Author Description

Definitive collection from the creator and publication that inspired the underground comix movement. Hall of Fame comics creator Wallace Wood's revolutionary, self-published Witzend (often spelled in all lower case) has always been hard to define—the birth of the pro-zine, underground, independent... Whatever you call it, Wood’s witzend was a mid-'60s milestone event that represented all of the loftiest Fine Art goals of the Underground Movement including art-for-art’s-sake, freedom from censorship, and creator rights. The vast majority of the underground comix movement creators were directly inspired by the EC Comics and Mad work of Wallace Wood and Harvey Kurtzman (as well as psychedelics). Until R. Crumb’s later and eminently notable Zap Comix, no underground had the impact of witzend which combined top-flight comics pros like Wood, Frazetta, Steranko and Ditko side-by-side with up-and-coming Undergrounders like Art Spiegelman (Maus) and Vaughn Bode (Cheech Wizard) For the first time ever, this single volume collects all of Wood's own contributions to his groundbreaking publication including Animan, Sally Forth, The Rejects, Bucky Ruckus, Pipsqueek Papers, The Wizard King, Snorky, Lunar Tunes, and more.