Underground classics

The impact of American underground comics is profound: They galvanized subsequent generations of cartoonists both domestically and abroad; they forever changed the economics of comics publishing at all levels; and they even influenced earlier generations of artists. While the works of Robert Crumb and Art Spiegelman are well-known via The New Yorker, Maus, and retrospective collections, the art of contemporaries such as Gilbert Shelton, Tina Robbins, Justin Green, Kim Dietch, S. Clay Wilson, and many other important cartoonists who came of age in the 1960s is considerably less known. Underground Classics provides the first serious survey of underground comics as art, turning the spotlight on these highly influential and largely underappreciated artists. This volume accompanies a major exhibition debuting at the Chazen Museum of Art on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, which will then travel to additional national and international venues. Four essays, from curators Denis Kitchen and James P. Danky, Paul Buhle, Patrick Rosenkranz, and Trina Robbins, offer a thorough reflection and appraisal of the underground movement. Over two hundered original drawings, paintings, sculptures, and artifacts are featured, loaned from both major private collections and the artists themselves, making Underground Classics indispensible for the serious-minded comics fan and the casual reader alike.