|
|
A dive into the history of ...
"underground comics"
***WARNING
- Although this is censored it delves into
graphic content, the
uncensored version is
here***
I don't let much that I see online get under
my skin these days, but I did recently see
something that galled me, which was a good excuse to take you on a
fast dive into the batsh*t bizarre history
of underground comics.
*note- by "recently" I mean a few months ago,
and I'm not even irritated anymore but it
still makes for a pretty wild blog. I kept forgetting to track down pictures
I needed, and the pics were absolutely
necessary, as you shall soon see*
Backing up to what I saw...there's a
gentleman by the named Dinesh
Shamdasani. He is
a comic book publisher of high regard, by
anyone who knows good from bad, and from my
experience he is a delightful human being. He took
over Valiant Comics years back. I did some
freelance stuff for him there, and he earned
my respect quick, fast and in a hurry. He's
since moved onto publishing comics under the
label "Bad Idea". He puts out top
notch work, by top notch professionals. Any
quick look at Bad Idea's offerings is proof
that the guy cares about quality.
I can't say I've kept in touch much,
beyond the "hey, how's things by you?'
every
once in a blue moon, but I do keep an eye on
him because, as I said, the guy knows his
stuff and puts out great work. So...that's
how I saw...THIS
whoa, whoa, whoa....whoa... "underground
comics publisher" ...HAHAHAHA...what?!
We've all, since the beginning of comics,
thrown around unquantifiable claims- "best
kids comics on the rack!" "worlds greatest
comics magazine"...."king of dark humor".
There's no real measuring stick for any of
that, it's all bravado. You make the claim and it's up to the
reader if you lived up to it or not.
BUT....the term underground comics is
SPECIFIC.
"Underground comics " refers to comics, that
because of their CONTENT...edgy, subversive,
counter culture ideas, controversial subjects,
controversial imagery, things like that...they were not able to get distributed
through the standard mainstream means,
sometimes not even produced through standard
mainstream means, and/or
caused problems for those who dared sell
them. That term comes with some merit. Implies...
courage... for lack of a better word, to
continue forward despite having many
doors closed to you and in the face of
possible backlash
from mainstream type people and/or the powers that be,
because they will likely react aggressively
to the CONTENT you choose to create.
Bad Idea publishes work by brand
name pros, some of whom are borderline
legendary in the industry and not a single thing they put
out is likely to draw the wrath of an
average reader, parent, or make a store
concerned about having it's content on the
shelves.
Those are damn fine looking works...but they
ain't underground comics. The
degree of absurdity of that claim is about to
become very clear to you.
Let's start by going WAY back to grand daddy of
underground comics, the Tijuana bibles.
These were 3x5inch, 8 page, one or two
colors, and printed on the cheapest stock
available. They had varying degrees of
quality of work and even of production. Most
of them were direct parodies of
mainstream cartoons/comics/characters, and
some were just parody of the genre or
an amalgamation of different cartoons.
We're
talking the 20s and 30s at their apex. and
they were...well, with the imagery in my head
of model T fords driving around, men wearing
spats and Charlie Chaplin in the movie
theaters, I know my
mind was blown.
***NOTE- You can see an uncensored version
of this blog by clicking
here. I'll warn you
right now, though, it's worse than you
think and
way worse as we get into the 80s/90s ".
I almost threw up..anyone else? Here's
another.
.
***another side note here- Obscenity aside,
these illustrations are pretty well on par
with the illustrations being published by
the actual syndicated
cartoonists in newspapers at the time. The
Laurel and Hardy parody is actually a bit
better than most of them were. Someone, of
considerable skill, spend several hours
drawing Laurel and Hardy screwing flappers.
You wanna know who?...nobody knows! The
reason for that will be clear shortly.*
When you take into account this was an era
not that a far removed from WW1, in the tail
end of prohibition, and going headlong into
the great depression...these TJ Bibles
actually seem more fitting. This was
an era of bootlegging, gangsters, flappers
and hobos. So with that in mind. Those
comics above actually seem more appropriate
for the times, than this...
