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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Really, really good, May 13, 2009
This review is from: Underground Classics: The Transformation of Comics into Comix (Hardcover)
As someone who is fairly new to comics I was skeptical when one of my friends suggested I look at this book. I was familiar with R. Crumb but I wasn't even alive when the Underground Comix movement was taking place. But as I started flipping through the art and reading the essays at the beginning, I found myself laughing out loud and nodding my head. It's pretty amazing how much the comics that were made forty years ago are still relevant today. They deal with sex and drugs, but also race, political organizing, money, the lameness of the establishment, all that good stuff. To me, one of the most interesting aspects of the book is the fact that all of the art is shown in its original state, so you get to see some of the artists' thought processes and it just feels more accessible and real.
After hoarding my friend's copy for a while, I not only bought a copy for myself but I gave one to my parents who were actually around for the heyday of the underground movement. They both got all nostalgic about where they were when they first read Zap or Snarf magazine and it sparked some interesting conversations. I highly recommend this book for just about anyone who is interested in not only comics and art, but sarcasm, subversive humor, and fun.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic book, June 15, 2009
This review is from: Underground Classics: The Transformation of Comics into Comix (Hardcover)
This book is one of a kind. It situates the rise of underground comics into the broader history of the 1960s/1970s (or, with the 1960s/1970s at the center of the narrative -- it really covers the 1950s to the present). There are some superb essays -- one by the editors, one by comix buff and radical historian Paul Buhle. Trina Robbins ties together feminism and comix. The book is worth buying for the written material alone, but the scores of large, colorful pages depicting the work (sometimes in rare original and draft form) of well-known (and less well-known) artists is the real treat. Cumulatively, these images and the text accompanying them provide one of the best surveys of underground comics history. It's a hugely fun read. Anyone interested in comics, the 1960s, art history, feminism, etc., should check this book out.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Self-important look back at an important phenomenon, September 26, 2009
This review is from: Underground Classics: The Transformation of Comics into Comix (Hardcover)
I always loved comics as a kid, but was really too young (and too naive) to have been exposed to the underground comics movement that started in the late 60 and early 70s. By my day, even Mad magazine had become a rather tame affair. "Underground Classics" was a way for me to fill this gap.
The book's first half includes articles about the genre's history and artists. The focus was on publishing and distribution, which was an important aspect of the movement. But there is precious little about the art itself -- little about the passions driving such craziness as Zap! and Air Pirates and The Fabulous Furry, Freak Brothers. It is obvious that the artists were anti-establishment in orientation and opposed to the saccharine creation of more mainstream comic art. But this was never spelled out. Worse, Paul Buhle's long article on the "undergrounds" was pedantic and full of the kind of bloviating nonsense that the genre itself would have skewered without mercy.
The second half of the book is much more satisfying. We get to see the original art that made it into the comics, complete with erasures and corrections and registration marks. Unfortunately, we get only a panel or two from each artist, hardly enough to appreciate their genius. Bill Griffiths is represented by a couple of covers -- on from Zippy. We get a few covers from the master, Robert Crumb. But we do get page after page of titillating eye candy from a variety of other super-talented and driven comic artists. The art is great -- no holds are barred, and no topic (Jesus at a faculty party?) is taboo. There is plenty of drug use, political commentary, savage satire and wild sex (with a female yeti, no less).
The book left me wanting more -- much more. It's worth it for that. But by the end, and without benefit of an insider's knowledge, I still had little idea of how the roiling passions of the 1960s were transformed into such wild and unrestrained art, and how it might have affected its readers and future generations of artists.
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