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| underground comix | |
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Underground comics (or '''comix''') are self-published or small press Comic Books that sprang up in the US in the late 1960s. The movement was centered in San Francisco , but also included important artists and publishers in New York, Chicago and Austin, Texas. Prominent artists associated with this movement include Vaughn Bode , Robert Crumb , Robert Williams , S. Clay Wilson , Skip Williamson , Rick Griffin , Gilbert Shelton , Art Spiegelman , Kim Deitch , Jay Lynch , Spain Rodriguez , Bill Griffith , Justin Green and Trina Robbins . Mainstream comics were typically produced by a team (writer, penciler, inker, letterer, editor), while underground books were often done by a single person. Underground artists also contributed shorter works to thematic Anthology Comic titles, such as ''Funny Aminals'' (1972), edited by Terry Zwigoff with work by Crumb, Griffith, Lynch, Spiegelman and Shary Flenniken . Underground comix reflect the concerns of the 1960s in comic book form. You can see the beginning of this in some of the cartoon panels that have been appearing in the '' East Village Other ''." The underground comix were largely distributed though a network of Head Shop s which also sold underground newspapers, psychedelic posters, and drug paraphernalia. In the mid-1970s, the Vietnam War was over, no longer a rallying cause, sales of drug paraphernalia was outlawed in many places, and the distribution network for these comics (and the underground newspapers) dried up. Although many of the underground artists continued to produce work, the underground comix movement is considered by most historians to have ended by 1976, to be replaced by a rise in independent, non- Comics Code compliant publishing companies in the 1980s and the resulting increase in acceptance of adult-oriented comic books (see Alternative Comics ). Underground comics, as a phrase, has gained some renewed popularity among comics fans to describe some of today's alternative comics. With the increased interest in comics in the English-speaking world and the fact that Superhero and action-adventure comics do not quite so much dominate the American market, the blanket phrase "alternative comic" does not really describe the variety of work published under that category, therefore "underground comics" has come to apply to work within the "alternative comics" category which more closely shares with in some way, the common sensibility to the underground comics of old. NOTABLE UNDERGROUND COMIX
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