Going underground
Going underground |
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Page 5 of 36  Mr Natural, a bearded sage, spiritual leader and conman (Mr Natural, Print Mint, 1970). One creator in particular became synonymous with the San Francisco comix boom, and later with the underground as a whole: Robert Crumb. Crumb moved to the city in 1967 and immediately started to produce strips for the alternative papers. (His previous experience included a stint working for Harvey Kurtzman on Help!) In 1968, his first solo comic appeared, the seminal Zap (Apex Novelties). This was to be the title that started the whole comix ball rolling. Why Zap became so important is not difficult to explain. The artwork was tremendous, and mixed influences from Mad (Basil Wolverton especially), Disney and the 'bigfoot' style of American newspaper strips, to generate an old-fashioned, almost 'sweet' effect. This was in total contrast to the content of the strips, which included LSD-fuelled fantasies, libertarian politics and sex - plenty of sex. As if to underline the fact that this was no kids' comic, the Code seal of approval was parodied on the cover. Crumb published Zap with a friend at first, selling issues out of a pram on street corners in Haight-Ashbury. However, such was its popularity that it wasn't long before more professional hippie publishers took it over (namely, The Print Mint). Quite unexpectedly, it had opened up a market, proving that there was room for alternative comics as well as newspapers within hippie-dom. Zap's sales, as well as its revolutionary style, became a rallying cry for a scene waiting to happen.  Whiteman. the archetypal American Mr Straight (Zap. Print Mint. 1960).  Pages from Zap, (Print Mint, 1973), featuring the grotesquely compelling work of S Clay Wilson. If anyone pushed the envelope of what was acceptable in a comic, Wilson did. This tale of demons, angels, 'nymphs' and of course, sex and violence, was fairly typical. |