Going underground
Going underground |
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Page 16 of 36  Cover, Fantagor, (Last Gasp, 1972) by master of creepy lighting Richard Corben. If we can identify this phase, including the funnies, the women's comix and the horror titles, as the first of the underground, then it is possible to conclude that by only a few years after Zap, the movement had become an industry to be reckoned with. There were comix communities all over America, mainly based in the big cities, producing hundreds of titles each month. Certainly, most were small beer: typical print runs were in the hundreds - smaller still would be their distribution. Yet there were also a few major publishers - Krupp Comic Works (later Kitchen Sink), Rip Off, The Print Mint, The San Francisco Comic Book Company and Last Gasp - which between them had the power to take things to a new level of commercialism. With their help, the most popular creators, like Crumb and Shelton, could hope to sell hundreds of thousands per issue. Thus, although the underground was not a challenge to the mainstream - it was never intended to be - it was nevertheless thriving on its own terms. When it was in full flow, in the early 1970s, it generated its own momentum, with new surprises in art and narrative every month. Strips ranged from cartoony, Crumb-like images, to radical abstract expressionism - often within the pages of the same comic. They were commonly created in a completely spontaneous fashion, with the creator not knowing how it would end: sometimes 'jams' would take place involving many creators at once, mixing up styles in a crazy melange. The covers were especially important, because in contrast to the innards, they were in full colour, and thus could show off particular artists' styles to their optimum extent. One of the few ideas that the comix borrowed from the mainstream industry was that a striking cover was the key to high sales: here more than anywhere the influence of the poster scene was in evidence, with LSD-inspired, explosion-in-a-paintshop, graphics becoming a favourite option.  Cover to EZ Hairs Astral Outhouse (Last Gasp, 1977). Art/script: Ted Richards.  ages from Inner City Romance (Last Gasp, 1972). Art/script: Guy Colwell. |