Spain Rodriguez

Patrick Rosenkranz

In My Life & Times, Spain turns his eye on himself to create his most candid, autobiographical comic stories, which draw on the pivotal moments of his formative years: cruising with teen pals and wild acquaintances; the Buffalo, New York, jazz clubs; close encounters with women and sexuality; and his growth as an artist. Through rarely seen paintings, a sampling of sketchbook pages, and dozens of stories, in addition to essays by historian Patrick Rosenkranz, My Life & Times explains how Spain went from a misguided youth to a high-profile denizen of San Francisco’s Mission District to a community elder who attempted to bridge the gap between underground comix and the emerging Latino Art Movement ― he was even included in the "Neighborhood Heroes" mural at the local middle school. This collection of comics from Zap, Blab!, Young Lust, Rip Off Comix, and The Comics Journal make for Spain's most personal contributions from his over six-decade career.

My Life & Times

Spain Vol. 3

If he were alive today, he'd be a superstar. He was that good. But Greg Irons died just as his star was rising. He was only 37 years old when a speeding bus on a busy Bangkok street killed him in 1984. Irons was a psychedelic poster artist, an underground cartoonist, a book illustrator, and an emerging tattoo virtuoso who brought a new sensibility to an age-old art form. This retrospective book spans his whole artistic career, from his earliest dance posters, to his ground breaking science fiction and horror comix, to his innovative and colorful tattoo art. Greg Irons was one of the elite among posters artists who worked for Bill Graham's Fillmore Ballroom in San Francisco during the Age of Aquarius, designing posters for Chuck Berry, Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother, and Paul Butterfield. You Call This Art?! reprints his finest psychedelic posters in full-color, as well as complete comic stories from Slow Death Funnies, Legion of Charlies, Deviant Slice, Yellow Dog, Thrilling Murder, and many other underground comic books. It also includes rarely seen album cover art for Jerry Garcia, Blue Cheer, Jefferson Starship and other counterculture musicians. Irons had a third career as an illustrator of children's coloring books, and pages from books including One Old Oxford Ox, Last of the Dinosaurs, Pirates, and Wyf of Bathe appear as well. Many examples of his tattoo art are also included.

A Greg Irons Retrospective

You Call This Art?

A provocative chronicle of the guerilla art movement that changed comics forever, this comprehensive book follows the movements of 50 artists from 1967 to 1972, the heyday of the underground comix movement. With the cooperation of every significant underground cartoonist of the period, including R. Crumb, Gilbert Shelton, Bill Griffith, Art Spiegelman, Jack Jackson, S. Clay Wilson, Robert Williams and many more, the book is illustrated with many neve-before-seen drawings and exclusive photos.

The Underground Comix Revolution 1963-1975

Rebel Visions

Ed Piskor

Jay Lynch

The career of Jay Lynch―cartoonist, satirist, and counterculture archivist―spanned more than six decades. All his signature Nard ‘n’ Pat stories from Bijou Funnies are featured in this volume. There are also samples of his trading card illustrations (for Garbage Pail Kids and other Topps Chewing Gum series) and his paintings. Lynch also narrates his life story throughout the book, from his dysfunctional childhood to the day he selected his coffin and headstone, in a half-century series of interviews and correspondence with comic historian Patrick Rosenkranz.

A Jay Lynch Anthology

Ink & Anguish

S. Clay Wilson

The is the definitive account of the boldest and most audacious of the legendary underground cartoonists: the taboo busting, eyeball blistering S. Clay Wilson. This first volume contains all of his underground comic stories from Zap Comix, Snatch, Gothic Blimp Works, Bogeyman, Felch, Insect Fear, Pork, Tales of Sex and Death, and Arcade magazine as well as the many adventures of the Checkered Demon, Star-Eyed Stella, and Captain Pissgums, and even his earliest collaborations with William Burroughs. Also: selections from his teenaged and college years, both in comics and painting form. First person accounts from his peers, as well as Wilson’s own words, offer a revealing portrait of the artist who hid his shyness behind brash behavior and bluster. This first of a three-volume biography and retrospective gets to the heart and soul of an artist who lived his dreams and his nightmares.

The Mythology of S. Clay Wilson

Pirates in the Heartland

As the Age of Aquarius morphed into Discomania and Reaganomics, pioneering underground cartoonist S. Clay Wilson discovered a new generation of punks and misfits in America and abroad who appreciated his point of view. He found new outlets for his artwork in outré galleries and fringe publications, and continued to contribute to the surviving remnants of the underground, including the never-say-die classic anthology, Zap Comix. He made two tours of Europe, collaborated with William Burroughs and Ken Kesey, appeared on MTV, and had several highly acclaimed exhibitions in Seattle, Los Angeles, and New York. The Checkered Demon became ascendant among his creations ― the prolific headliner of a series of comic titles that followed his adventures around the earth and across the galaxies. This is the second of a three-volume series reprinting his best comics and chronicling his life in a series of prose chapters. Demons and Angels features his two solo comics, 2 and 22, strips fromCocaine Comix, Knockabout, Weird Smut, and all his stories from Zap Comix #6–11. Strips in obscure mags like Jump Start, Mondo Montana, Deadbeat, Too Fun Too Huge, Boiled Owl, Maggot-Zine, andWeird Smut are also included, as well as many never published privately commissioned watercolors and paintings produced for his discriminating art collectors.

Demons and Angels

This book includes all of the cartoonist's work from Zap Comix #12 through #15; stories published in the horror anthology Taboo; the three appearances of his outrageous, race-bending character Meadows from Weirdo; illustrations for Grimm and Andersen fairy tales; as well as book jackets and album covers. Plus, dozens of privately commissioned paintings, including the Seven Deadly Sins (Just Say Yes!) and inner landscapes peopled with pirates, ogres, leprechauns, Cyclops, the Baby Jesus, and his favorites players, Captain Pissgums, Star-Eyed Stella, and the Checkered Demon. It also includes an even score of remarkably rendered paintings, both unpublished and virtually unseen, that he created between the 2006 publication of The Art of S. Clay Wilson and The Night the Lights Went Out in 2008, when Wilson’s career spiraled out of control.

Patrick Rosenkranz

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