HEAD IMPORTS Supplement
Don't go looking for "The Motorama Building", especially in Aspen, CO.
It was built in 1956 to showcase future products of General Motors, as a temporary display.
One of my early means of learning to draw- was by copying Skip's style of cross-hatching and varied line-weight... Learning a sort of visual short-hand!
Skip Williamson was one of the pioneers of
the 1960s U.S. underground comix movement.
He is best known for his satirical comic strip 'Snappy Sammy Smoot' (1968-1996) and was closely involved with the underground comix magazine Bijou Funnies, as well as the section 'Playboy Funnies' in Hugh Hefner's Playboy.
Williamson worked in a fluid, roundish, psychedelic style
and was known for his highly political stance.
"Underground comics should be both
propaganda and entertainment," he once said.
"They're effective - the antithesis of rhetoric."
To him comics could be "subtle and exaggerated
at the same time.
So they are a valuable propaganda tool."
RIGHT-ON!
Because of their subversive content
these publications couldn't be sold in regular stores
and thus had to "underground".
They were distributed in stores specializing in hippie fashions, gadgets and drugs, the so-called "head shops".
One of these magazines was The Chicago Mirror,
founded in the summer of 1967 by Jay Lynch and Skip Williamson.
It featured a lot of satirical articles which unfortunately weren't always recognized as such.
One day Lynch invented a story how smoking dog excrement could be used as a substitute for marijuana. To his concern some hippies actually came forward to congratulate him for giving them this tip.
Even when Lynch explained it was satire the men still didn't believe it was all meant as a joke.
This made them decide to change the format into a comic magazine, because then at least their satire would be a lot clearer.
The Chicago Mirror was discontinued after four issues.
Inspired by Robert Crumb's groundbreaking Zap Comix,
Bijou Funnies hit the market in the summer of 1968.
It quickly became the 2nd most-read underground comix
after Zap.
By 1994 Williamson moved to Atlanta, Georgia, and started making politically conscious paintings on large-scale canvases. His works often poke fun at famous politicians like Richard Nixon, Spiro Agnew and Ronald Reagan.
Some of these works have been exhibited in various musea and cultural centra all across the United States and Europe as well.
In 2017 Skip Williamson passed away at the age of 72.
He was a diabetic and died after a bad reaction to antibiotics while undergoing treatment for a toe infection in Albany Medical Center.
He died only a week and a half after his frequent collaborator Jay Lynch.
HEAD IMPORTS Supplement
Don't go looking for "The Motorama Building", especially in Aspen, CO.
It was built in 1956 to showcase future products of General Motors, as a temporary display.
One of my early means of learning to draw- was by copying Skip's style of cross-hatching and varied line-weight... Learning a sort of visual short-hand!
Skip Williamson was one of the pioneers of
the 1960s U.S. underground comix movement.
He is best known for his satirical comic strip 'Snappy Sammy Smoot' (1968-1996) and was closely involved with the underground comix magazine Bijou Funnies, as well as the section 'Playboy Funnies' in Hugh Hefner's Playboy.
Williamson worked in a fluid, roundish, psychedelic style
and was known for his highly political stance.
"Underground comics should be both
propaganda and entertainment," he once said.
"They're effective - the antithesis of rhetoric."
To him comics could be "subtle and exaggerated
at the same time.
So they are a valuable propaganda tool."
RIGHT-ON!
Because of their subversive content
these publications couldn't be sold in regular stores
and thus had to "underground".
They were distributed in stores specializing in hippie fashions, gadgets and drugs, the so-called "head shops".
One of these magazines was The Chicago Mirror,
founded in the summer of 1967 by Jay Lynch and Skip Williamson.
It featured a lot of satirical articles which unfortunately weren't always recognized as such.
One day Lynch invented a story how smoking dog excrement could be used as a substitute for marijuana. To his concern some hippies actually came forward to congratulate him for giving them this tip.
Even when Lynch explained it was satire the men still didn't believe it was all meant as a joke.
This made them decide to change the format into a comic magazine, because then at least their satire would be a lot clearer.
The Chicago Mirror was discontinued after four issues.
Inspired by Robert Crumb's groundbreaking Zap Comix,
Bijou Funnies hit the market in the summer of 1968.
It quickly became the 2nd most-read underground comix
after Zap.
By 1994 Williamson moved to Atlanta, Georgia, and started making politically conscious paintings on large-scale canvases. His works often poke fun at famous politicians like Richard Nixon, Spiro Agnew and Ronald Reagan.
Some of these works have been exhibited in various musea and cultural centra all across the United States and Europe as well.
In 2017 Skip Williamson passed away at the age of 72.
He was a diabetic and died after a bad reaction to antibiotics while undergoing treatment for a toe infection in Albany Medical Center.
He died only a week and a half after his frequent collaborator Jay Lynch.