Sex, Drugs and Autobiographies

The underground comic scene of the late 1960s developed not in New York but in San Francisco. It was a part of the hippie movement that had erupted in search of free lifestyles and a boundless experience of self. Drug-induced hallucinations and sexual obsessions found their way into illustrated narratives known as “comix,” in distinction from their more commercially oriented counterparts. In the 1970s cartoonists such as Aline Kominsky-Crumb and Diane Noomin launched a new line of parody, which gave expression both to resolutely female and Jewish perspectives. In this same period, Art Spiegelman began to develop longer comic strips about psychic crisis and traumatic events.

ZAP Comics