Going underground
Going underground |
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Page 9 of 36  Poster for a Jimi Hendrix concert by Rick Griffin (1968). Poster art had a significant influence on the comix and both Griffin and Moscoso were leading practitioners. Gilbert Shelton was perhaps the funniest. He had worked for Kurtzman's Help! and on college magazines, and had become one of the early stalwarts of the alternative newspapers. His style was much less confessional than Crumb's, and more slapstick: his characters were often goofy, but with pretensions which landed them in ever more disastrous situations. Contrary to many critical assessments of Shelton's work, he also possessed the same underlying political intelligence and would sometimes attack individual politicians directly. Along with his contributions to Zap, his most famous comix were Wonder Wart-Hog (Millar, 1967), a parody of superhero comics starring a 'hog of steel'; Feds 'n' Heads (self-published, 1968); and The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers (Rip Off, 1971), about three bored hippies ('freaks') who spend their time scoring drugs and avoiding 'the pigs'. S Clay Wilson was another original, but of an altogether darker nature. His strips were not particularly funny, and relied instead on shock impact - sex and violence being their stock-in-trade, usually mingled to stomach-churning effect. Wilson took the ethic of 'freedom of expression' to its furthest extreme, and his tales of sadomasochistic pirates, outlaw-biker lesbians, and cruel demons provoked enormous controversy, especially from feminists, who pointed out that the majority of the violence was directed against women. As well as Zap, his comix included Bent (Print Mint, 1971), Pork (Co-Op Press, 1974) and The Checkered Demon (Last Gasp, 1977).  Despair (Print Mint, 1969)  Mr Natural (Print Mint. 1970) |