Mr. Natural

Mr. Natural is a wandering, self-proclaimed guru and spiritual con man created by underground cartoonist Robert Crumb, who first appeared in the countercultural anthology Zap Comix. Despite dispensing mystical wisdom, he is as flawed and earthy as anyone he counsels.

Few characters capture the irreverent, countercultural electricity of the late 1960s underground comics scene quite like Mr. Natural, who burst onto the page in Robert Crumb's legendary Zap Comix #1 in 1967. Born from the San Francisco underground, this guru-like figure became one of the most recognizable icons of an era when comics were pushing hard against every conceivable boundary. Over a remarkable 54-year span — from the Silver Age all the way into the 2020s — he's shared pages with the likes of Flakey Foont, Shuman the Human, and even mainstream giants like Batman and Superman, a collision of worlds that tells you everything about how far his reach extended. Whether you encounter him in his own self-titled series, Mystic Funnies, or the pages of The Comics Journal, Mr. Natural remains a testament to Crumb's singular genius and the enduring power of underground comix to shake things up.