The Complete

Volume One

FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKS, INC. SEATTLE, WA

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ZAP COMIX #0 copyright © 1967, 2014 R. Crumb. All rights reserved. Published by Fantagraphics Books, Inc. ZAP COMIX is a registered
trademark of ZAP COMIX.
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ZAP COMIX #5 copyright © 1970, 2014 Robert Crumb, S. Clay Wilson, Victor Moscoso, Gilbert Shelton, and Robert Williams. All rights
reserved. Published by Fantagraphics Books, Inc. ZAP COMIX is a registered trademark of ZAP COMIX.
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ZAP COMIX #9 copyright © 1978, 2014 Robert Crumb, S. Clay Wilson, Victor Moscoso, Gilbert Shelton, Spain Rodriguez, and Robert
Williams. All rights reserved. Published by Fantagraphics Books, Inc. ZAP COMIX is a registered trademark of ZAP COMIX.
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ZAP COMIX #13 copyright © 1994, 2014 Robert Crumb, S. Clay Wilson, Victor Moscoso, Gilbert Shelton, Spain Rodriguez, and
Robert Williams. All rights reserved. Published by Fantagraphics Books, Inc. ZAP COMIX is a registered trademark of ZAP COMIX.
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I
… “All you need is love …” “Turn on, tune in, drop out …” Back to the simple life.
“vipers” of the 1920s–’30s–’40s jazz underworld.
The story of Zap’s humble origins is the
stuff of legend. On February 25, 1968,
Crumb, his pregnant wife, Dana, and his
publisher Don Donahue all sold copies
of Zap Comix #1 from a baby carriage on
Haight Street in San Francisco. The price
was twenty-five cents. In 1992, Crumb
immortalized the scene in this cartoon.
next spread The original Zap Seven
in front of Shelton’s house, posing in a
manner that recalls a famous 1967 photo
of the Grateful Dead by Bob Seidemann.
Shelton later used this photo in his
“(More Than) Thirty Years of Zap Comics”
feature in Zap #14 (vol. 4, p. 722). Left–
right: Wilson, Moscoso, Shelton, Griffin,
Rodriguez, Williams, Crumb. San Francisco,
early 1970s. Scan courtesy Glenn Bray.
Photo by Suzanne Williams.
InTroduCTIon by r. Crumb
n the fall of 1967, I was just twenty-four years old and living in the Haight-Ashbury dis-
trict of San Francisco. I was truly in the right place at the right time. I had these cartoon-
ing skills; I was burning up with LSD-inspired visions; it was the high noon of the hippie
era; the “underground” press was flourishing; rents were still cheap; there was a swell of
optimism in the air — maybe we could stop our deranged elders from blowing up the world
And although I could never fully throw myself into the hippie lifestyle, I too was
carried along on the crest of this wave. I shared this hopeful vision with thousands of other
young people. We would do things differently from the old farts. We would not be obsessed
with money; we would end war; we would be loose and open; we would be sexually liberat-
ed — no longer uptight about our bodies. We would be more spiritual and resist “The Man”
with nonviolent political action. We would smoke a hell of a lot of marijuana and hashish,
which made everything seem funny and absurd and made all things cloaked in high serious-
ness look utterly laughable. Our only antecedents were the beatniks and the “gage”-smoking
Zap Comix was more or less an inevitable outcome of this culture, this brief, shin-
ing moment in history. My generation grew up on comic books and television. Some of us
aspired from childhood to become comic book artists. By the time I started Zap Comix I’d
already put in my ten thousand hours: from Brombo the Panda and Fuzzy the Bunny to Foo,
to The Big Yum Yum Book and Fritz the Cat. I’d already done a lot of one-page strips for the
East Village Other and a whole issue of Yarrowstalks, a hippie rag out of Philadelphia. It was
the editor of Yarrowstalks, Brian Zahn, who suggested I draw a whole comic book — and he
would publish it. This was the fulfillment of a dream come true. I would put out an issue of
Zap Comix every month or two, just like the big boys in New York. That was my original plan.
As it turned out, it was Don Donahue who published the first issues of Zap.
I wasn’t the only one who wanted to put out hippie comics at that time. There were
many others working in the same vein. Cartooning is a very democratic art form, a grass-
roots form of media one step up from graffiti. Certainly it takes a level of skill to be really
good at cartooning and reach a wide range of people. Not many are that good. Looking back
now at the underground comix of the late 1960s to mid-1970s period, most of them are more
or less unreadable, incoherent. The artists were mostly stoned out of their minds.
Fortunately Zap Comix had some of the best comics artists of the time, as is evident
