The Department of English welcomes, Paul Williams, associate professor of twentieth-century literature and culture at the University of Exeter. He will be giving a talk: "Underground Comix on Madison Avenue."
U.S. underground comix emerged in the 1960s and were closely associated with countercultural institutions such as underground newspapers and the "head shops" that sold bongs, incense sticks, and psychedelic merchandise; as the "x" in "comix" indicates, they contained adult-oriented content, and they satirized newsstand comics and magazines through parodies of advertisements, company logos, and advice columns.
Mid-century mainstream comics were defined by their adherence to the Comics Code Authority, a strict self-censorship regime that prohibited images of obscenity, drug-taking and the undermining of authority figures — the CCA, too, was a target of underground mockery. Yet for all the antagonism towards mainstream comics, there are several points of overlap and engagement between underground comix and publishing venues defined as "mainstream."
In this talk I will address some of the key contact zones in the 1970s, including the influx of underground cartoonists to National Lampoon magazine and the launch of Marvel's own underground series Comix Book. Not all of these encounters were profitable or artistically successful, but some of the new venues provided long-lasting spaces of creative opportunity in which artists brought underground solutions to the restrictions of mainstream publishing.
Please join us in the Cheever Room of Finn House, on Monday, April 22, at 4:30 p.m.