Changing gears somewhat, I'm putting up a comic that I picked up this past weekend at the Long Beach Comic Convention. I've refrained so far from using comics, as I think that maybe I should start a whole new blog solely for them. This comic is different.
This is a copy of "Zap Comix", #0. It was released after #2 and before #3, but is material written before issue #1 in real time. I found this issue, a fourth printing in "Very Fine (Minus)" condition that I got at half price, and it still cost me nine bucks.
In the sixties, as the return of comic books to a realm that's not quite mainstream media--but still sorta prominent--ensued, certain people began to use the form for stories that were a little more mature and using things like drugs and/or sex as the motivation. They began to be called comix, with the 'X' designating an X-rated subject matter.
Robert Crumb was working in Cleveland as an illustrator in the sixties making greeting cards. He was hating life. Then LSD made the scene in Cleveland, and after making its way to Robert, he was really hating life, because now he was enlightened. One night he met some guys in a bar who were talking about driving off to San Francisco. That sounded good to him, and like so many other heads in the mid to late sixties, he dropped everything and left for the City by the Bay.
And, like so many heads during that time who did that, he found himself on the Haight, just hanging around, twisted, trying to find meaning, and something to do. He started making drawings, and then some comics, and then got a crazy idea.
He decided to write and draw and print and publish his own independent comic books. He and his new wife would walk up and down Haight Ashbury and sell his "Zap Comix" out of a stroller. Eventually they found their way into head shops, and could be purchased that way.
For me, as someone who has read his share of comics, to thumb through an American artifact like this is remarkable: every single pen stroke and mark inside is from one guy, R. Crumb. There are no ads, no editorials (besides the whole thing I guess), and no masthead information. Just a guy doing his thing, an artistic thing he believed in.
It's inspiring.
And, at this time in my life, my connection to comics has entered a more mature phase. "Worth" now is judged more on what it means rather than dollar figures. I've been looking for a copy of Zap #0 for a while, one with the 35 cents price (some really late editions have a 60 cent price), and wasn't completely falling apart. Prices for the very early editions are extremely high. This copy was the best deal I'd found, and it was something I was specifically looking for at the Nerd-Fest. Here's a link to something I wrote about the LB Comic Con.
Comics for me are not investments, and this copy, much like my first paper-back edition Gravity's Rainbow, isn't for sale. This is an artifact, an artifact from an American past that is easily blurred by films, paintings, photos and albums.
Here is a collection of images and "stories" from the time when you could make a living selling a comic on the streets out of a stroller, and it captures the ethos as accurately as you'd expect.
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