By various, compiled and edited by Jay Kinney (PM Press)
ISBN: 978-1-60486-531-8
During the “anything goes†1960s and early1970s when issues of personal freedom, sexual liberation, mind-altering self-exploration, questioning of authority and a general rejection of the old ways gripped the young and terrified the establishment, artists and cartoonists began creating the kind of comics and art they wanted. The Underground Comix movement was at the forefront of the “radicalisation†of many young intellectuals inAmericaand throughout the world, and consequently led to the establishment of the acceptance of comics narrative for adults.
Whenever anybody discusses the history and influence of the Underground and Counter-Culture movements, the focus is generally on the exuberant and often offensive expressions of comedic or violent excess – especially in regard to sex and drugs – but that’s a rather cruel oversimplification. The whole phenomena stemmed from rebellion and the exercise of new-found freedoms and equally apparent was a striving for new ways of living one’s life – and that’s politics, pure and simple.
By 1978 that unchecked artistic flourishing had died back in every sphere – especially the creation of comics – and the mainstream world, having assimilated what it liked of the explosively fresh thought and deeds, appropriated or adopted some of the tone and tenets of the movement before getting back to making money and suppressing the masses in a “new normalâ€â€¦
However once creative passions have been aroused they are had to suppress. There is no more powerful medium of expression or tool of social change than graphic narrative – although music and poetry come close – and some kids found it harder to surrender their ideals than others.
In 1977, as Disco, indolence, hedonism and the pursuit of money obsessed both media and populace, a bunch of intellectual, left-leaning liberal cartoonists got together inSan Franciscoto create a comics anthology dedicated to propounding the ideals of willing co-operation, personal responsibility and a rejection of unwanted oppressive authority – governmental, religious or corporate. By entertaining and educating through cartoons they intended to highlight issues of inequality and iniquity: in short they went to bat for Anarchy…
Just as the global Punk movement began to take hold in the next generation of angry, powerless and disenfranchised Youth, in San Francisco cartoonist, satirist designer, editor, Socialist and political activist Jay Kinney – who had co-created the seminal underground title Young Lust (and yes that was a pun; sue me…) – got in touch with some like-minded old associates such as Paul Mavrides with the intention of creating an international comicbook to promulgate their world view.
Kinney had been corresponding with British Anarchist artist Clifford Harper (Class War Comics) and had similarly inclined West German cartoonist Gerhard Seyfried kipping on his floor at that time, so the idea of a forum for the graphic expression of political ideas must have seemed like a no-brainer…
Of course there’s no such thing as slavish doctrinaire consensus in Anarchist idealism – that’s pretty much the whole point – and the comic was envisioned more as a platform to present wide-ranging Left-Libertarian ideas through satire and historical reportage as a basis for further debate.
How the project developed from there and its ultimate effects and influence is fully described in author/historian Paul Buhle’s ‘Anarchy Comics Revisited’ and Kinney’s own expansive, evocative ‘Introduction’ before the entire 4-issue, nine-year run is re-presented in all its monochrome glory beginning with Anarchy Comics #1 from 1978, sporting a witty cover by Kinney and deliciously wry intro page Inside Cover by Kinney & Seyfried.
The editor then led off the attack with ‘Too Real’ using collaged images from comicbook ads to spoof the American Dream of prosperity and suburban bliss, after which counter-culture legend Spain Rodriguez recounted the story of ‘Nestor Makhno’ whose fight for independence led to his betrayal by his Soviet allies in the early days of the Revolution.
Kinney’s ‘Smarmy Comics’ presented a decade of strip spoofs dedicated to exposing ‘Fascism: the Power to Finance Capital Itself’ after which the amazing Melinda Gebbie constructed a strident feminist call to arms against female oppression in the educational diatribe ‘The Quilting Bee’ before Spain returned with a brutal true tale of the Spanish Civil War in ‘Blood and Sky’ and an Underground superstar offered a frightening prognostication in ‘Gilbert Shelton’s Advanced International Motoring Tips’…
For someone with no appreciable budget or resources, Kinney was astonishingly successful in securing international contributions. From France’s L’echo Des Savannes #29 came a translated tale of more Bolshevik perfidy in ‘Liberty Through the Ages: Kronstadt’ by Yves Frémion AKA Épistolier & Volny (François Dupuy) wherein a local dispute escalated into a horrific early instance of merciless repression in the People’s Paradise, and Bay area cartoonist John Burnham opted to challenge the future with his polemical ‘What’s the Difference?’
