A Full-Frontal Assault on Censorship: Zap Comix and the Underground Movement
Before there were unified groups dedicated to protecting creators’ rights and their freedom of speech and expression, there was the underground comix movement. In response to the 1954 Senate Subcommittee hearings, which ruled comics to be garishly colored, morally devoid pulps spreading delinquency and degeneracy across America, a unique group of creators banded together and openly (and rudely) waged a full-on war against the Comics Code and the blatant censorship, suppression, and moral policing plaguing the comic book industry of the day. One of the most significant publications to come out of this movement, R. Crumb’s Zap Comix, showcased a wide array of works by the most prolific and stylistically diverse artists at the time. Originally published in San Francisco in 1968, Zap was a space where cartoonists collaborated to produce free-form narratives about literally whatever they wanted. From the psychedelic, mind-tripping works of surfer Rick Griffin to the sexually charged and violent satirical vignettes of S. Clay Wilson, Zap was a creative space where young, passionate artists could express their innermost (and often perverse) thoughts while exercising their counterculture political and social views completely unrestrained. Using entrepreneurial and social networks that they themselves established, these creators controlled the printers […]
