Hot on the heels of the release of the new edition of Rebel Visions: The Underground Comix Revolution 1963-1975 by Patrick Rosenkranz, we are pleased to present these multimedia features relating to the book. All items are courtesy the author.

Below, a promotional video trailer for the original hardcover edition, produced by the author in 2003, featuring video and audio interviews with Gilbert Shelton, R. Crumb, Rick Griffin, Spain Rodriguez, Robert Williams and Justin Green:

The following video presents footage of a book signing and reading, in conjunction with an exhibit of original Underground comic art, held at the CounterMedia bookstore in Portland, Oregon on December 20, 2002:

In this audio file, Patrick Rosenkranz is interviewed on the CBC Radio 2 program "Brave New Waves" in May, 2003. Click here to download the 17.19 MB MP3 (approx. 50 minutes in duration). The audio can also be streamed on this page, which archives all three of these features (please use that address if linking from your own site).

Bottomless Belly Button
By Dash Shaw

Bottomless Belly Button is a comedy-drama that follows the dysfunctional adventures of the Loony Family.

After 40-some years of marriage, Maggie and David Loony shock their children with their announcement of a planned divorce. But the reason for splitting isn't itself shocking: they’re "just not in love any more." The announcement sparks a week long Loony family reunion at Maggie and David's creepy (and possibly haunted) beach house.

The eldest child, Dennis, struggles with his parents' decision while facing difficulties of his own in his recent marriage. Believing that his parents are hiding the true reasons behind their estrangement, Dennis embarks on a quest to discover the truth and searches through clues, trap doors, and secret tunnels in attempt to find an answer. Claire, the middle child, is a single mother whose 16-year-old daughter, Jill, is apathetic to the divorce but confounded by Claire and troubled by her own "mannish" appearance. The youngest child, Peter, is a hack filmmaker suffering from paralyzing insecurities who establishes an unorthodox romance with a mysterious day care counselor at the beach.

In a six-day period rich with atmospheric sequences, these characters stumble blindly around one another, often ignoring their surroundings and consumed by their own daily conflicts. Visually, Shaw employs a leisurely storytelling pace that allows room for exploring the interconnecting relationships among the characters and plays to his strength as a cartoonist — small gestural details and nuanced expressions that bring the characters to vivid and intimate life.

If the controversial R.D. Laing wrote an episode of The Simpsons, it might read something like Bottomless Belly Button.

(This book is available with two different covers. When ordering, please indicate your preference for "Mom" or "Dad.")

720-page monochrome 6" x 8.5" softcover • $29.99
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Rebel Visions: The Underground Comix Revolution 1963-1975 (New Softcover Edition)
By Patrick Rosenkranz

Now available in a newly designed and affordable softcover edition! This is a provocative chronicle of the guerilla art movement that changed comics forever. This comprehensive book follows the movements of 50 artists from 1967 to 1972, the heyday of the underground comix movement. Through interviews with the participants and other materials, Rebel Visions is the most intimate look ever at the people and events that forged the phenomenon known as underground comix, from New York to San Francisco, from the corn belt to deep in the heart of Texas, beginning that day in 1968 when R. Crumb debuted ZAP #1 from a baby carriage on Haight Ashbury Street. Rosenkranz has spent over 30 years researching this book and acquiring the cooperation of every significant underground cartoonist who worked throughout this period, including Crumb, Gilbert (Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers) Shelton, Bill (Zippy) Griffith, Art (Maus) Spiegelman, Jack Jackson, S. Clay Wilson, Robert Williams, and many more. The book is illustrated with many never-before-seen drawings by all of the underground cartoonists and exclusive photographs.

The book is centered in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, where Crumb and the rest of his Zap cronies commingled with the rest of the city’s counter-cultural scene, notably musicians like the Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin. The counterculture was omnipresent in San Francisco for those few years, with underground tabloids like Yellow Dog and the San Francisco Oracle steering the zeitgeist out-of-control, along with the music, political, and psychedelic drug scenes, all of which found a group of unlikely revolutionaries who drew cartoons right at the epicenter. This is the definitive book on a memorable and historic era, available for the first time in paperback in this newly designed, expanded and revised edition.

292-page color/b&w 9" x 12" softcover • $34.99
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If you weren't able to make it to Larry Reid's slide lecture "Weirdos: Seattle’s Alternative Comics Culture in the Context of R. Crumb’s Underground" at the Frye Art Museum last month, or if you were and want to re-live it, we are very pleased to present it here on the website in a nifty interactive format. Stream or download the MP3 audio and follow along with the slides at the "ding," just like back in grade school! (You can also read the text of the lecture and browse the slides at your own pace, if you prefer.) Larry's speech is informative, entertaining and opinionated as always, and the slideshow includes a wealth of seldom-seen imagery like the Rocket cover by the Brothers Hernandez pictured above. Click here to dive on in!

From our pals at Manik Skateboards, the official announcement of the launch of their Peter Bagge line of decks (and the launch party at our storefront on May 17):

Media Release
Contacts: Marshall Reid
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Nin Truong
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MANIK SKATEBOARDS PRESENTS ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE PETER BAGGE
Launch Party on Saturday, May 17 at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery

Seattle-based Manik Skateboards continues its innovative artist-in-residence approach to skateboarding culture with the release of a new line of skate decks and related merchandise by acclaimed local cartoonist Peter Bagge. The launch of this new product line begins with a display and reception for the artist on Saturday, May 17 from 6:00 - 9:00 PM at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery in Georgetown.

