A sneak preview of Drew Friedman's book of portraits of underground comix icons

The fantastic Drew Friedman says: "My latest book project will be one hundred black and white portraits of underground comix icons presented as they were during that most fertile era of underground comix, 1967-1977, from Z to A, ZAP to ARCADE (with some stops before and after). Short biographies and samples of their work will also be included."

To me, this is a natural followup to my two Heroes of the Comics books that both focused on the great creators of mainstream comics, from the mid- thirties to the mid-fifties, now jumping a decade to the dawn of the undergrounds.

Underground comix was a counterculture movement that produced iconoclastic and wonderfully forbidden, no-holds-barred comic books and other small press publications focusing mainly on sex, violence and drugs, and featured comix and graphix produced by some of the greatest artistic talents and satiric minds of the day, most prominently the "father of underground comix," R. Crumb.

All of the essential players from that ten year era of undergrounds will be included: Frank Stack, Gilbert Shelton, Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Bill Griffith, Diane Noomin, Denis Kitchen, Justin Green, Kim Deitch, Jay Lynch, Jim Osborne, Trina Robbins, Vaughn Bode, Howard Cruise, all the ZAP artists, the Bijou Funnies artists, the Air Pirates, etc, as well as several obscure, forgotten and black creators. This project should be completed by early to mid 2021 and published either later that year, or in 2022, depending on unforseen circumstances in the publishing world.

I love everything Drew does, and I'm really looking forward to this one. He will be published by Fantagraphics.

Below, R. Crumb, Aline Kominsky-Crumb, Howard Cruise, Jay Lynch, S. Clay Wilson, Spain Rodriguez: