The artists Doherty writes about-many of whom whom went on to win Pulitzer Prizes, MacArthur "genius" grants, and both mass and critical acclaim-shook up popular culture and the high art world while fighting for radical, creative expression in an age of censorship. Yet within a decade, underground comix had become recognized as a vital artistic force in America whose influence is still massive and growing in art, music, movies, design, and more.īrian Doherty's Dirty Pictures: How an Underground Network of Nerds, Feminists, Misfits, Geniuses, Bikers, Potheads, Printers, Intellectuals, and Art School Rebels Revolutionized Art and Invented Comix, is the definitive history of this vital yet underappreciated aspect of American popular culture. These "undergound" works definitely weren't aimed at kids and they didn't follow the exploits of costumed do-gooders or anodyne high schoolers like Riverdale High's Archie, Betty, and Veronica.ĭrawing inspiration from Mad magazine and horror comics that had been subjected to congressional scrutiny in the 1950s, the new "comix" were filled with sex, drugs, and violence ruthlessly satirized mass culture and drew the ire of crusaders against obscenity and cultural decline. Starting in the 1960s, a maverick band of young cartoonists like Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Trina Robbins, and Gilbert Shelton starting churning out comic books the likes of which had never seen before.
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