"oh..ha ha, what a delightfully funny
joke about being lazy at work, ha ha. Wish I
had a job, but it's the great depression and
every week I have to find a way to not
starve to death."
There's a lot of subtext that's going on
with each era of underground comics, and you
could write a whole sociology paper on it.
I'll try to stick with the nuts and bolts of
Underground stuff and not get philosophical.
I'll say this though- In every era of "pop
culture" in this country, you've had people
content with whatever is mainstream
entertainment, the example in this era,
Blondie and Dagwood. And you're going
to have people (
Creatives and audiences)
who look at that stuff and say
"yeah...that ain't doing it for me".
This happens especially in times of change,
upheaval, cultural stressors.
Conversely there's the segment of the
population that is perfectly happy with the
status quo, deals with change by attempting
to ignore it or hoping it goes away and is not interested in any
alternative taking root. People, don't like
feeling powerless, and if there are giant
stressors and changes going on that they
cannot affect, some of them go hard down on
affecting the little things that that can. Which is
why these throw away comics, became the
subjects of state and federal investigations.
Arrests were being made, warehouses were
being raided, equipment was being seized.
At one point the FBI was making raids and
confiscating TJ bibles by the thousands,
...at a time that the morality police
were in such power as to be able to take
away booze, they sure were not going to let
a bunch of pornographic comics get
distributed.
And there was no internet,
remember...never underestimate the reach of
people who want to ruin fun.
To
be fair they were
violating pornography and obscenity
statutes, though with John f*cking Dillinger
on the loose, it all seems like a waste of
manpower.
Even though
there was a huge market for TJ bibles (print
runs in the hundreds of thousands)
they were not
going to be able to sell these on the
newsstand.
These where literally black-market products,
and passing through all the same avenues of
distribution as bootleggers .
They sold them under the table in
places like speak
easies/barrooms, bowling alleys, garages,
tobacco shops, and burlesque
houses...anyplace where people weren't
skittish and knew how to keep their mouth
shut. They'd print them up ship and them
in bulk through the post office, or by rail
or truck to the black-market
hub of a given city, where they would be
picked up by whichever business owners were
happy to acquire illegal goods as long at they
sold.
...and that is the root of underground
comics.
The TJ bibles managed to keep going by hook
or by crook for a long time, then ww2
happened and machinery, paper, talent, means
of shipping, any everything else was a lot
harder to come by for even legit publishers.
Although they did keep getting printed into
the 50s, they had honestly pretty well petered out during the
40s.
But...stressors and changes to the culture
continued.
And so concepts, subversive by comparison to
what was the status quo, did arise...
Those (above) are a fair sample of the work
published by EC Comics Publishing.
EC comics are not, by anyone's measure,
"underground". They sold millions right on
the news stands. BUT the backlash they got
was important to setting the table for the
next wave of underground comics, so here are the
high points of EC's hand in the matter.
in the late 40s early 50's Horror comics were big, and EC
comics was the largest and best publisher of
that genre. and they were...awesome.
BUT....as always, "there where those who
did not like our hero".
There were giant protests by the usual
personality types, ( we call them Karens,
now) it's the same
personality in a different body in a
different part of the timeline. Or perhaps
the daughters of the people who wanted the
FBI to spend time stopping TJ bibles from
being bought.
Believe it or not, this time there were
CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS...on comic book
content...I sh*t you not.
That's Bill Gaines on the right, the
publisher of EC Comics and a legend worth an
entire blog on his own. Eventually the comic book industry itself set up a
list of rules and a half assed board to
monitor
itself. You had to submit your book to the
board, and if they decided your book was not
going to lead any children to immorality you
could put this logo on it.
And if it DIDN'T have that logo...good
f*cking
luck getting any distributor to touch it
with a ten foot pole.
