Maverix & Lunatix: Icons of Underground Comix

Diary of a Nine-Year-Old Underground Comix Fanatic

by Drew Friedman

I

n late 1968 I was unleashed into a downtown bookstore in Manhattan and

happened upon a stack of comic books on the floor in the back. I picked one up and thumbed through it, but I was confused at what I was looking at. It was titled Zap. A black and white comic book? For “Adult Intellectuals Only”? 35 cents? And all that crazy art, which looked old but was obviously new… by one guy named “R. Crumb”? At age nine I realized I was way too young to be looking at this and was effectively breaking the law. But I couldn’t look away, it was forbidden fruit and I had a sense it would shift my life’s trajectory.

Up until then I thought Mad magazine was the most subversive thing going, but this?

1968: Nine-year-old underground comix fanatic Drew Friedman

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I had to own and slowly absorb some of these strange comics within the confines of my bedroom, but how? I discretely slipped a few Zaps, a Bijou Funnies, and a Feds ‘n’ Heads within the pile of books stacked up at the cashier’s desk that my dad was purchasing, assuming he’d think they were just comic books and wouldn’t notice that they were for adults only. I’m still slowly absorbing them.

A few years ago, I created two books of portraits paying tribute to the creators who entered the world of mainstream

Drew Friedman and R. Crumb, March 2019 (The Bowery Hotel, New York City). Photo by Andrew Cooke.

comic books between the mid-’30s to the mid-’50s, when the newly imposed Comics

This is my tribute to those underground

Code appeared and EC Comics among

comix creators, covering the freewheeling

others would soon disappear. Comic books

decade 1967–1977. Jay Kennedy’s book

for the most part became homogenized

The Underground Comix Price Guide lists

and stagnant. But jump a decade… young

over 3,000 artists who contributed to

artists influenced by Harvey Kurtzman’s

underground comix. I’ve narrowed that

iconoclastic

satirical

list down to an essential 101, including

publications Mad, Trump, and Humbug,

some lesser known and some forgotten

throw in some Tijuana Bibles and Paul

subjects, but all worthy of inclusion. To

Krassner’s The Realist, and dispense it out

varying degrees, this radical, egalitarian,

to an eager comic book-weaned, anti-

artistically innovative movement created

establishment counterculture, and the

funny,

Underground Comix revolution exploded,

silly, provocative, whimsical, antisocial,

redefining the potential of comics, creating

self-indulgent, spacey, perverted, dumb,

a major paradigm shift and blowing the lid

outrageous, and in many cases brilliant

off the traditional comic book.

comics work. l

and

trailblazing

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thought-provoking,

horrifying,

Richard “Grass” Green (1939–2002)

F

rom Fort Wayne, Indiana, Green was the first and most prominent black artist to regularly contribute to underground comix. Beginning in the

early ’60s he wrote and drew for comics fanzines and later would contribute to Charlton Comics before he switched over to create work for the undergrounds.

Green’s comics featuring his black-themed superhero parodies were published in the top selling Super Soul Comix #1 from Kitchen Sink in 1972, highlighting his characters Wildman and Rubberroy. His work also appeared in Good Jive Comix, Snarf, Bizarre Sex, Commies From Mars, L.A. Comics, and many more.

Rory Hayes (1949–1983)

B

orn in San Francisco with a childhood illness that would leave him with vision only in his right eye, Hayes was self-taught and became an

underground comix modern primitive, his work celebrated and supported by fellow UG artists including Bill Griffith and R. Crumb. His hallucinatory and disjointed comics featuring decomposing old crones, bloodsucking bogeymen, and a cute, tormented teddy bear were featured within the pages of Bogeyman, Bijou Funnies, Skull Comix, San Francisco Comic Book, Jiz, Snatch, Arcade, and his solo Cunt Comix. Hayes became a speed addict and died from an accidental overdose of multiple pills at age 34. Bill Griffith’s “The Rory Story” appeared in 1974’s San Francisco Comic Book #5 and was reprinted in Weirdo #12 after Hayes died, along with a special tribute by Griffith. Where Demented Wented (Fantagraphics Books), an anthology of Hayes’ work by Dan Nadel and Glenn Bray, was published in 2008.

Trina Robbins (1943–)

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obbins, from Brooklyn, was inspired by the psychedelic comics of Nancy Burton, a.k.a. Panzika, that ran in The East Village Other in the mid-’60s.

By 1969, she was contributing her own comics to EVO and its comics offshoot, Gothic Blimp Works. In 1969, Robbins and her then-partner, Kim Deitch, relocated from New York to San Francisco, part of the massive underground comix influx. With Willy Mendes, she edited and drew the cover art for the first feminist comic book, 1970’s It Ain’t Me, Babe (Last Gasp). Her comics appeared in San Francisco Comic Book, Swift Premium Comics, ProJunior, and Bijou Funnies #8 (featuring her parody of Spain’s Trashman). She edited and contributed to the all-woman comics Wet Satin, Girl Fight, and Wimmen’s Comix. Robbins, in recent years, has written numerous acclaimed books about women in comics history, including a 2017 memoir, Last Girl Standing (Fantagraphics).