# Dirty Pictures: How an Underground Network of Nerds, Feminists, Misfits, Geniuses, Bikers, Potheads, Printers, Intellectuals, and Art School Rebels Re - Hardcover

by **Brian Doherty** (Author)

**Journalist and comic book critic Brian Doherty's _Dirty Pictures_ is the first complete narrative history of the weird and wonderful world of Underground Comix--"a welcome addition to an under-analyzed legacy of the free-spirited 1960s" (_San Francisco Chronicle_).**

In the 1950s, comics meant _POW!__BAM!_ superheroes, family-friendly gags, and Sunday funnies, but in the 1960s, inspired by these strips and the satire of _MAD_ magazine, a new generation of creators set out to subvert the medium, and with it, American culture. Their "comix"--spelled that way to distinguish the work from their dime-store contemporaries--presented tales of taboo sex, casual drug use, and a transgressive view of society. Embraced by hippies and legions of future creatives, this subgenre of comic books and strips often ran afoul of the law, but that would not stop them from casting cultural ripples for decades to come, eventually moving the entire comics form beyond the gutter and into fine-art galleries.

Brian Doherty weaves together the stories of R. Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Trina Robbins, Spain Rodriguez, Harvey Pekar, and Howard Cruse, among many others, detailing the complete narrative history of this movement. Through dozens of new interviews and archival research, he chronicles the scenes that sprang up around the country in the 1960s and '70s, beginning with the artists' origin stories and following them through success and strife, and concluding with an examination of these creators' legacies. _Dirty Pictures_ is the essential exploration of a truly American art form that recontextualized the way people thought about war, race, sex, gender, and expression.

### Author Biography

**Brian Doherty** is a senior editor at _Reason_ magazine and is the author of _This Is Burning Man: The Rise of a New American Underground_ (Little, Brown, 2004). His reporting, essays, and reviews have appeared in the _New York Times_, the _Wall Street Journal_, the _Washington Post_, _Mother Jones_, and Fantagraphics's _The Best American Comics Criticism_, among others. He has also served as a judge for the comics industry's Eisner Awards.

**Number of Pages:** 448

**Dimensions:** 1.57 x 9.06 x 5.67 IN

**Publication Date:** June 14, 2022

## Details

- **Price:** 30.0 USD
- **Vendor:** Books by splitShops
- **Type:** Books
- **Tags:** Books by splitShops, Shopify Collective

## Variants

| Variant | Price | Available |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| Default Title | 30.00 USD | In stock |

## Images

- Dirty Pictures: How an Underground Network of Nerds, Feminists, Misfits, Geniuses, Bikers, Potheads, Printers, Intellectuals, and Art School Rebels Re - Hardcover

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> Updated: 2026-07-23