Magazines, however did not have to have any
such logo or restrictions and that is why
EC Comics turned Mad comics into
Mad
Magazine. So technically, maybe, you could
call Mad's first few issues in comic book
format, an Underground
comic. The overall point though is the
Karens kept comics from
crossing any lines that mainstream didn't
approve of via the comic code/putting
pressure on the distributors. And with the
era of speakeasies long gone as well as any
real interest in comics by black-market
types, subversive comics were more or less
non existent or at the very least irrelevant....
UNTIL the next change in the
zeitgeist, the era of this country known as
the 60s
.This is the time of filthy hippies and
drugs and sex and rock and roll, the civil
rights movement, the Vietnam War and...
a segment of people were looking for more
than batman and robin, Casper, and Archie.
A new rise in talent had stories to tell to
a new audience that was bored with the usual pap.
Most of these comics had, well...lots of
drugs and sex, of course. It also had a
rather distinct look, mostly pioneered by
the legendary Robert Crumb. It was a strange
mix of a cartoony foundation but with very
workmanlike shading. If we gave it some
thought, we could probably suss out how that
was a allegoric mirror of the culture
somehow.
I've said it
before and I'll say it again about the 60s
undergrounds stuff..."i don't
get it". I just personally never
liked any of that stuff, and every time I say
that I have to listen to a lecture from
someone who does.
Look...it's fine, they clearly had some skill
and I guess this was all funny at the
time. I just don't get it.
In any case, they didn't bother with any
comics code, nor did they even bother
thinking of putting these on a newsstand or
bookstore shelf. They went right to were the
audience was..head shops, concerts, record
stores...points of sale where the proprietor
was of the "screw the man"
disposition, and
thus happy to sell subversive comic
books. And they sold BIG and many were so well
done that they inspired a generation of
talent. Not me...I never heard of any
of this until I was already making comics, I
frankly I'd be just fine never knowing they
existed. I just...I hate them, all the
characters look gross and make me want to
take a shower.
By the 80s there were so many actual comic books
stores that the old means of distribution
had changed. These stores were not getting
their comics from the same distributors as
the bookstores and grocery stores. They had
different/new distributors that had no
policy saying you must have that code/logo
on your books. If they thought your book
could sell they'd put it in their catalogue
and it was up to the stores to decide what
they'd sell or display, and up to them to
figure out what the obscenity laws were in
their town.
That last wrinkle though...meant the
claim of being underground was not
obsolete, and still came with some peril.
The underground comics of the 80s and
forward still found ways to push the edge,
be subversive and piss off those people we
can call the third reincarnation of Karen's..
The 80s and 90s underground stuff was a bit
all over the map, but if I had to point to
something relatively unique...the themes of
satanism, gore, anything anti religious where
used early and often. This was because at
that time, the powers that be where the
religious right.
 |
 |
How much of this genre was content for the
sake of giving the finger to the religious
right and how much was genuenly wanting to
tell a type of story, depends on each
individual comic and the people working on
it. Faust for example (above), surely knew
they were poking the bear, but there is no
doubt a huge amount of creativity, skill,
and effort went into telling the story that
they wanted to tell, the way they wanted to
tell it.
It is the gold standard of that genre. If
fact the quality of work overall is at a
level as good as the best at Marvel
Comics...clearly a Marvel Comics type story
isnt what they were interested in working on
( that'd be a MASSIVE understatement), and
they were willing to risk whatever was
awaiting them in order to put their story
out.
Some gen-Z might be reading this and thinking
"yeah the religious right is still a
problem and..." NOPE, trust me, you have NO
idea. There was the
Satanic Panic, there were people convinced the board
game version of Dungeons and Dragons was
going to make their child go insane, TV
televangelists going after radio DJs, and
congressional hearings about heavy metal
music, the list goes on of BS AND...there
was no internet, so you had no platform from
which to defend yourself other than whatever
platform you had in the first place, that
they where attempting to kill off.
They
had the numbers and the money and they threw
their weight around at anything that caught
their ire, and rallying a defense of the
same scale was nigh impossible
(no...internet) .
It was on a scale and ratio that is not
matched in any way shape or form by what you
might see going on now. It was just... just
a whole other level.
