Underground Comix-Harold Hedd

Continuing the series on underground comix, let's turn our attention to up North-Canada.  A little known series is Harold Hedd, which originally ran in a Vancouver British Columbia underground newspaper called the Georgia Straight.
NSFW

The series was drawn by Rand Holmes who died in 2002.  Look for Harold Hedd#2 (Harold & his cousin Elmo go to Mexico to fly a Lancaster bomber full of marijuana back to Vancouver) & Harold Hedd: Hitler's Cocaine.

Underground Comix-Corporate Crime

This is another diary in a series about underground comix, the art form from the Sixties. After numerous companies such as Rip Off Press, Last Gasp, the Print Mint, & Kitchen Sink Press started, underground comix multiplied. Leftists & anti-corporation activists saw comix as a way to spread information about the scandals of the Establishment. Corporate Crime #1 was published by Educomics in the Seventies. Educomics published this & An Army Of Principles, All Atomic Comix, Food First, Energy, & other comix. Leonard Rifas founded Educomics & wrote "The ITT Scandal." Peter Poplaski drew the above comix. He now lives in southern France in the village of Sauve. He is acknowledged as a first rate Zorro imitator. Greg Irons died in 1984 after being run over by a bus in Bangkok. This ended his career in cartooning & tattooing. Corporate crime continues today, with the housing bubble crash & BP's oil spill being current examples.

Underground Comix- No Nukes

This is another diary in a series about underground comix, the art form from the Sixties. After numerous companies such as Rip Off Press, Last Gasp, the Print Mint, & Kitchen Sink Press started, underground comix multiplied. One of the earliest comix series was Slow Death published by Last Gasp Eco-Funnies. The series was about ecology & environmental destruction, & issue no. 9 was about atomic power. WARNING:NSFW

Well, the cover got it wrong. Nuclear plants can't explode like a bomb. Maybe some idiot connected the sprinkler system to the sodium coolant pipes after a 4 day coke binge. Or the Secret Army of the Infant Jesus car bombed the plant as a protest of 'degeneracy'(the utility recently decided to give partner benefits to all its' employees,married & unmarried.)

The cover was drawn by Greg Irons who was run over by a bus in Bangkok Thailand in 1984. Lights Out was done by Errol McCarthy. Last Gasp Eco-Funnies has evolved into Last Gasp Publishing. Atomic power is still around, with debate both pro and con.

Underground Comix- No Exit

This is another diary in a series about underground comix, the art form from the Sixties. After numerous companies such as Rip Off Press, Last Gasp, the Print Mint, & Kitchen Sink Press started, underground comix multiplied. In 1978, Last Gasp started publishing Anarchy Comics, which would become a four issue series. Here we look at a story about punks & anarchy from Anarchy #3.

The cover of Anarchy #3 was drawn by Dutch artist Peter Pontiac. No Exit was drawn by artist Paul Mavrides. The story was by cartoonist & writer Jay Kinney. Anarchy is a political movement that was practiced by the IWW or Wobblies, the Paris Commune, the Black Army of Ukraine during the Russian Revolution & Civil War, & workers' militias on the Republican side during the Spanish Civil War. Hardcore still seems to be going strong.

Underground Comix- LSD

This is another diary about that Sixties art form, underground comix. After Zap Comix, The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, Bijou Funnies & other comix were published, the field exploded. Companies like Rip Off Press, Last Gasp Eco-Funnies, & Kitchen Sink Press started churning out hundreds of titles a year. Kitchen Sink started a new title called Dope Comix in the late Seventies. Dope #3 came out in 1979.NSFW.

Let's look at a story by Steven Stiles about the defining drug of the Sixties, LSD.

This was drawn by Steven Stiles, who has a website here. A copy of Dope #3 may be bought here. Kitchen Sink Press is defunct, but here is the founder's website deniskitchen.com. A good book about the introduction of LSD to America is Storming Heaven by Jay Stevens. You may order the book from Amazon.com. I do not promote, recommend or disavow the use of LSD. I do promote & recommend Larry Carlson.

