ZAP COMIX #16, 2016, FIRST PRINTING, FANTAGRAPHICS, UNDERGROUND COMIC, MINT COND For Sale

All good things must come to anend, the saying goes. And after 36 years, so does Zap, though Zap #15 does tryto have no end, as it\'s a flip book and has two front covers and only a middle!And yes, the garish cover pictured above, by Paul Mavrides, is the officialfront cover, as it includes the publishing indicia on the inside, whereas themore traditional cover by Gilbert Shelton (linked on the right) does not.

Despite all the flipping, ZapComix came to rest in 2004 after 36 years. The final issue wasn\'t the strongestone in the series, but it had had its highlights and held its own. RickGriffin\'s death more than a decade prior had robbed the title of an emblematicfigure and the rest of the Collective was growing old and tired. There wasstill plenty of juice in the tank for some of the creators, but others weregrowing weary. As Mavrides stated in the prior issue, \"it\'s a little likebeing invited to the party 20 years after the beer\'s gone.\"

Zap Comix had blazed a defianttrail that no other comic book had ever even considered and ignited arevolution that changed the comic-book world forevermore. It also followed adistinct group of groundbreaking creators over the course of their entire adultlives, as they evolved from young rebels into seasoned voices, which had alsonever been done before.

Whatever you might say about thecontent or nobility of the series, you can\'t deny that Zap Comix challenged thedefinition of the art form and improved the capacity and diversity ofexpression within that realm.

Although begun as a Robert Crumbsolo project, for the second issue in 1968 Crumb gathered the cream ofUnderground comic creators around him, forming a collective that have had theirdifferences, but congregate every few years to turn out another Zap.Not a single one of them would have believed in 1968 that they’d bow out almostforty years later with a 96 page squarebound book collection.

As has long been the case, andwas memorably aired in 2004’s 14th issue, any unity of creativevision has long passed. Victor Moscoso and Robert Williams have moved intodifferent areas of fine art, while S. Clay Wilson and Gilbert Shelton havebarely progressed at all, good then and good now. The personal strips Crumbproduces have for decades no longer required the distancing devices he used inthe 1960s, many here produced with wife Aline Kominsky-Crumb, and over theyears Spain Rodriguez moved closer to Crumb’s memoir material. He, though, haddied by publication, accounting for his longer strip not being entirelyfinished.

So, between them, is there anyremaining mojo about the seminal creators of the 1960s? At first it seems notas assorted sketched and nonsensical pieces dated up to twelve years beforepublication are whipped from the pending file. Several two page jam strips arenovelties, but increasingly less coherent, and beyond them Williams onlysupplies the inside back cover whimsy. There’s a nod to also now dead originalcontributor Rick Griffin and his replacement Paul Mavrides’ solo contributionis four sketches on book pages. Then again, as clearly stated in Zap 14,some contributors are no longer interested, and how many of them have anythingto prove anyway?

Shelton delivers both a WonderWarthog and a Freak Brothers story, the first solo in colour, the secondcollaborating with Mavrides, only the slightly tighter cartooning giving awaythey weren’t produced in the 1960s. They’re everything you’d want from Shelton,funny and ridiculous, and extra marks for turning Phineas Freak into a suicidebomber.

As the creator most investedin Zap, Crumb supplies the most pages, eight of them consideringlife alongside wife Aline in jointly created strips. They’re charming, buttrivial, evidence that comfort dampens creativity and that the concerns ofseventy year olds are far removed from their younger selves. The sparks comewith the reminiscing, shifting the emphasis from Botox treatment and advertsfor Serbia to a final strip considering Aline’s arrival in Zap andlooking back at its history. The Crumb solo strips are largely from the drawer,although the utter despair of ‘The Unbearable Tedium of Being’ is vintage, evenif walking a well trodden path for Crumb.

With the possible exception ofShelton and newcomer Kominsky-Crumb, all the Zap creators havedelivered better work in earlier issues, so this is perhaps best sampled aspart of the Zap box set, for which it was created.

HISTORICAL FOOTNOTES: It iscurrently unknown how many copies of this comic book were printed (thepresumption is 5,000, but it might\'ve been 10,000). It has not been reprinted.

COMIC CREATORS: ROBERT CRUMB S.CLAY WILSON, SPAIN RODRIGUEZ, VICTOR MOSCOSO, GILBERT SHELTON, PAULMAVRIDES, RICK GRIFFIN, ALINE KOMINSKY.

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