Text - Rhodes University

crackdown comics.
EC comics from the 1950s were particularly renowned for the levels of horror permitted,
and were among the first to be purged from shops. But they had also been among the
most experimental of comics, publishing many science fiction stories and aiming at a
teenage rather than a child audience. In the 60s' atmosphere of resistance to any kind of
authority, forbidden media like comics were irresistable. In addition comics were a
popular medium; like any product of the mass media machine seemingly anonymously
produced and omnipresent, part of The System and therefore ripe for subversion. Comics
were cheap and easy to make, especially as reproductive methods became cheaper and
easier to use. Artists realized that one person could produce an entire comic on their
own.
Because underground comics catered to a very specific and close audience, they spread
quickly through America, from one hippie community to another. The artists were wellknown
and part of the audience. There were few distinctions between producers and
consumers.
'The underground strip was regarded as a powerful and subversive tool,
able to change political as well as cultural conceptions. Quality was
therefore a means, not an end, which went to show that comics were not
reserved for those who had been taught to draw them." (Davidson, 1982,
p.27)
The underlying message of komix was that anyone could make media, and by implication,
that people could take control of their own culture, instead of being dependant on what
was produced for them. Thus imagination and experimentation were more important than
professionalism.
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