#head comix

"CREATED IN FULL COLOR USING PRISMACOLOR PENCILS AND SHEETS OF YELLOW, ORANGE, AND RED FILM, IT'S A KNOCK-OUT."

PIC INFO: Resolution at 2050×2517 -- Spotlight on Robert Crumb's "Head Comix" unused cover original art, c. 1968.

OVERVIEW: ""Head Comix" was a title Crumb had played around with quite a bit in the months leading to his first true Underground comic book, "Zap Comix" #1. There are several unused comic book covers with this title that Crumb created in 1967-68, during the time he was getting one-page strips published in places like East Village Other and Yarrowstalks, including pages titled "Head Comix." When Viking Press offered to publish an oversized book edition of those and other strips in 1968, Crumb decided to once again to pull out this favored title, and he created several versions of a cover for the "Head Comix" book.

This spectacular design is one of them, and is perhaps the least known of all the different versions. Created in full color using Prismacolor pencils and sheets of yellow, orange, and red film, it's a knock-out. The animated light bulb was another reoccurring theme; a version made it to the final finished cover, along with an animated tree. Even the lightning bolts that surround the image here made their way to the final design, as small black elements by the "Introduction by Paul Krassner" blurb at the bottom of the cover."

-- HERITAGE AUCTIONS (Comics, Comic Art, & Animation)

"... FOR MANY PEOPLE, "HEAD COMIX" WAS THEIR FIRST EXPOSURE TO UNDERGROUND COMICS."

PIC(S) INFO: Spotlight on cover art to R. Crumb's "Head Comix" 1st Printing -- Softcover (68 pages), published by New York's Viking Press in 1968. Cover art by R. Crumb. "Head Comix" was the first mass-produced and nationally distributed samplings of Crumb's work just as he was becoming famous, and remains an excellent introductory collection of his early work.

OVERVIEW: The meteoric rise in popularity of Robert Crumb's early work in the "East Village Other" and "Zap Comix" in 1967 and 1968 quickly caught the attention of book publishers in New York, who wanted to cash in on "the fad." Several began vying for publishing rights to Crumb's work, leading to Viking Press rushing out "Head Comix" in late 1968. Viking printed a limited number of hardcover copies of the book along with the standard softcover edition. The 64 interior pages feature an introduction by Paul Krassner ("The Realist"), several comics from "Zap" #1 plus many others that appeared in various tabloid and magazines, like the "East Village Other" and "Cavalier," and some "Fritz the Cat" stories from "Help!"

Crumb didn't like New York book publishers, calling them money-grubbers and schmucks on numerous occasions. He was very agitated when Viking Press censored some of the naughtier parts of his artwork in "Head Comix." Crumb declared "It was ridiculous. They were living in the Victorian era. It made me sick dealing with them." Subsequently, Ballantine Books produced the second and third printings of the book without censorship. In 1988, Simon & Schuster printed a revised edition under their Fireside imprint, with 32 additional pages of comics and a Robert Crumb introduction replacing Paul Krassner's.

Regardless of Crumb's opinion of mainstream book publishers, "Head Comix" was certainly a landmark publication that spread Crumb's new form of comic art across America (and even the world), reaching a more diverse audience than his comic books. For many people, "Head Comix" was their first exposure to underground comics, and it doubtlessly inspired some to seek out and buy more underground comic books and even pursue a career in underground comics (the poor shlubs).

"Head Comix" also provides a representative sampling of Crumb's existing body of work, from the relative innocence of "Fritz the Cat" to the LSD-inspired "Ultra Super Modernistic Comics." Though these comics from 1965-1968 represent what Crumb calls his "innocent period," the concepts behind the signature characters of Mr. Natural, Schuman The Human, Flakey Floont, and Whiteman are well established. Overall, "Head Comix" is a terrific read of the early underground comics by Robert Crumb."

-- COMIXJOINT (Underground Comix Collection)