True Brit Clifford Harper produced a moving and witty account of grass roots resistance in the tale of ‘Owd Nancy’s Petticoat’ set in the aftermath of the Peterloo Massacre, after which Kinney offered wry Comic Strip parodies ‘Safehouse’, ‘On Contradiction’ and ‘Today’s Rhetoric’ – complete with faux ad – before Mavrides hilariously attacked the utopian/dystopian debate with ‘Some Straight Talk about Anarchy’.
The issue ended with a stylish ad for like-minded publications from Kinney & Seyfried, which last also crafted a humorous depiction of a mass anarchist demonstration in Tiananmen Square 11 years before the tragic, monstrous real thing…
Issue #2 didn’t appear until 1979 and opened with a photographic punk cover by Ruby Ray & Kinney, whilst the latter & Seyfried collaborated on another hilarious introductory page before the fireworks kicked off with Steve Stiles’ chilling account of his brush with Military Intelligence. Once the brass realised he might have had associations with turn-of-the-century Labour Movement the Industrial Workers of the World, the baffled soldier-boy found himself suspected of crimes he didn’t know existed. How the ‘Wobblies!’ could subvert a hapless GI in 1967 is still unclear to the author of this smart but scary tale…
‘Believe It!’ by Sharon Rudahl exposed true but crazy beliefs from history whilst
‘Kultur Dokuments’ (Kinney & Mavrides) brilliantly mixed styles and metaphors to harangue the working world in a clever tale that started as pictograms and ended with a vicious swipe at Archie Comics…
Clifford Harper then powerfully adapted and co-opted “Bert†Brecht’s grim ballad ‘The Black Freighter’ (perhaps better known in English as “Pirate Jenny†from Kurt Weill’s Threepenny Opera), Spain detailed the life of Civil War freedom-fighter Buenaventura ‘Durruti’ and Dutch artist Peter Pontiac exposed sexual fantasy and other anti-spontaneity heresies in ‘Romantic! Anarchy’ before Kinney dryly restored order with his spoof talk-show ‘Radical Reflections’.
Épistolier & Michel Trublin then related how radicals Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman changed the smugly complacent nature of Wall Street in ‘Liberty Through the Ages: The Yippies at the Exchange’ whilst Melinda Gebbie powerfully illustrated ‘Quotes from Red Emma’ (Goldman) after which ‘The Bizarre yet Familiar World of Commodity Fetishism!’ by Kinney embellished an Inside back-cover ad by Seyfried – and the glorious whole was finished off by a painted Black Velvet portrait of Chairman Mao by Mavrides.
Anarchy Comics #3 didn’t appear until 1981, sporting a traditional anarchic rampaging rogue by Pontiac & Guy Colwell and, after a clever introduction by Kinney & Mavrides followed up with the American Anarchist duo’s hilariously dark time-travel epic ‘No Exit’ which showed how even the perfect future can’t please some activists. Next is Épistolier & Trublin’s trenchant examination of Church repression of workers in ‘Anarchy in the Alsace: The Revolt of the Rustauds’ and a welcome appearance for Donald Rooum‘s iconic feline thought-experiment Wildcat.
Rooum is a spectacularly talented, gentle, fiercely pacifist freedom-fighter and educator who has contributed brilliant cartoons to British comics, magazines and the Anarchist press for over 60 years. His latest collection of Wildcat cartoons was released last year.
Here though, the merriment continues with ‘The Act of Creation According to Bakunin’ by Dutch cartoonist Albo Helm, giving the creation myth a thorough re-evaluation, after which Briton Clifford Harper interpreted French politician and philosopher Pierre-Joseph Proudhon’s pointed ‘What is Government?’ with telling graphic savagery.
More of Kinney’s ‘Radical Reflections’ follow before Spain (with Adam Cornford & Kinney) examined the rise of the Red Brigade through Italian labour agitation and student unrest with ‘Roman Spring’, whilst Steve Laffler restored some much-needed absurdity through the deployment of rude, anti-Capitalist superhero the ‘Naked Avenger’.
