Zap Comix #1
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeZap Comix #1 is the foundational document of the underground comix movement — while a handful of self-published satirical comic books existed before it, Zap became the template for the broader 'comix' phenomenon that followed its release, demonstrating that creator-owned, Comics Code-free publishing was both viable and culturally potent. Robert Crumb wrote, drew, and lettered the entire issue himself, establishing the solo-auteur model that defined the movement's early years and introducing readers to Mr. Natural in his first comix appearance. The issue also contains the first published appearance of the 'Keep On Truckin'' image, one of the most widely reproduced graphic motifs of the 1960s counterculture. Its guerrilla street-sale distribution through San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood proved that adult comics could find an audience entirely outside the newsstand system.
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Robert Crumb drew the issue's contents in the fall of 1967, with the indicia bearing a November 1967 copyright date, but the book was physically printed and released in February 1968. Beat poet and printer Charles Plymell used a small offset press to produce the first printing at his San Francisco apartment, with Crumb, his then-wife Dana, and publisher Don Donahue of Apex Novelties hand-selling copies out of a baby carriage on Haight Street. The first printing is distinguished by a 25-cent cover price, an untrimmed white border, the orange color on the cover (later printings used yellow), interior page numbers, and the credit 'Printed by Charles Plymell' in blue on the back cover; subsequent printings by Apex Novelties and then Print Mint added four pages not present in the original edition.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Sole creator: Robert Crumb wrote, drew, and lettered every page of the first printing — it is an all-Crumb issue.
- First comic-book appearance of Mr. Natural (Fred Natural), in the story 'Mr. Natural Visits the City' alongside Flakey Foont; Mr. Natural had debuted earlier in the Philadelphia underground newspaper Yarrowstalks #1 (May 5, 1967).
- First published appearance of Crumb's 'Keep On Truckin'' image, which became one of the defining visual motifs of the 1960s counterculture.
- Printed and released in February 1968 by Apex Novelties (San Francisco), despite the interior copyright date of November 1967.
- First printing produced by Beat poet Charles Plymell on a hand-fed offset press; the exact print run is disputed across sources, with figures ranging from roughly 600–1,500 (per the Plymells themselves) to ~3,500 (per bookseller accounts) — the GCD lists 5,000 for a broader early run.
- Distributed outside traditional newsstands, sold directly on the streets of Haight-Ashbury and in local shops — a deliberately Comics Code-free, creator-owned publication.
- The series ran for 17 issues over 46 years (ending with #16 in November 2014), with publisher transitions from Apex Novelties to Print Mint (#3), Last Gasp (#10), and Fantagraphics (#16).
- Collected in The Complete Zap Comix (Fantagraphics, November 2014), Volume 1, alongside issues #0–4; also reprinted in The Complete Crumb Comics Vol. 4 (Fantagraphics, 1989) and The R. Crumb Handbook (MQ Publications, 2005).
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Reprints
Reprinted in R. Crumb's Head Comix #[nn] (1968), Zap Comix #1 (1969), Head Comix #[nn] (1970), R. Crumb's Head Comix #[nn] (1970), Linus #59 (1970), Die 17 Gesichter des Robert Crumb #[nn] (1975), Zap Comix #1 (1979), Zap Comix #1 (1982), Love to Ten #[nn] (1985), Pox Special #1/1987 (1987), R. Crumb's Head Comix: Twenty Years Later #[nn] (1988), Bild & Bubblas stora seriebok #[nn] (1989), The Complete Crumb Comics #4 (1989), R. Crumb's America #[nn] (1994), The Book of Mr. Natural #[nn] (1995), R. Crumb's America #[nn] (1995), The R. Crumb Coffee Table Art Book #[nn] (1997), The R. Crumb Handbook #[nn] (2005), Klassiker der Comic-Literatur #19 (2006), The Book of Mr. Natural #[nn] (2010), A History of Underground Comics: 20th Anniversary Edition #[nn] (2012), Mein Ärger mit den Frauen #[nn] (2013), The Complete Zap Comix #1 (2014), The Complete Zap Comix #6 (2014)
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