L.A. Funnies #1
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeL.A. Funnies #1 (cover-dated November 16, 1983) is historically significant as the debut issue of one of the few free, tabloid-format underground comics newspapers produced in the early 1980s outside the traditional direct-market or newsstand systems, distributed exclusively across Los Angeles. It matters to Gumby collectors specifically because it marks the beginning of a new comic-strip run featuring Gumby and Pokey produced by Art Clokey himself (with Jim Williams), bringing the claymation franchise into the underground/alternative comics space at the precise moment Gumby was undergoing a major cultural resurgence — driven in part by Eddie Murphy's Saturday Night Live parodies. Placing Gumby alongside underground titans like Bill Griffith's Zippy the Pinhead in the same publication is a genuinely unusual crossover of children's-media IP and adult alternative comics sensibility.
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Cartoonist and graphic designer Jerry Leibowitz launched L.A. Funnies in 1983, driven by frustration with the politics of the comic-strip syndication industry, intending it as a free showcase for both experimental and conventional strip artists distributed throughout Los Angeles at a print run of approximately 50,000 copies per week. The tabloid format — printed and folded like a newspaper insert — was an intentional nod to the pre-comic-book newspaper Sunday section tradition, and gave the publication an identity distinct from both the pamphlet direct-market comics and the traditional underground 'comix' of the prior decade. Securing a Gumby strip produced by franchise creator Art Clokey and writer Jim Williams was a significant editorial coup for the debut issue, lending mainstream-recognizable IP to what was otherwise an underground-adjacent anthology.
Trivia · 8 facts
- L.A. Funnies #1 is cover-dated November 16, 1983, and was published by Jerry Leibowitz.
- The publication was a free, tabloid-format newspaper distributed only in Los Angeles, California, with a stated print run of approximately 50,000 copies per week.
- Issue #1 features Gumby and Pokey in a comic strip produced by Gumby franchise creator Art Clokey and writer Jim Williams — the same creative team that continued the strip throughout the run.
- The anthology also included Zippy the Pinhead by underground cartoonist Bill Griffith, establishing an unusual mix of all-ages licensed IP and adult alternative comics under one masthead.
- Later issues (beginning at least by #3) added the strip 'Hey Coach,' Roach Condo by John Rizzo, and Duck Bros Comix by Al West, indicating the roster expanded from the debut.
- The series ran at least into early 1984, with confirmed issues numbered #1 through at least a January 11, 1984 issue, suggesting roughly a weekly publication schedule.
- Gumby (created by Art Clokey) is a stop-motion clay-animated character whose television debut dates to 1955; his pony companion Pokey was introduced in the 1956 episode 'The Little Lost Pony,' meaning both characters were nearly 30 years old at the time of this publication.
- Leibowitz was a published underground cartoonist before founding L.A. Funnies, with early work appearing in Berkeley's Yellow Dog Comics beginning around 1968.
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