Seyfried crated a superbly sharp display of police mentality in ‘Walkie Talkie’ whilst relative newcomer Gary Panter played with the traditional bomb-throwing view of anarchists in his vicious comedy ‘Awake, Purox, Awake!’, Gebbie & Cornford collaborated to produce a psychedelic tribute to ‘Benjamin Peret: Poet as Revolutionary’ and Rudahl returned with a slyly effective castigation of workers’ children-turned-capitalists in ‘The Treasure of Cabo Santiago’.
Comix iconoclast Greg Irons is represented here with moodily scary tale ‘Who’s in Charge Here?’ whilst Canadian cartoonist David Lester tackled sexual politics and the New Man in Men Strips: ‘Men March On’, ‘The Amazing Colossal Men’ and ‘The March of Men’ and Marian (now just brooke) Lydbrooke spoofed marital oppression in ‘At Home With…’ and Kinney entered similar territory with ‘New Age Politics’.
Matt (Amazing Cynicalman) Feazell debuted here with an impressive bug-eyed view of class warfare and divisive manipulation by the bosses in the excellent ‘Pest Control’ before Kinney & Seyfried cobbled together an inside back-cover ‘Bulletin Board’ and the garrulous German ended the issue with a classy spoof ad touting ‘New! Improved! Anarchy’ to end all our global pest woes…
After the third issue Kinney’s time was increasingly taken up with other projects, and it wasn’t until 1987 that new editor Mavrides released Anarchy Comics #4, with both cover and introduction page the product of his sublimely prolific satirist’s pen.
He nonetheless collaborated again with Kinney on the apocalyptic parody on the End of Days ‘Armageddon Outahere!’ before the always challenging Harper contributed a terrifyingly true case regarding British poet Jimmy Heather-Hayes’ death in police custody at Ashford Prison, Kent ‘On the Night of March 3, 1982’.
Norman Dog crafted a choose-your-own-ending role-playing strip in ‘You Rule the World!’ and Spain detailed the fall of Emperor Napoleon III, the entire Franco-Prussian War and the meteoric coming and going of the Communards in ‘1871’ after which Melinda Gebbie detailed her own clash with British censorship in a magically metaphoric fable ‘Public Enemy’.
‘Mr. Helpful’ was a more traditional cartoon quandary posed by Norman Dog whilst S. Zorca’s prose vignette ‘Executive Terrorism’ took a welcome swipe at Presidential Privilege and “R. Diggs†went for the jugular in his logical extension of economic Darwinism ‘Korporate-Rex’.
The last issue ended with Harry S. Robins tapped into his Church of the SubGenius roots to address the apparent dichotomy of the philosophy in ‘Anarchy = Panarchy’ before Byron Werner’s ‘One-page strip’ suggested the only way we could rationally deal with intelligent extraterrestrial life, Mavrides & Kinney clashed with the Military-Industrial Complex in ‘Cover-up Lowdown’ and the final Back Cover offered a photo of Hiroshima after all the dust settled…
As you’d expect, this fabulous collection doesn’t stick to tradition, and after the standard section of contributing Cartoonist Biographies, and a sumptuous colour section including all the covers, Outtakes, Sketches Roughs and a fulsome photographic Anarchy Comics Family Album, a New Comix addendum features a stunning new strip which would certainly have been in a fifth issues if there had been one.
‘The Amazing Tale of Victoria Woodhull’ by Sharon Rudahl depicts the life of the most incredible woman you’ve never heard of: a libertine, suffragette, opportunist and crusader for women’s rights and female emancipation who started out as an American white trash huckster and died the wife of a British aristocrat.
This is followed by Sketchbook Drawings and Outtakes from Kinney, revealing abortive ideas and graphic dead ends such as Anarchy Chic, Shoot-Out at the Circle A Ranch, Revolt, Sectarianism, Marx my Words, spoof political mags, the Amazing Rhetoric Translator and the marvellous Oppressive Dichotomies – all strips that might well have found fans… if…
A wonderful reminiscence of a time when we thought the world could still be changed and, hopefully, a stark example for the current generation of kids who just won’t take it anymore, Anarchy Comics is still, funny, powerful and inspirational.
And that’s not up for debate.
© 2013 Jay Kinney, Paul Mavrides and respective writers & artists. All rights reserved.