Dirty Pictures: How an Underground Network of Nerds, Feminists, Misfits, Geniuses, Bikers, Potheads, Printers, Intellectuals, and Art School Rebels Created Underground Comics

This book is the first comprehensive narrative history of Underground Comix, a subgenre that emerged in the 1960s as a reaction to the mainstream comics of the 1950s. The movement was inspired by strips like MAD magazine, creators like R. Crumb, Art Spiegelman, and many others that subverted the medium and American culture with tales of taboo sex, drug use, and societal transgression.

Embraced by hippies and future creatives, Underground Comix often faced legal challenges but left lasting cultural impacts, eventually elevating the comics form from the gutter to fine-art galleries. Through new interviews and archival research, Doherty chronicles the rise of this movement, from the artists’ origin stories to their struggles and legacies. Dirty Pictures offers a profound exploration of an American art form that redefined perceptions of war, race, sex, gender, and expression.

(This book may contain a sharpie mark on the top or bottom edge and may show mild signs of shelfwear.)