And they had no interest in anything being
sold at a comic shop in their town that
wasn't PG rated.
A nonprofit organization, called the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, was set
up to help pay for attorney fees,
and in some cases provided attorney's,
for stores
that were being fined, having their business
license revoked, having their merchandise
seized by the police. And for comic makers who were
getting slapped with obscenity charges.
Here's a case that'll blown your mind-
-2002 The Castillo
v. Texas case
centered around Jesus Castillo, an employee
of a comic book store in Dallas,
Texas, who was charged with two
counts of "display of obscenity", and
convicted of one, after selling adult
comics to an adult undercover police
officer.-
...a STING OPPERATION...for comic books.
Hoe lee sh*t. Make note off that trial date.
That means this sting was going on like,
right after 9-11 hahahahaha. Yep,
better go undercover and buy some dirty
comics...you follow that up the chain and
it's bound to lead to a terror cell.
Satanism, demonic stuff and gore were
somewhat the tip of the spear of underground
stuff causing trouble, but as I said it was
a pretty diverse field. Here's a couple of
other examples below, that I'm going to use
to point something out... Ed The Unhappy
Clown on the left and Omaha the Cat
Dancer on the right.
Omaha was one of a sort of
wave/resurgence/formalizing of "anthropomorphic erotica", i.e. cartoon animals having sex. A
genre I never understood the interest in...nor
do I want to.
and Ed the Unhappy Clown was a
book, rooted in surreal storytelling, a
genre that never has really gotten name. To
give you an idea of content in Ed, the head
of a tiny Ronald Reagan from another
dimension accidentally ends up, alive,
aware, and able to talk, onto the head of
Ed's penis.
 |
 |
Copies of Omaha ended up being
seized by the police and caused the store
owner no small amount of legal problems. and
Ed the Unhappy Clown...as far as I
could find...managed to somehow avoid
controversy. On the face of things, this
makes no sense. There's couple of possible
explanations for one getting caught up in
controversy and the other not catching any
shrapnel. First, it might just be the
numbers game. At the time there were
roughly 200 independent comics being
published a month. That is not a typo. Now,
90% or more of them would never last past
issue no.3 for any number of reasons, the
biggest being bad sales. But at 200 titles
per month hitting shelves, even staunch
vigilant censorship advocates, are going to
miss a book or two worth railing against in
order to keep the world safe
from...drawings.
Another reason is more philosophical.
Censorship types are, by and large,
bullies...and not very deep thinkers, and
the same goes for the people they rile up
for the cause. So, as far as the bully
aspect, if you were a bully and wanted to
steamroll over someone...which of these two
books seem like the writer would back down
faster? The cartoon romance, or the batsh*t
crazy story about talking penises from
another dimension?
As far as riling people up for the cause,
the cat sex book is obviously an easier
pitch "it's beastiality!!!" than taking five
minutes trying to explain a twilight zone
esq plot about interdimensional travel and a
clown and vampires.
Anyways, the larger point is, that even not that long ago, publishing or selling
subversive comic books came with some risk.
This went on well into when I started Arsenic
Lullaby.
I personally don't think Arsenic Lullaby
classifies as an underground comic, because I
had two legit distributors, it was a
pretty solid hit with stores right off, and
as far as I know law enforcement never got
involved. It is in the
Underground Comics Price Guide,
though, now that I think about it. I
dunno, it's really never how I viewed the
book. Maybe if it came out in an earlier
era, but society had pretty well crumbled by
the time A.L. started getting published. In either case I'll
tell you a little story to give you a first
hand account of what non-mainstream
publishers had to deal with even as late as
Arsenic Lullaby hitting the shelves...
Issue no.2 almost didn't see the light of
day because the printer, curious at what
the thing on the cover was...read the issue,
and found out it was a cartoon fetus.