Underground Comix: Filipino Massacre

Back in the Sixties, one of the popular art forms was the independently made comic book that became known as underground comix. Mainly they covered the lifestyle of hippies-- drugs, sex, & rock'n'roll. Remember The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers? Zap Comix started by R. Crumb? Soon there were hundreds of titles & half a dozen comix companies like Rip Off Press, the Print Mint, Last Gasp Eco-Comix, & Krupp Komix Works. In 1976, to satirize the upcoming bicentennial celebration of the USA, Bicentennial Grossouts was published.

Among the satire was a story about one of America's first overseas forays into colonialism. I never heard this mentioned in my high school history classes, as stated on the last page.

What's interesting about this story is that apparently the Philippine War was the first American counter-insurgency war, & the only one that was successful. More here. Bicentennial Grossout can be bought on Amazon.com. William Stout went on from underground comix to a career in mainstream fantasy comics, films, & painting dinosaur murals. His website is The Worlds of William Stout.

Cold War Legacy

Jeff Goldberg has written a new op-ed on what he sees as Obama squandering of the 'legacy of the Cold War.' Ah, what exactly is that legacy as Mr. Jonah sees it?

In Prague, Obama declared that "the most dangerous legacy of the Cold War" is the large stockpile of nuclear weapons left behind after the war, sounding as if he might have been one of those teenagers who translated SANE/Freeze brochures into high school term papers. The truth is that the Cold War’s most dangerous legacy remains the bundle of radioactive lies that poisoned so many lands and deformed so many minds. The Soviets fueled national-socialist movements around the globe, telling the poor that if they embraced violent revolution and systematically purged capitalism, tradition and religion from their societies, they would hasten their ascent to the sunny uplands of history. The reverse was true: Whole generations were either slaughtered or left to live as dehumanized industrial cogs, or to labor as serfs tending crops amid the bleached bones of their countrymen. The Soviets spread lies about the nature of democracy and destroyed indigenous democratic movements, lest they leech off the revolutionary ardor of groups both more murderous and more loyal to the Kremlin. In the West, they employed useful idiots in academia and the press to foment self-hatred and eat away at civilizational self-confidence with cancerously idiotic arguments about the "moral equivalence" between West and East. They funded antiwar movements, peace congresses and supposedly crusading "independent" journalists. For example, they spread the lie around the globe that America invented AIDS to kill blacks.

Umm, actually I think the legacy of the Cold War is: McCarthyism. The CIA overthrowing the democratically elected governments of Iran and Guatemala. The US Army machine gunning tens of thousands of fleeing Korean refugees. Korean War POW collaborators & worries about 'brainwashing.' The death of Patrice Lumumba. Mutual Assured Destruction & First Strike. Almost starting a nuclear war with Russia over nuclear missiles in Cuba when the US has nuclear missiles in Turkey. US support of dictatorships all over the world. FBI spying & dirty tricks on civil rights leaders. The assassination of JFK, RFK, & Dr. King. The CIA flying opiates out of Laos to fund a secret army. Vietnam. My Lai. The invasion of Cambodia. FBI dirty tricks on the Black Panthers. The US supporting apartheid in South Africa. The US supporting rightist guerrillas in Angola in a civil war against leftist guerrillas. The US supporting the Israeli army while it invaded Lebanon.. The US supporting Saddam Hussein. The US supporting death squads in El Salvador. The US setting up & funding the contras in Nicaragua. The NSC supporting the contras in Nicaragua by flying cocaine into the US. Spying on the Central American Solidarity movement. Iran Contra. Star Wars. Pushing a winnable nuclear war as the peace movement finds out about nuclear winter. Funding Osama Bin Laden to fight against the Russians in Afghanistan.

