 960s- l 980s established a system for sales and distribution of alternative publications in the United States. Stores specializing in comic books, zines, mini comics, and other narrative formats continue to flourish . The liberating effect was felt in mainstream comics as well, with artists at DC and Marvel Comics demanding more artistic freedom and part ownership of thei r characters-prerogatives unheard of in the 1960s.

Psychedelic posters, underground graphics, and comix were more than short-lived phenomena borne of an era of "sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll;' and should more rightfully be considered as artistically challenging work instrumental in breaking the hegemony of mainstream postwar American visual culture (see Chapter 24). Furthermore, the freedom that emerged in the underground press of the psychedelic era has slowly become part of the practices of mainstream comics publishing, perhaps making the triumph of personal expression over compliance the legacy of the counterculture era.