Welp!

More Rick Griffin goodness, from Rolling Stone:

From Little By Littlehales

Pics Or It Didn't Happen

 

I'm reading Dirty Pictures right now and the thing that leaps out at me is how young everybody was.

When I first became aware of Crumb and the gang it was the early 90's, post-Raw post-Weirdo, and all of these guys had been pretty much accepted by the mainstream and entering elder statesmen territory. I think I mentioned it on here before, but the Rick Griffin obituary in Surfer magazine was my first introduction to the world of comix, and by then Zap was firmly in Boomer-nostalgialand.  It's fun to read about all these legends as scrappy young fanzine kids, all trying to emulate their heroes John Stanley, Carl Barks, and The Usual Gang of Idiots.

I'm not looking forward to the inevitable personality clashes and infighting, but for now it's a really interesting look back, well worth a read.

Griffinology

 

I've always been fascinated by the psychedelic surf art of the great Rick Griffin. Here's some more of his Disney-inspired work:

Mickey Duck

Mickey Mouse Wants You (to die in Vietnam).

I had a photocopy of this Dylan Mouse on my bedroom wall all through high school.

This last image is from a really interesting article about the sixties and the symbolism of Mickey Mouse, a nice addendum to the Shary Flenniken talk at CXC.

Mouse Smash

This picture was making the rounds throughout the comics blogosphere back in August, when the Disney/Marvel deal was first announced. This was drawn by Jack Kirby, the genius who basically invented the Marvel Universe (along with Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, and others).

It was taken from a coffee table book from the early 90's, where different artists gave their interpretation of Mickey Mouse. I remember my school library having the book when I was a teenager. I photocopied the Rick Griffin picture of Mickey as Bob Dylan and hung it on my bedroom wall, but lost it over the years. I wish I had that picture now...

I got this piece here, the blog of Craig Yoe, the man responsible for The Art Of Mickey Mouse, along with many other projects like Clean Cartoonists, Dirty Drawings (with Carl Barks girlie art!) and Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Joe Schuster. Go check it out!

Totally Tubular

 

 

 

 

Not Disney:  Rick Griffin's Tales from the Tube

 

 

 

 



Manna manna

Rick Griffin week continues with this Mickey-ish concert poster:

From Little By Little(hales)

Hoist Er Up

Check out the Mickey-esque character in this Rick Griffin poster for Quicksilver Messenger Service:

From The Golden Frog

Hack Slash

 

The great Rick Griffin in the pages of Zap

These Mystic Eyes

I love everything about this Rick Griffin surfing strip

But I love the little Mickey guys in the next-to-last panel most of all.

Utopian Vision

 

Man From Utopia by Rick Griffin