Zap Comix

Zap Comix was an underground comix series which was originally part of the youth counterculture of the late 1960s.

History

Zap #1 was published in San Francisco in late 1968. It featured the work of satirical cartoonist Robert Crumb. Some 3,500 copies were printed by Beat writer Charles Plymell. It was the first title put out by publisher Don Donahue under the Apex Novelties imprint. Philadelphia publisher Brian Zahn (who had published earlier works of R. Crumb in his tabloid called Yarrowstalks ) had intended to publish an earlier version of the comix, but reportedly he left the country with the artwork. Shortly before Zap #3 was to be published, Crumb found photocopies of that earlier issue, drew new covers, and published it as Zap #0. Thus Zap #0 became the third in the series (even though it was drawn before #1 in 1967), and Zap #3 the fourth. The first issue was sold on the streets of Haight-Ashbury out of a baby stroller pushed by Crumb's wife Dana on the first day. In years to come, the comic's sales would be most closely linked with alternative venues such as head shops.

Underground comix

Underground comix are small press or self-published comic books which are often socially relevant or satirical in nature. They differ from mainstream comics in depicting content forbidden to mainstream publications by the Comics Code Authority, including explicit drug use, sexuality and violence. They were most popular in the United States between 1968 and 1975, and in the United Kingdom between 1973 and 1974.

Robert Crumb, Gilbert Shelton, and numerous other cartoonists created underground titles that were popular with readers within the counterculture scene. Punk had its own comic artists like Gary Panter. Long after their heyday underground comix gained prominence with films and television shows influenced by the movement and with mainstream comic books, but their legacy is most obvious with alternative comics.

History

Early history (1967-1972)

Between the late 1920s and late 1940s, anonymous artists produced counterfeit pornographic comic books featuring unauthorized depictions of popular comic strip characters engaging in sexual activities. Often referred to as Tijuana bibles, these books are often considered the predecessors of the underground comix scene. Early underground comix appeared sporadically in the early and mid-1960s, but did not begin to appear frequently until after 1967. The first underground comix were personal works produced for friends of the artists, in addition to reprints of comic strip pages which first appeared in underground newspapers.

Comix (software)

Comix is an image viewer specifically designed to handle comic book archives. It reads ZIP, RAR and tar archives, as well as plain image files. It is written in Python and uses GTK+ through the PyGTK bindings. Comix features a bookmarks manager, a library manager, and a mouse controlled magnification lens used to zoom in on images.

Comix was forked to create MComix after Comix stopped being worked on.

See also

References

External links

Comix 2000

Comix 2000 is an international one-shot independent comic book published by L'Association (France) in November 1999 and distributed in the United States by Fantagraphics Books. All the comics featured in Comix 2000 are wordless in order to accommodate readers of any nationality. Notable contributors to Comix 2000 include Jessica Abel, Edmond Baudoin, Nick Bertozzi, Stéphane Blanquet, Émile Bravo, David B., Mike Diana, Julie Doucet, Renée French, Tom Hart, Dylan Horrocks, Megan Kelso, Patrice Killoffer, James Kochalka, Étienne Lécroart, Jean-Christophe Menu, Brian Ralph, Ron Regé, Jr., Joann Sfar, R. Sikoryak, Lewis Trondheim, Chris Ware, Skip Williamson, and Aleksandar Zograf.

The book's layout resembles that of a dictionary, with 2000 pages of comics depicting the work of 324 authors from 29 different countries, plus an introduction—in ten different languages—and a bibliography for each contributor.

Contributors

Zap

Zap is an onomatopoeic word for an electrostatic discharge, especially one that causes an electric shock.

Zap or ZAP may refer to:

Computing

Entertainment

Comics

Fictional characters

Zap! (webcomic)

Zap!, often erroneously referred to as Zap in Space, is a sci-fi webcomic currently hosted on Keenspot. The series began on 2003-07-13. At first it updated twice or sometimes three times a week. Somewhere around February 2007 it switched to updating once a week, every Monday. This seems to correspond roughly with the increased elaborateness of the graphic design. As of January 2009 it is still being updated every Monday on a very regular schedule. The comics are almost universally in color. The comic is co-authored by Chris Layfield and Pascalle Lepas. The webcomic had 557 entries as of November 21, 2011.

The comic was completed September 28, 2014.

Zap! was nominated for the 2006 Web Cartoonist's Choice Award for Outstanding Science Fiction Comic.

Plot

The plot takes place in an unspecified future. The Galactic Earth Federation, or G.E.F, has steadily grown and conquered planet after planet. They serve as the villains of the story. The story centers, however, around the captain and crew of the spaceship Excelsior—the only ship in the galaxy that actually picks its captain. As the narrative begins, the ship picks a new captain. This happens to be Zap Vexler, much to the consternation of Excelsior's crew.

Zap (G.I. Joe)

Zap is a fictional character from the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero toyline, comic books and cartoon series. He is the G.I. Joe Team's original bazooka soldier and debuted in 1982.

Profile

His real name is Rafael J. Melendez, and his rank is that of corporal E-4. Zap was born in New York City.

His primary military specialty is combat engineer and his secondary military specialty is infantry artillery. Zap is the team specialist in armor-piercing and anti-tank weapons but also functions as demolitions man. He has received advanced infantry training, and specialized education in engineer school and ordnance school. Zap is a qualified expert with the M-14, M-16, M1911A1 Auto Pistol, M79 grenade launcher, M-72 LAW (Light Anti-Armor Weapon) Rocket, XM-17A TOW (Tube-launched, Optically-tracked, Wire command data link guided) Missile, and the XM-47 (Dragon Missile).

Toys

Zap was first released as an action figure in 1982.

A new version of Zap was released as part of the Super Sonic Fighters line in 1991. He has a 2009 figure as a part of the 'Assault On Cobra Island' box set.