The
distributor called me asking where the
shipment was, I
called the printer asking why it hadn't been
shipped and...they
said they did not print it, and were NOT going
to. Not bothering to tell me this was an
added middle finger, by them, to the
content. This was before digital files so they
had the art boards and were not particularly interested in
sending them back. As I recall I had to
recopy the art, remake the art boards, and redo
the cover in one night and fed-ex the whole
mess to another printer and it just BEARLY got
it to the distributor before the drop dead
date. Had I missed the
distributors deadline on only the second
issue...that could have been the end for
Arsenic Lullaby.
Every underground publisher that lasted more
than a year has stories like I just
mentioned or even worse ones...
Publishing Underground comics was about being
on the edge (or over) of what the culture
will tolerate and that goes hand in hand
with risk and stress and pushback. You do it
BECAUSE you have stories you believe in,
that will not get done without being watered
down, unless you do it yourself. And when
you succeed it is because those stories
resonated with enough people who were just
as bored or disenchanted with what the
mainstream is able to deal with as you were.
Which brings us back to the absurd claim
that started off this blog. Now that you've
seen the depths which underground
comics live in and the backlash and hurdles
that they must deal with. You can
understand how ridiculous it is to declare
yourself to be an underground comics
publisher when you put content out such
as this...
That is not underground...that is expertly
printed,
top quality work,
by established pros...the content of which is easily, if not
deliberately geared to be,
appreciated by a general/wide audience.
One guy shooting another guy may well be
very dramatic in the context of the story,
but nobody's going to have to take a pause
to get their head around what they just saw
and unless that giant Kiju looking thing
starts smashing the city with his giant
dork, it's all frankly hell and gone from
"underground comics".
To use a music analogy,
Bad Idea publishing is not The Clash, The
Sex Pistols, or Public Enemy...they are Van
Halen. Van Halen is a very good band with
lot's of hits, but if they declared
themselves to be punk rock or gangster rap
it would be...ridiculous. And Johnny Rotten
and Chuck D would probably have a thing or
two to say to them.
"Greatest Underground Comics
Publisher" let's not forget that part,
"Greatest"...gotta be kidding me.
Greater than Kitchen Sink Press, Rebel
Studios, Apex Novelties...see, now I'm
getting irritated again, over something the
guy said like three months ago. And I had
gotten it all out of my system too, when I
emailed him about it.
"no...no, you didn't"
Oh, yes I did! I wrote my objections out and
said to myself "why are you...what's the
point of...don't do this" and then I
hit send. Hahahahaha. ...He never go back to
me, that's kinda weird. Usually, he does.
Hahaha...
ANYWAYS...
In this day and age, in this country, I
don't know that it'd still even be possible
to legitimately claim being an underground
comic. Ironically, maybe if your published
some super religious comic and tried
selling it at colleges you'd cause a ruckus
but half the country would have your back,
or conversely you could publish some over
the top LGTBQ comic in the wrong area and
get some backlash but the other half the country would
have your back. And plenty of people do these
and get that sweet, what I call, "us vs
them money". But that's not the same as
someone in 1960 putting out an anti
establishment comic, not knowing what kinda
hell might be waiting.
You give the finger to one
establishment or another now, half the
people will loathe you and the other half
will think you're great, *shrug*
meh. There's 50% safety net for
anything...kinda makes me sad. It bemuses me
when I hear people lament and say "yeah,
you're not supposed to say that anymore"
or "you can't do that anymore." You
were NEVER supposed to say or do "that",
that's what made it so fun.
So...let's recap what this blog gave ya. Bad
Idea is a great publisher but they are not
"underground", there was a time in this
country where the FBI and Congress cared
what was in a comic book, you saw a cartoon
cat's genitals, and you'll will never be
able to look Popeye in the eye again.
Anyways...come see me at
Grand
Rapids Comicon
Nov.15-17th
I'll have discussion panel on
writing/illustrating 1:30 pm sat the 16th
and until next time, I might as well leave
you with something semi-normal, to cleanse
the pallet, Happy Halloween!
|
ARSENIC LULLABY ONLINE STORE
Arsenic Lullaby comics, original art,
prints,
posters
and who knows what else..and who knows what else...
TEMPORARILY OPEN |
|
|
|
