Going underground
Going underground |
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Page 25 of 36  'Odmund' There were also other forces conspiring to kill off the movement. Considering it as a whole, it is evident that certain sectors brought on their own downfall by getting too commercial. The days of laissez-faire business transactions were over. Now, many publishers were trying to make as much money as possible in as short a time. It was as if they felt they had to cash in before it was too late, and some behaved in a way that put the worst 'bread heads' in the mainstream comics industry to shame. Part of this process involved copying the mainstream by diversifying into other areas, particularly merchandise. Not surprisingly, the mid-1970s onwards was marked by a rush by comix creators to copyright everything they had ever done. Concurrently, the underground was being co-opted by straight culture. Film companies in particular started to sniff around for ideas, and the most symbolic capitulation was the appearance of two movies based on Robert Crumb's Fritz the Cat. Fritz the Cat (1972) and The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat (1974) were made by Ralph Bakshi as big budget animated features for adults. They were undoubtedly pioneering in terms of cinema - Fritz was the first animated movie to receive an X-certificate -and despite some savage reviews, both films did reasonably well at the box office. But in terms of translating the subtleties of Crumb's comix, they were sadly lacking. Crumb himself disowned them, and went to court to get his name removed from the credits. Nevertheless, the very fact that he had signed the movie contract in the first place was enough for some purists within the comix movement to cry 'sell out'.  Ice Age' (1977)  Old Grey Whistle Face' (1977) by Pokkettz (aka Graham Higgins) |