Erupting from the turbulent social waters of the 1960â??s counter-culture movement, the genre known as underground comics kicked down the doors of the staid funny book status quo with frank depictions of in-your-face drug use, the sweaty excesses of every imaginable sexual orientation and radical political statements unimaginable in the pages of the conventional Comics Code Authority-sanctioned fare found at the corner malt shop newstand. This revolutionary era in American comics is preserved and celebrated with great aplomb in Underground Classics: The Transformation of Comics into Comix by co-authors James Danky and Denis Kitchen, published this month by Abrams ComicsArts. A companion volume to a fascinating gallery show at the University of Wisconsin-Madisonâ??s Chazen Museum of Art, the book documents the first time in American comics when the uncensored ideas of anti-establishment thinkersâ??from women, blacks and homosexuals to other disenfranchised members of American societyâ??were given full and unfettered voice.
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