Going underground
Going underground |
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Page 31 of 36  Zippy (Rip Off, 1980) Britain too had its political titles, though these did not sell as well as their American counterparts. The Optimist (Comic Collective, 1976) was a short-lived tabloid, and had strips that made reference to squatting, the dole and even hypothermia among old-age pensioners (in one strip, 'Jinnie the Jinx', the eponymous heroine - not unlike a certain Beano character - gets pregnant, has a close shave with a back-street abortionist, and ends up joining the National Abortion Campaign). Committed Comix (Arts Lab, 1977) was one of the 'Street Combe' line, and had a similar radical agenda: strips made reference to the situation in Northern Ireland, the rise of the National Front, and gay rights, and included work by Cliff Harper, Hunt Emerson, Suzy Varty and newcomer Steve Bell. But whatever their merits, this late wave of comix was still not enough to keep the underground alive, and as the 1970s progressed, the decline intensified. The movement had been intimately associated with the hippie subculture, but now that subculture itself was dying. For one thing, historical events were fast making many of its original aims irrelevant: the Vietnam War, the original focus of countercultural protest, ended in 1975 when the Americans withdrew from Saigon, while one by one the most hated politicians faded from the picture (Nixon went after Watergate in 1974, and Heath lost the election in the same year).  The Malpractice Suite, Arcade (Print Mint, 1976). Art/script: Art Spiegelman.  The Malpractice Suite, Arcade (Print Mint, 1976). Art/script: Art Spiegelman. |