Life as a Dream

Something kept bumping him in the head. He finally opened his eyes and realized he was bumping into the ceiling again. He twisted & tried to flip over, but he was still pinned against the ceiling. He scrapped his elbow and banged his head against the ceiling, then began to curse at the top of his voice as he still tried to twist around so he could push off his bedroom ceiling. He was still in the bedroom, thank God for small favors. Finally he was able to get himself turned around so his back was on the ceiling, feeling the bumps of the stucco paint bite at him as he now tried to sit up and then stand up. With effort he was able to push his ass off the ceiling, his legs under his butt now and him bent in half. He pushed with his arms, getting his head and chest up past his knees, feeling for a moment like he was going to slip and go down again. But he stood up straight, and then glanced up at the floor overhead. He was in between the easy chair in front of the TV/DVD player/VHS player, and his (collapsed still) bed. He didn't try to grab the chair, as he did with the bed (what?last night?) He would have fallen head first into the easy chair as soon as he had gotten a solid grip on it. Just like the bed last night. He now looked at the rope tied around his waist. Well, THAT didn't work. It hadn't anchored him to the ground. He looked at where it was looped around a leg of the dresser, then snaked off & looped around the leg of the other dresser. Last evening, he had tied the rope to himself & then the dresser, then went to bed. Two to three hours later he had sat up, frowning, then after some thought took off the rope & wrapped the rope around the second dresser, retied it around his waist & went back to sleep. He now tugged tentatively on the rope (with visions of him falling immediately to the floor and breaking his neck & then of the dressers falling upwards onto him breaking his back). He took a great breath, wrapped the rope around both hands, then pulled himself off the ceiling. He started to sweat buckets, rivers of sweat, his palms and hands and shoulders ached as he pulled himself several feet off the ceiling. His back and gut felt like he was tearing it apart when swung his legs up & over his head. "Goddamnmotherfuckingshitwhorefuck," he gasped as the rope tore his hands. Snot and sweat poured from his head as he gasped and bellowed. Then his feet touched the floor, and he almost fell into the bed. He stood, bent over, bloody hands staining the sheets as he gasped and gasped and finally was able to breath slower. He rolled over and sprawled on the bed, staring sightlessly at the ceiling as muttered over & over "Motherfucker." After twenty or so minutes, he stood up & staggered out of the bedroom. He walked on down the hall. He took a face from the ancient gallery; one half of the face was smiling and one half was weeping. He visited the room where his sister lay. She was laying in bed in a translucent baby-doll negligee. She stared at him with fear and opened her mouth as if to speak. Instead, a cloud of dragonflies flew out of her mouth & then her face became a gold mask with ivory teeth & diamond eyes. He aimed at her with a water-pistol. It barked & jumped in his hand when he pulled the trigger. Next he visited the room of his brother. His brother wore a Little Lord Fauntleroy suit and was bouncing a golden beach ball off the floor & walls & ceiling. His brother stopped playing with the ball when he saw him, staring at him, his lower lip trembling. His brother shrieked and ran to the open window and then out, rising high in the sky as he ran and ran and ran. He jumped to the window, took careful aim at his brother & dropped him with a burst from his gun. Then he walked on down the hall. He opened a door. On the other side was a mature couple. Mom was knitting. Dad was seated in his chair, reading the sports. He stepped in front of Pop. "Father," he said. Pop looked up from his paper. "Yes, son?" "I want to kill you," he said. Dad frowned, looked puzzled, then smiled and nodded. "Yes, son," he said and went back to reading his paper. He stared at his Dad & then thought, Well, that didn't go like I thought it would. He turned to his mother, and then he said, "Mother." She looked up from her knitting & smiled at him. "Yes, son?" He felt the next words would forever change things, himself, reality, the world. Jesus, was he still naked? He looked down at his bare thighs, which suddenly were covered with pants. "Mother," he began, "I want to -" "Screw me?" Mom asked in a kindly tone. " Oh, you youngsters, always full of bedevilment. OK, honey, we'll do the monkey-love thing. You're always cute when you get this way. I just have to