A Brief History in American Comics: Part 7- Comics and Comix of the 1970's

The 1970s brought about another generation of new comic artists. Emerging with their own stories, inspired by the comics they read growing up, these new artists brought a new wave of science fiction, horror (while within the Code), and other nostalgic materials. One popular example came about in 1972 with DC’s own Swamp Thing, by Berni Wrightson and Len Wein, who became a successful character “through the next four decades ^[6].”

Neal Adams’ Deadman presented a maturity and emotional factor “new to comics” by that point, allowing it to seem much more down-to-earth (figuratively or literally) than some other superheroes in the stands and shops. Adams would continue this grounded sensibility in other serials like the Green Lantern/Green Arrow of 1970-1971, which had its heroes facing racism, drug addiction, and other concerns that would have been present in society. Just one example in an issue of the Green Lantern/Green Arrow series in 1970, Green Arrow, a new hero representative of the contemporary time-period, argues with Green Lantern, a more conservative hero, after his saving a slumlord from an assault by his tenants. The contrasting viewpoints between Green Lantern and Green Arrow became a prevalent focus in the comic series ^[7]. Adams is also credited with transitioning Batman from the “blocky” look of its original artists to the “’dark knight’ approach” as we would recognize him today ^[6].

Thanks to the various publishers’ abilities to contour plot points around code-approved content, the superhero genre had readers flocking to comic books during the 1960s. However, this grand attraction also resulted in directing attention towards adolescents and children-focused sales, and retracting or outright ignoring adult readers and adult-like content.  A decade of superhero-intensive hype eventually created the effect of a burnout towards the end of the 1960s ^[6].

Underground “Comix”
From 1967 to 1975, the comix boom surged almost entirely from self-publishing outlets. University magazines that became significant include University of Texas’s The Texas Ranger and University of Wisconsin’s Snide ^[3]. 

As stated previously, the underground comics/comix were in many ways their own, as Sabin states, “anti-Comic Code reaction”, since they often included what the Code forbade, including drugs, sex (where the ‘x’ in ‘comix’ stems from), and political messages or meanings^[3]. EC Comics, publisher of MAD and many other comics popular in the 40s and 50s, became “the grand model” for many cartoonists in the underground movement. Some even saw underground comix “as revenge for the destruction of EC at the hands of institutionalized censorship ^[4].”

Political messages took on their own path within the wake of the American hippie movement. Taking place during the mid-to-late 1960s, the movement pressed its own messages against the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights struggles, Women’s and Gay Liberation movements, and others ^[3].

Zap (1968) created by Robert Crumb served as a major turning point and “the title that started the whole comix ball rolling.” Its mixed inspiration, from MAD to Disney, along with its contrasting content with the strips themselves (complete with a parodied Comic Code seal on the cover), appealed to a massive audience. Beginning by selling on street corners, Zap quickly reached a more professional publisher, The Print Mint. Following this, the magazine took off in popularity, creating its own market of consumers ^[3]. 

Many artists followed with their own works out of inspiration from MAD and Zap, like Bijou Funnies (1968) from Chicago, Young Lust (1970) based in San Francisco, and Bizarre Sex (1972) out of Milwaukee. Comix by and for women also emerged through Wimmen’s Comix (1972), It Ain’t Me Babe (1970), and several others ^[4]. This new movement made its own substantial mark by being “the first time, generally speaking, that women creators had been given the scope to produce stories by themselves ^[3].”

Autobiographies also came on the rise via underground comix, such as Binky Brown.  An open and honest loose memoir by Justin Green, Binky Brown followed the main character through “his adolescent sexual anxieties, suffering from what today is known as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.” The breadth of honesty portrayed by Green allowed readers to recognize a greater possibility in the comic medium, inspiring future artists like Art Spiegelman ^[4].

Underground in the Conventional World

The animated film of Crumb’s series Fritz the Cat and Marvel’s Comix Book were indicators of the influence by underground-style and art in the mainstream and pop media/culture. In 1972, Fritz the Cat, the animated film based on Crumb’s comic of the same name (and the first animated rated-X film) was, although a commercial success, such a downturn from the original comic that artist Crumb demanded to be removed from the movie’s credits. Similarly, the release and fall of Marvel’s short-lived Comix Book series in 1974 was (only five issues long) pointed as a ‘beginning of the end’ for underground comix as a whole ^[3] as it failed to appeal “to the counterculture nor to fans of mainstream funny comics ^[4]”.

The Downfall of Comix

“The American comix underground was not built to last.” Most comix cartoonists only maintained themselves “as long as the inertia of the movement lasted”, according to Garcia. Harvey Kurtzman, an underground artist himself, describes underground artists he knew as “very frustrated guys, torn between a desire for material success and a contempt for it.” Gilbert Shelton described the sentiment as a paradox, stating “if we succeed, we’ve failed. But if we fail, we’re successful.” Thus it was precisely once mainstream venues began taking notice of the underground movement that many perceived the end of it altogether ^[4].

The beginning of the end was in 1973, when underground comix were criticized by one of their own, Bill Griffith, for stating they were saturated with “clichés of terror, fantasy and pornography, no longer with any ironic intent.” The external world also viewed this as a hindrance as many stores, concerned for their financial bottom lines and community image, began halting their distribution of lesser-sold and obscene titles. By the mid-1970s, ‘underground’ became more of a genre than a movement or style ^[4]. 

The “last great adventure of the underground” came in 1975, with magazine Arcade, edited by Bill Griffith and Art Spiegelman. In its attempt to “do battle at the newsstands” with national satirical works, Arcade lost with only seven issues.  “’Underground’ thus resulted in a style that barely survived in the pages of the few veterans of the golden age of comix who remained active with individual titles ^[4].”

Overall, the installation of the Comic Code of the 1950’s, and later outcry against it in the 1960’s and 70’s, proved that despite previous perception, American comic readership included a broad age range. As the installation of underground comics catered to this mature readership, mainstream publishers would use these as tools to develop their own market towards adolescents and teenagers in the following decade ^[3]. This new market, as indicated by Sabin, “was something that would develop over the next decade into a completely new system of comics marketing based on comics ‘fandom.’”

Next time in A Scroll in Time... 

We see how the transformation of comics in the '70s helps boost the image of comics in the 1980s and on! 

Stay tuned!

[1] Couperie, Pierre, Maurice Horn, Proto Destefanis, Edouard François, Claude Moliterni, Gérald Gassiot-Talabot, and Eileen Hennessy. A History of the Comic Strip. New York: Crown, 1968. Print.
[2] Steranko, James. The Steranko History of Comics. Reading, PA. 1970. Print.
[3] Sabin, Roger. Comics, Comix & Graphic Novels. Hong Kong. 1996. Print.
[4] Garcia, Santiago. On the Graphic Novel. University Press of Mississippi. 2015. Print.
[5] Hajdu, David. The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America. New York. 2008. Print.
[6] Mazur, Dan, and Alexander Danner. Comics: A Global History, 1968 to the Present. London: Thames & Hudson, 2014. Print.
[7] Wright, Bradford W. Comic Book Nation. Baltimore, MD. 2003. Print

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