Going underground
Going underground |
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Page 26 of 36  Cover, Raw Purple (Beyond the Edge, 1977) by 'wild man' Antonio Ghura. Television also caught on. In Britain, the comedy show 'Monty Python's Flying Circus' was notable for its animated sequences, which had an underground feel in the sense that they were psychedelic and very sexual. Interestingly, they were the brainchild of Terry Gilliam, who had at one time been a comics cartoonist, and had worked with Robert Crumb and others on Help! He was also later to become one of Hollywood's top directors, with movies such as Brazil, The Fisher King and Twelve Monkeys to his name. Finally, the mainstream comics industry itself began to take notice. Underground-style art and humour had been seeping into mainstream magazines like National Lampoon and Playboy since the early 1970s. Now, Marvel stepped in, and offered to put out a regular comic, entitled Comix Book. The price that comix creators would have to pay in order to be involved would be that they would have to tone down their material to make it news-stand friendly. An impressive number agreed - including Spiegelman, Williamson, Robbins and even S Clay Wilson - and the title debuted in 1974, and lasted for five issues. Certainly, the underground was in trouble by this time, and to some creators, the Marvel venture must have seemed like a way to survive. However, to others, it was the final symbolic defeat.  Sour Cream (Sour Cream, 1980)  Sour Cream (Sour Cream, 1980) |