Dirty Pictures

How an Underground Network of Nerds, Feminists, Misfits, Geniuses, Bikers, Potheads, Printers, Intellectuals, and Art School Rebels Revolutionized Art and Invented Comix

By: Brian Doherty

Narrated by: Liam DiCosimo

A complete narrative history of the weird and wonderful world of underground comix

In the 1950s, comics meant POW! BAM! superheroes, family-friendly gags, and Sunday funnies, but in the 1960s, inspired by these strips and the satire of MAD magazine, a new generation of creators set out to subvert the medium, and with it, American culture.

Their “comix”—spelled that way to distinguish the work from their dime-store contemporaries—presented tales of taboo sex, casual drug use, and a transgressive view of society. Embraced by hippies and legions of future creatives, this subgenre of comic books and strips was printed on out-of-date machinery, published in zines and underground newspapers, and distributed in head shops, in porno stores, and on street corners. Comix often ran afoul of the law, but that would not stop them from casting cultural ripples for decades to come, eventually moving the entire comics form out of the gutter and into fine-art galleries.

Author Brian Doherty weaves together the stories of R. Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Trina Robbins, Spain Rodriguez, Harvey Pekar, and Howard Cruse among many others, detailing the complete narrative history of this movement that came to define “cool.” Via dozens of new interviews and archival research, Doherty chronicles the scenes that sprang up around the country in the 1960s and ’70s and the rivalries, ideological battles, and conflicts that flourished. Dirty Pictures is the essential exploration of a truly American art form that re-contextualized the way people thought about war, race, sex, gender, and expression.

©2022 Brian Doherty. Published in 2022 by Abrams Press, an imprint of ABRAMS, New York. All rights reserved (P)2022 Blackstone Publishing

New to comix, loved this book.

Excellent summer diversion book. Thorough, Great listen. My introduction to Comix. I loved this book.

Laughably bad narration

The narrator has a pleasant enough voice, but it’s like he’s never heard - let alone - spoken the English language before. The pronunciations are ludicrous. I legitimately wonder if he’s trolling the audience. When he called MOMA “Em Oh Em Ay” I just about threw my phone across the room.

Fantastic!

A wonderful book for those interested in underground comics and the cartoonists that made it possible.

Extraordinary research, great story

Absolutely fantastic! The details and intricacies were so exciting that I had to keep on stopping the recording and calling my partner to expound on what I thought, any given peace of history or anecdote meant to me. Will listen to and read again and again!