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 The cover artwork for the first issue of Zap Comix, featuring the character Mr. Natural. | |
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Underground comix are small press or self-published comic books that are often socially relevant or satirical in nature. They differ from mainstream comics in depicting content forbidden to mainstream publications by the Comics Code Authority, including explicit drug use, sexuality, and violence. They were most popular in the United States in the late 1960s and 1970s, and in the United Kingdom in the 1970s.
Robert Crumb, Gilbert Shelton, Barbara "Willy" Mendes, Trina Robbins and numerous other cartoonists created underground titles that were popular with readers within the counterculture scene. Punk had its own comic artists like Gary Panter. Long after their heyday, underground comix gained prominence with films and television shows influenced by the movement and with mainstream comic books, but their legacy is most obvious with alternative comics.