Going underground
Going underground |
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Page 35 of 36  Anarchy (Last Gasp), a comic with an obvious agenda It is deceptively easy to shoot holes in the movement's idealism. For example, from an historical perspective, 'underground' networks had been an honourable way of resisting oppression in occupied or fascist-controlled countries; they had been effective against the Nazis and more recently in dictatorships in South America. The United States and Britain in the 1960s and 1970s, however, were not in the same political category, no matter how hard some creators protested that they were. Thus, taken at face value, the idea of working for 'the underground' was a glamorous, and ultimately self-deluding, notion. It is also undeniable that a significant number of comix merely paid lip service to any wider political ideals. We have seen how many were designed almost solely as commercial ventures; similarly, many were openly sexist, and there has to be a question mark over how depicting such activities as drug taking and wild sex were 'revolutionary' in the first place. As historians Reinhold Reitberger and Wolfgang Fuchs put it: 'Underground comix are polemics in comics format. But instead of leading to new objectives or really breaking new ground, they exploit the state of mind of a reactionary subculture and shock by their unconsidered portrayal of drug-addicted drop-outs'.  Anarchy  Pages from The Communist Manifesto (Quixote Press, 1975), an adaptation that was pretty faithful to the original, by Mexican cartoonist Rius.  Page from Committee' Comix (Arts Lab, 1977), one of the British Street Comix line, warning of the rise of the National Front. Written by David Edgar (also a radical playwright), with art by Clifford Harper.  The Optimist |