Zap-Masters at CoproNason Gallery

The CoproNason Gallery in Santa Monica, California announces a Zap-themed exhibit featuring work by Robert Crumb, Rick Griffin, Robert Williams and S. Clay Wilson. The exhibit runs January 17 through January 31 and is described as follows:

CoproNason gallery presents an exhibition of drawings and a few paintings by artists that evolved from the underground art movement of the 1960’s and authors of Zap Comix, the most famous underground art comic of the time. R. Crumb, Robert Williams, S. Clay Wilson & Rick Griffin were at the forefront of this movement. In the latter half of the 1960s the hippie movement in America was engaged, to a greater or lesser extent, with protests against the Vietnam War, the civil rights struggle, anarchism, Women’s Lib and Gay Liberation. Add to this an interest in the spiritual value of taking drugs and of “free love” and you had, very simplistically speaking, a thriving “counterculture” against traditional values. For this reason, these new comics became known as “comix” to set them apart from mainstream comics and to emphasize the “x” for x-rated.

Reprints: Hanks, Shelton, Tezuka

Tom Spurgeon reports that Paul Karasik will edit and Fantagraphics will publish a second collection of comics by Fletcher Hanks.

Spurgeon writes: “Paul Karasik announced that he’s found what he believes to be the entirety of Fletcher Hanks’ output in the Golden Age, and will be doing a companion volume to his I Shall Destroy All The Civilized Planets… The second volume will complete the set, naturally.”

Elsewhere, Publishers Weekly reports on Knockabout Comics‘ upcoming omnibus collection of Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers comics by Gilbert Shelton. The 624-page book will collect “every adventure of the hirsute trio since their inception in 1968, as well as previously unpublished material” and ties in to efforts to produce a stop-motion animated film based on the comics.

The Same Hat! Same Hat! blog posts images from promotional material produced by Vertical Inc. to promote the publisher’s forthcoming series of books reprinting Osamu Tezuka‘s Black Jack comics. The publisher’s website runs two preview stories.