Now in it 6th year of operation, Manik Skateboards instituted their artist-in-residence program in 2004. Past participants have included accomplished artists in a variety of media including Maya Hayuk, Andrew Pommier, Charles Peterson, Craig Wetherby, and Jeff Proctor, among many others. Peter Bagge continues this tradition of provocative graphic design with a regional flavor.

Seattle's Peter Bagge is one of the most influential and admired cartoonists in the world. His grunge-era imagery is ideally suited to the skateboarding subculture. At once hilarious and poignant, Bagge's work of this era went beyond satire, and helped fashion both the attitudes and aesthetics of Seattle's only significant indigenous youth movement. Manik partner and designer Nhon "Nin" Truong explains, "Since our inception, Manik has been devoted to preserving our region's cultural heritage. From the anachronistic architectural anomalies of the ‘Aurora Avenue' series, to the jazz and blues legends of the ‘Jackson Street' edition, we've made an effort to expose a new generation to Seattle's cultural legacy. Like Charles Peterson's photographic series of skateboards, Peter Bagge represents an amazing era in our history." Manik partner and promotions director Marshall "Stack" Reid" (a former staffer at Fantagraphics) adds, "I was exposed to Bagge's comics at a very early age, and this series is like reliving my childhood."

The launch party is open to the public of all ages. The artist will be available to sign boards and books. Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is located at 1201 S. Vale Street (at Airport Way S.) in Seattle's lively Georgetown district. Phone 206.658.0110.

A selection of images in a variety of formats is available for publication. For additional information, feel free to contact Nin Truong or Marshall Reid at numbers above.

Websites: www.manikskateboards.com and www.fantagraphics.com

Listing Information
Manik Skateboards Peter Bagge series launch party
Saturday, May 17, 6:00 - 9:00 PM
Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery, 1201 S. Vale St., Seattle (206) 658-0110
Admission free. All ages.

On Saturday, May 17th, Overkill Shop in Berlin presents "Cheech Wizard goes to Berlin" with artwork by Vaughn Bodé, featuring an appearance by Mark Bodé and celebrating the launch of a limited-edition Bodé sneaker from Puma. The sneakers look pretty sweet (especially riding a Peter Bagge-designed Manik skateboard, I bet), though for me personally they take 3rd place to the Gary Panter-designed Simpsons Vans and Jim Woodring's custom-designed Chucks.

This week's free preview is a downloadable 10-page excerpt from Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko, the upcoming retrospective of the life and work of the Spider-Man and Dr. Strange co-creator from author Blake Bell. These previews are exclusive to registered Fantagraphics.com users, so sign up and/or sign in to view.

(As a reminder, 20/20 Club members receive these previews two weeks before we post them on the website, just one of many great reasons to join up...)

Peter Bagge presents a "Lost Scene" from Reefer Madness at the Turner Classic Movies website (warning: Flash interface).

Explainers: The Complete Village Voice Strips (1956-66)
By Jules Feiffer

In 1956, a relatively unknown cartoonist by the name of Jules Feiffer started contributing a strip to the only alternative weekly published in the US, a small radical newspaper called The Village Voice. His strip tackled just about every issue, private and public, that affected the sentient American: relationships, sexuality, love, family, parents, children, psychoanalysis, neuroses, presidents, politicians, media, race, class, labor, religiion, foreign policy, war, and one or two other existential questions. It was the first time that the American public had been subjected to a weekly dose of comics that so uncompromisingly and wittily confronted individuals' private fears and society's public transgressions. Explainers is the first of four volumes collecting Feiffer's entire run of weekly strips from The Village Voice. This edition contains approximately 500 strips originally published between 1956 and 1966 in a brick-like landscape hardcover format.

568-page black & white 9.25" x 5.25" hardcover • $28.99
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Comic Arf
By various artists; edited by Craig Yoe

Another great Arf book for 2008, and it features one of the greatest comickers of all: Milt Gross! The Gross-ness starts off with a stunning cover painting done in the 1930s but, as they say, ripped from today’s headlines. It’s all about immigration: Uncle Sam grinds up a sea of immigrants and out come… classic comic strip characters!

Milt Gross drew a 1920s comic that left the last panel blank for aspiring cartoonists. Editor Craig Yoe drafted a who’s who of contemporary cartoonists to complete Gross’s unfinished masterpieces. Art Spiegelman, Seymour Chwast, Patrick McDonnell, Mort Walker, R. Crumb, Bil Keane, Johnny Ryan, Jaime Hernandez, Mike Mignola, Bill Griffith, Kaz, Gene Deitch, Joost Swarte and a dozen more cartooning celebrities contribute art especially done for this Arf Happening!

The Arf books are famed for unearthing unknown Old Skool cartoonist geniuses. Comic Arf showcases the brilliant Dudley Fisher who amazingly drew crowded scenes all from a bird’s eye view. And Arch Dale is another unsung genius getting his due with his Smurfs-meet-Dr. Seuss characters, the Doo-Dads, who populated Canadian comic strips 75 years ago.

Arf also highlights unusual work from recognized masters. Walt Kelly, famed for his Pogo strip, did a surreal nightmarish strip for children presented in all its glory in this latest Arf tome. Amongst all this fun, Comic Arf is also proud to present a hard-hitting chapter this volume entitled “The 15 Most Powerful Anti-War Cartoons of History,” drawing from every major conflict of the last 200 years.

All this and much more, from 1950s devilish horror comics to cartoonist portraits by Gary Panter and Mitch O’Connell.

120-page color/b&w 9" x 12" softcover • $19.99
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