in this collection. But there were other excellent artists whose work should’ve been in Zap
Comix, but wasn’t — a bone of contention between me and some of my fellow Zap artists,
which caused me finally to lose interest and move on to other comics ventures (such as Weir-
do in the 1980s). I do kind of regret that I didn’t stand up for my idea of keeping Zap Comix
open to other artists besides the “Magnificent Seven,” but, okay, I admit it: I’m weak. I’d rather
go do something else than confront people and argue, especially people with strong egos like
those guys. I couldn’t’ve taken them on. But anyway — we did some fine comic books togeth-
er, including these wacky and highly entertaining jam sessions, which at the time I thought
were too chaotic and messy, but now I enjoy looking at very much. They have their own nutty,
free-associating gestalt or whatever. And we had some good times hanging out together.
As I write this, it’s been exactly one month since the death of my closest friend among
the Zap artists, Spain Rodriguez. For Spain, keeping Zap Comix going became an act of defiance in
the face of all the forces that work against such an uncompromising, lunatic-fringe venture. Now
that he’s gone, that’s it. It’s really over. All good things must come to an end. We had a good run.
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 For AdulT
InTelleCTuAlS
only
A Zap Oral History by Patrick Rosenkranz
Be warned. These books contain an incendiary collection of
radical propositions and unsettling notions. Do not confuse
them for a quaint relic from the long-gone Age of Aquarius.
Zap Comix came of age during that propitious time,
but the contents collected here still have the power to incite
outrage, corrupt youth, and encourage mind-altering activ-
ities. As such, they remain a potent threat to polite society:
especially to the ruling oligarchy — they don’t like people
entertaining seditious thoughts, nor do they appreciate the
rude parody of all they hold dear. Religion, wealth, power,
and status symbols — all these sacred cows are chopped
into chuck in these pages. But even more alarming than
that: these comics may provoke ecstasy and horror, whether
you’re discovering them for the first time or are reliving
your youth.
Zap Comix #1 first saw the light of day February
1968, in San Francisco, and sparked a flame that reignited
the whole comics medium. Robert Crumb created the first
two issues by himself, but subsequently gathered a cadre of
like-minded co-conspirators for another issue, and another,
and another … and now you have all seventeen of them,
assembled together in this deluxe slipcased set. This presen-
tation is for the ages.
Crumb: “We were like a goddamn rock band.”
Crumb and Jean Clyde Mason, at a party at
Griffin’s home in San Clemente, California,
1971. Photo by Spencer Quinn.
How this revolutionary publication came to be, sur-
vived the Death of the Hippie, lasted longer than the Beatles,
sold more than 3 million copies, and remains intact in the
new millennium is recounted here, and the artists respon-
sible for its willful persistence clarify their intentions. The
historical confluence of time and place gave birth to under-
ground comix, but it was enterprise and daring that ensured
its longevity. [Note: underground cartoonists preferred the
spelling “comix,” to distinguish their work from “main-
stream” comic books and comic strips.] The story of Zap
Comix is as compelling as the art itself.
The original Zap Seven, the Zapsters, the Zap
Collective — whatever appellation you choose — helped
reinvent twentieth-century comic books. Frustrated by a
repressive social structure, they came together to create
something never before seen in American popular culture.
Robert Crumb, Steven “S. Clay” Wilson, Richard
“Rick” Griffin, Victor Moscoso, Manuel “Spain” Rodriguez,
Gilbert Shelton, Robert Williams, and, later, Paul Mavrides,
became a cultural force that lifted the lowly funny book to
an unexpected significance. They didn’t just upset the apple
cart. They blew the doors off the cathedral. And things have
never been the same since.
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ROBERT CRUMB: The magnificent seven, the
kick-ass seven Zap artists, the baddest gang
of cartoonists ever to wield their crowquills
together. That’s how we saw ourselves, silly boys
that we were. We were the best. We were like a
goddamn rock band. The completed book was
like our latest album. It was an event when the
latest Zap came off the presses. Zap was the most
popular and well-known underground comic.
STEVEN “S. CLAY” WILSON: I think the Zaps are
probably more radical now than they were then.
We’re almost back to the mid-’50s. It’s all repres-
sion, nothing is funny, everything’s forbidden,