finish this knitting, and then we'll do it. Let's do it on the kitchen table, hon, 'cuz I have a pie in the oven. I hope you don't take as long as last time. I still have to put up the preserves & chop the firewood & re-primer the jeep. Do you want me naked? Or do you like the garter & stockings outfit, like your Father does? Can we do it doggy-style? My lumbago has been acting up & it hurts like hell when I squirrel on my back. And don't make any remarks about my new tattoo. Some people say Brian Eno is God. Well, I think Mel Torme is God. So, there . ." Mom prattled on as she knitted. He stared at her, then looked at his father. His father had fallen asleep while reading the paper, with his mouth & eyes open. There were flies flying in and out of his mouth, and now a cloud of flies settled on his face. He realized his father was dead. He watched as his father's corpse turned black & was eaten by maggots down to a skeleton. The maggots turned to flies and flew away from the bones as the skeleton began to crumble to dust. Soon there was nothing in the chair, but the sports page. He stared at his father's slippers before the chair as Mom continued to prattle & knit. Jesus, he thought, and then looked at the dream on the windowsill, sunning itself as it slept. It was mainly green. A jungle of green ferns, moss covered trees, and ponds full of frogs floated inside the dream. Suddenly, leprechauns came dancing across the dream, then a herd of crocodiles, with parrots flying overhead. The dream made a noise, stretched, then settled down again, never really waking up. Boy, he thought, the green dream is sleeping furiously. Eventually, Mom finished her knitting, took off her clothes, took him by the hand, and led him into the kitchen. They did it missionary style, despite what Mom had said before. To his surprise, his orgasm wasn't that great. They lay together for awhile on the kitchen table, and then Mom got down, put on an apron, & checked the pie in the oven. Then she canned some preserves (it looked like locusts & honey) and placed them in the cellar. Which was kind of a hassle. They lived in a 42 story condo. Leaning out of the balcony, he watched through a telescope as she chopped firewood. She was in the cabin of what looked like a steam shovel, except where the shovel should have been was a huge circular saw. She was making short work of the redwoods behind the condo. Once she got a woodpile that was two stories high, she shut it off. She got out of the control cabin, & walked around to the back, clad in boots,jeans & a blue work shirt. She stopped, took off her hardhat, wiped her forehead with a bandanna, and then saw him watching her with the telescope. Smiling big, she waved at him for a second, then pushed a button. There was a rumble, and the shovel slowly transformed into a hummer-type vehicle. It had a shitty paint job. His mom pulled out a huge sander, plugged it into an extension cord, and plugged the cord into a power box on a tarred wooden pole. She started sanding the side of the jeep. She sanded the paint down to shiny metal. Paint chips were being thrown into the air. He noticed a cloud of the chips were rising towars him, sparkling green and purple and scarlet in the sun. The cloud hit the balcony, and he realized the chips were actually dragonflies. They settled on the balcony & the telescope, but shied away from him, which he was glad of. He looked back at the sliding glass door, & saw the dragonflies cover that too. He picked up a dragonfly from the telescope & studied it. It was scarlet, which he had never seen before. He cupped it in the palm of his hand, and it immediately buzzed off on its' wings. He looked around and saw the balcony was almost buried in the dragonflies -except none would land on him. Then the birds started to swoop down and eat the insects. Except they were flying lizards, not birds, looking like little crocodiles with huge wings. They flew up in a flock, gobbling down the dragonflies as fast as they could, chasing the insects on their rapid legs & spearing them with their tongues. Soon, there weren't many dragonflies left, and then there were no dragonflies left. The flying lizards licked their lips, and stared at him, then looked away, not moving their heads only their eyes, then stared at him again, then etc. Eventually one lizard jumped off the balcony, spread his wings and caught an updraft. Then all the lizards jumped off the balcony in twos and threes, flying off in wave after wave. The lizards were all gone from the balcony when he noticed they hadn't flown off. They all had been plucked from the sky by an enormous flock of bald eagles, which now perched on cacti, tearing reptile flesh & gulping it down.