Show off your Uber High Grade UNDERGROUND COMIX !!!

[blutobc]

I haven't owned or read any UGs since the early 1980s and my college days. Some were funny, some were porno, and some were just sick

 

Anyway, they accomplished their purpose as I still remember many of them. For good or bad.

 

It was nice to see what the UG collectors like, as I knew I would upon clicking the tread's title.

 

It's also been priceless to see deadheads(which is meant in the nicest of ways ) deal with a troll....generally patient and overall "hey man, it's cool"

[MrBedrock]

I didn't realize that I'd see pornography when I opened this thread.

You haven't. Some extreme cases of satire and a little sexual innuendo, but no porno.

Heck, if you go back and look there's hardly been any nudity.

[erehwon]

Great thread and some really amazing books posted so far!

 

I was so thrilled to see an underground thread in general that I went to storage and snapped a few pics today... Hope you enjoy!

 

 

[erehwon]

Early, early Bode.

 

[erehwon]

[erehwon]

[dupont2005]

[erehwon]

And last but not least one of my all time favorites.

 

 

[comixcroz]

Early, early Bode.

 

I have never seen this one before! That's cool - see, you can have super heroes and undergrounds at the same time.

[erehwon]

Early, early Bode.

 

I have never seen this one before! That's cool - see, you can have super heroes and undergrounds at the same time.

 

Hadn't even thought of that.

[oldmilwaukee6er]

UG Comix = Freaking out the squares for 50 years

 

wasn't obscene in '73... not obscene now

and yet... the more things change, the more they remain the same

[50 Cent #II (1st)]

Hey, Wonder Wart-Hog is a super hero and one of the first appearances of a Underground Comix character.

[ThreeSeas]

Interesting thread. I am curious as to what determines if a comic is an underground comic.

 

Are nudity and drugs the main things that qualify a comic as an Underground?

 

Would the same type of story, if published by DC or Marvel, then not be an underground?

 

Or is anything by an independent publisher that goes against the grain of current beliefs, whether political, drug related, violent, or showing nudity, is what qualifies it as an underground? In other words, it has to have some type of shock value?

 

Does independent publisher + intended for adult audience = underground?

 

Or is it "I'll know it when I see it"?

 

I bought many black and white independent comics back in the 80's, but I do not think any of them would be considered undergrounds, even though some I do not think were made for kids. Back then I think anyone with access to a printer tried to publish a comic book.

 

On a side note, I have some issues of Cherry and when I was at the Motorcity convention two or three years ago I saw the author had a booth there. I wanted to pick up some original art, or at least a sketch, but I had my 12 yr old daughter and 14 yr old son with me so I did not get a chance to. I did not want to explain to my kids what type of comics those were, at least not until they are adults.

[dupont2005]

It's a specific genre. Not all independents are undergrounds, not all undergrounds are about sex and drugs (though most of them are about one or the other). A lot of shock value going on, and Marvel did attempt to publish an underground comic at one time. It's kind of like how smoking pot doesn't make someone a hippy, and you don't HAVE to smoke pot to be a hippy, but most did.

 

Those 80's comics that you have could be alternatives, but if they are the typical super hero team stuff then they are just independent-self published comics. I really like those too though

[rjpb]

"Underground comix" is an outdated term anymore, the rise of independents and self-published books with more adult ( in the sense of not geared towards kids) content in the 1980s, along with the porno comic wave pretty much blurred a line that was pretty obvious in 1970.

 

With the first generation of U.G. artists, if they do anything new, it's almost always in trade or hardback "graphic novel" format. Are they still undergrounds?

 

While I segregate my collection into "underground" and "independent" boxes, it's sometimes a coin flip what ends up where, usually based on wether the book was done by someone generally considered an "underground" creator, the publishing company, and a vague sense that the book has an "underground" sensibility.

 

 

Charles Burns, Thomas Ott, Daniel Clowes, Mark Martin, Seth, Joe Sacco

 

Underground or alternative creators?

[dupont2005]

I think Johnny Ryan and Jason Karns are doing modern underground stuff. I wouldn't consider Sacco as underground though. Not familiar with Mark Martin outside of TMNT.

[50 Cent #II (1st)]

I wouldn't say there are current Undergrounds coming out now, maybe the closest currently is what Dexter Cockburn does and what Michael Roden did, probably Burns, Clowes, etc. is in that same group. But the heart of the Underground Comix era was 1967-1976. Some later Underground stuff came out and I guess can be camped with the Newave era that started in 1980 with RAW and everything else that was listed in the Jay Kennedy guide (1982) I guess. Exception: anything that Crumb (and any of the remaining original Underground artists) does is Underground in my book also.

[TheLiamSturgess]

I'm not 100% sure if I should be posting in this thread since I'm a few years underage, but since there is very little nudity on most UG covers in this thread, I felt like I could safely post this...

 

From my POV, I see Undergrounds as anything that contains comedy surrounding such topics as drugs and other adult content. Obviously, there are comics published by Marvel and DC that are incredibly violent (such as the Marvel Max series) that are targeted for adults but that I'm sure my local comic guy would sell me if I asked. These, however, aren't considered undergrounds, which is why I don't really personally have a rock solid definition of what UG is... Another example would be the ASM and Green Lantern drug issues. The main difference I see is that there is no comedy involved in these - they are stories that are usually grim and involve a lesson of some sort (though I doubt you'll learn much from the MAX series ).

 

My personal designation for undergrounds is that if I can't legally buy it, it's an underground. Obviously that's not an end-all rule, but all I know is I won't be collecting undergrounds for a few more years.

[DR.X]

This will be off to CGC one of these days.

 

[lizards2]

Hey, Wonder Wart-Hog is a super hero and one of the first appearances of a Underground Comix character.

Eat pie, pig.