and the witch hunt is still going on. You gotta be
politically correct and so forth. So there’s a whole
new generation in America ready to have their
minds blown.
VICTOR MOSCOSO: This is one of the most
important events in comic book history, period —
since the beginning of comics, man. To come out
with a new superhero? Big deal.
MANUEL “SPAIN” RODRIGUEZ: When Crumb
did the first Zap, it just hit the whole under-
ground comix world like a hurricane. It was
really a major thing. It was beautiful: just a beau-
tiful piece of work. He’s able to convey a feeling
that you’ve seen it before. It has some sort of old-
timey aspect to it.
ROBERT WILLIAMS: It was a completely differ-
ent world in 1968 when that comic came out. The
drug culture was involved, and an antiwar world.
The psychedelic movement had already gotten a
foothold from ’65, ’66, ’67, and the comics shot off
of that. That’s the closest the United States came
to a revolution since 1865. The government was
trying to stretch 1955 another two decades and it
just wasn’t working. The Civil Rights movement
had a lot to do with it. The Ozzie and Harriet
Nelson family ethic was getting really shaky. The
foundation was starting to get shaky. Bell, book,
and candle were starting to affect all of America.
RICHARD “RICK” GRIFFIN: All these things
were short-lived. They were like the grass in
spring. As soon as the summer sun gets on it, it
scorches it and it all withers away. These things,
although they were extremely vital at the time
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they flourished, they were always very short-lived,
as is just about anything of this kind, if you go
back through history. The status quo or the estab-
lishment usually moves in and neutralizes it all,
co-opts it. So then all this incredible raw energy
migrates and springs up in some other form.
GILBERT SHELTON: I felt proud to be part of such
a group of distinguished cartoonists. I’d have to
say in those early days it was the most presti-
gious of all the underground comix. There was a
little bit of everything in Zap Comix. It was the
idea in general of breaking all the rules. I think
it was Robert Crumb’s idea to go down the list of
the Comics Code Authority rules and break every
one of them. The underground artists like Crumb,
Wilson, Moscoso, Griffin, and Williams touched
a real nerve during a time when people wanted
that, much like EC and Mad had done to genera-
tions before. I probably didn’t think that it would
be a national success and bring about a revolu-
tion in everything.
WILLIAMS: I cannot imagine — if you go back to
the day of the expressionists, or the surrealists,
or whatnot — a set of artists who were so tightly
bonded and so filthy mouthed, and so antisocial
with the general public. I look back on that now,
and I sure as hell had never seen it before and I
don’t see it now with young people. We were cut
loose on an iceberg of our own culture. This was
in the ’60s. The general public hadn’t adjusted to
really filthy, liberal thinking completely. It was a
time in my life in my youth that I look back and
I really appreciate. I’ve known other artists and
I’ve seen other artists bond and everything, but
I’ve never seen anything quite as tight as that.
We just had the wildest fucking times and we
functioned in an abstract logic, kind of a poetic
1 A Robert Crumb ad for Zap
abstract logic, all of us together. Comix #1, 1968.
MOSCOSO: I loved it when I saw on the first Zap,
2 Detail from a 1950s Comics Code promo-
“approved by the ghost writers in the sky.” Fuck tional brochure. Shelton: “It was Crumb’s
you, Comics Code Authority. A policeman should idea to go down the list of the Comics
Code Authority rules and break every one
always be presented in a favorable light. Good
of them.”
must always triumph over evil. Fuck you. Now,
since we were distributing through the head 3 Crumb’s parody of the Comics Code
Seal of Approval from the cover of Zap
shops and the poster shops, we didn’t have to Comix #1. Moscoso: “Fuck you, Comics
deal with the normal system of distribution, Code Authority.”
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“ZAp”
beFore
2

ZAp

1 Rodriguez drew “Zap Zap Comix” before

he started signing his work “Spain” and
before he joined the Zap crew. From New
York City’s East Village Other, April 5, 1968
(about five weeks after Zap’s debut in San
Francisco).

2 Griffin was also “zapping” around in the

pre-Zap days. This page appeared in the
1961 book The Surfing Funnies.

3 Before he drew Zap #0, Crumb doodled

ideas for the name and logo of both the
comic book and its publishing imprint,
as these drawings from his sketchbooks
reveal. He was playing with “Zap” as a
title at least as early as 1965.

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