Overview
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In the 1950s, comics meant POW! BAM! superheroes, family-friendly gags, and Sunday funnies, but in the 1960s, inspired by these strips and the satire of MAD magazine, a new generation of creators set out to subvert the medium, and with it, American culture.
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Their ācomix,ā spelled that way to distinguish the work from their dime-store contemporaries, presented tales of taboo sex, casual drug use, and a transgressive view of society. Embraced by hippies and legions of future creatives, this subgenre of comic books and strips was printed on out-of-date machinery, published in zines and underground newspapers, and distributed in head shops, in porno stores, and on street corners. Comix often ran afoul of the law, but that would not stop them from casting cultural ripples for decades to come, eventually moving the entire comics form beyond the gutter and into fine-art galleries.
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Author Brian Doherty weaves together the stories of R. Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Trina Robbins, Spain Rodriguez, Harvey Pekar, and Howard Cruse, among many others, detailing the complete narrative history of this movement that came to define ācool.ā Via dozens of new interviews and archival research, Doherty chronicles the scenes that sprang up around the country in the 1960s and ā70s and the rivalries, ideological battles, and conflicts that flourished. Beginning with the artistsā origin stories and following them through successes, including Spiegelmanās Pulitzer Prize winning Maus and theĀ feministĀ collective Wimmenās Comix, and through strife, from S. Clay Wilsonās spiral into alcoholism to Disneyās war on the Air Pirates comix collective to Crumbās uneasy relationship with success as social mores turned against his often-shocking use of sexual and racial imagery, and concluding with an examination of these creatorsā legacies, Dirty Pictures is the essential exploration of a truly American art form that recontextualized the way people thought about war, race, sex, gender, and expression.
This book title, Dirty Pictures (How an Underground Network of Nerds, Feminists, Misfits, Geniuses, Bikers, Potheads, Printers, Intellectuals, and Art School Rebels Revolutionized Art and Invented Comix), ISBN: 9781419750465, by Brian Doherty, published by Abrams Press (April 5, 2022) is available in hardcover. Our minimum order quantity is 25 copies. All standard bulk book orders ship FREE in the continental USA and delivered in 4-10 business days.
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