Friday, April 11, 2008

OT: Underground comics mag find part one - A Secret History of Comics Special

I picked up a couple of underground magazines - well they were probably ground-level for the time - that are going to be passed along to MSU's Comic Art Collection soon. Before I do that, here's some of the more famous underground cartoonists from Apple Pie May 1975.



Neal Adams art on this.


Terry Austin, the great inker, apparently did editorial cartoons too.


A couple of one-pagers by Justin Green.





Paul Kirchner did the surrealist strip The Bus for alternative weekly newspapers, until I seem to remember that he came into money - Ninja Turtle money maybe?



And a three-page strip by Kirchner:





10 comments:

Steven Rowe said...

never thought of APPLE PIE as an underground magazine - as it appeared in drugstores and newstands here in the rural southland.... part of the National Lampoon inspired magazines (they were originally HARPOON before the NL lawyers talked to them)

Mike Rhode said...

Thanks Steve. I called them Underground largely because of the cartoonists involved. Oddly enough, Randy Scott of MSU hadn't heard of it and there are no copies in WorldCat. I've got one more 1975 issue with cartoonists and then the two from 1976 have nobody in them.

Scott Gilbert wrote in to tell me that Kirchner was actually the creator of Masters of the Universe. Not something I ever followed, but I'm always glad to see a cartoonist get rich - except when they then retire like he and Watterson did.

Steven Rowe said...

HARPOON #1 September 1974 - #3 January 1975

APPLE PIE V! #1 March 1975 to V2 #1 January 1976 (latter issues to 1978 believed)
this info from the book AMERICAN HUMOR MAGAZINES AND COMIC PERIODICALS
(1987) Published by Adrian Lopez under the Histornic (or some such) name.
I had a friend who had them all at the time, but I have to admit I wasnt that thrilled with it.

Mike Rhode said...

Steve, as always, you're amazing. The cover says Lopez publications. I didn't scan the indicia as I didn't really care, I'm afraid.

No, aside from the cartoonists, they're wildly uninteresting. Check out the 2nd post for Kaluta doing Buster Brown!

Paul Kirchner said...

That was the third and last "Dope Rider" I did for Dennis Lopez's magazine. It was picked up by High Times, for whom I did five four-pagers. Fun times!

BTW, I did not get rich from Masters of the Universe, nor was I entitled to. I drew a comic strip about them for a magazine put out by Telepictures.

Mike Rhode said...

Wow, I had to dig deep to figure out what this post was when I got a notice about a comment.

Paul, thanks for the note. I'm sorry you didn't get rich on MotU.

I loved the Bus. Any hopes of a new, complete collection?

Tanibis editions said...

We are glad to announce that a new complete collection of "the bus" will be published in France in 2012.

Mike Rhode said...

Wow, a new edition of The Bus. Excellent news!

Tanibis editions said...

Thank you Mike for your interest. In case you were wondering, it will include many strips that are not in the first edition, a postscript by Paul Kirchner, and a new cover.

Mike Rhode said...

I didn't realize the American edition wasn't the complete works. I'll definitely be interested in this when it comes out. Do you have a US distributor?