Wirtham’s Comix & Stories and American Splendor continue to appear, but this is more a commitment of their publishers / editors than a bona fide business venture: despite the need to break even on expenses. It could be said that titles like Slow Death and Skull and Death Rattle later became comics like Twisted Tales and Alien Worlds and magazines like 1994 and Heavy Metal.
It never occurred to me to buy the last couple issues of Zap simply for the sake of completion. Otherwise, it has been years, literally, since I bought an underground, the last one probably, being Moondog #4, or one of Jaxon’s Indian history comix. The last underground I bought was Bizarre Sex #9, and that was only because I had read so much about Reed Waller’s Omaha, the Cat Dancer the art was certainly competent and the story was compelling enough, an unquestionable change of pace, but overall, it was just a funny animal porno comic. Only Leonard Rifas’s Educomics and Howard Cruse’s Gay Comix can claim social relevance today. All the aforementioned, however, seem to exist and survive as mere ghosts of a once-exciting and thriving subgenre of comix, comix that were authentic ingredients and byproducts of a genuine American youth movement. A few titles continue to appear sporadically from Last Gasp, Kitchen Sink, and Rip Off Press supposed sure-sellers such as Dope Comix, Bizarre Sex, and the despicable Cocaine Comix. Underground comix died with love beads and long hair (as a statement) and flower children and that whole psychedelic era. Gone the way of newsreels, black & white television, patriotism, and Steve Ditko’s Spider-Man. Asking, “What happened to underground comix?” is like asking, “Why isn’t anyone dancing the Charleston anymore?”
Just as many of us are unable to view that death as a natural one. Many of us seem reluctant to declare underground comix dead. From the TCJ Archives On Comics and Catholics: The Justin Green Interviewįrom The Comics Journal #104 (January 1986) From T he Apex Treasury of Underground Comics (1974)