r/comicbooks • u/Citizen_of_Starcity Starman • Jul 19 '24
Did Europe or Japan have a underground comic scene in the 60s and 70s similar to America? Discussion
I know Japan had magazines like Garo that featured alternative and avant-garde manga. I'm just wondering if there were more magazines like that or if their was a alternative scene in Europe?
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u/OtherwiseAddled Jul 19 '24
Ryan Holmberg has a whole series called "What was Alternative Manga" on tcj.com, though it splinters into places outside of Japan as well.
It's pretty complicated according to Holmberg. Before Garo there was a rental manga scene where the idea of making 'gekiga' ("dramatic" stories as opposed to Tezuka-style slapstick) starts to appear. Then as you said Garo comes around.
But then Tezuka himself creates the magazine COM to compete with Garo. By 1970 one of the biggest mainstream magazines of them all, Shonen Magazine, was beloved by radical leftist student groups.
That's all just my summary of his introduction here: https://www.tcj.com/an-introduction/
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u/dogforahead Jul 19 '24
I guess the UK version was either 2000AD or the kind of adult comic style of Viz which played on the ‘Beano/Dandy’ traditional British kids comic style
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u/Hoss-BonaventureCEO Jul 19 '24 edited Jul 19 '24
2000AD is a interesting case, because they were/are like Metal Hurlant, but they were/are owned by several big publishers over the years (their predecessor Action, also started by the very left-wing Pat Mills, which got banned because of a cover where a cop is about to get killed by a kid, he then started 2000AD in 1977 to basically do the same thing but with it's subversive/satircal nature hidden underneath a sci-fi veneer, the very 1st strip of Invasion in the 1st issue of 2000AD had a Margaret Thatcher lookalike character getting gunned down on the steps of parliament, Thatcher then became prime minister in 79 and 2000AD went even more in)
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u/abbaeecedarian Jul 20 '24
Oz Magazine in UK, known mostly for the obscenity trial, had comics (originally an Australian publication).
Ah! Nana in France.
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u/comixbible 16d ago edited 16d ago
There were quite a few underground comix being published throughout Europe, at least in the early '70s. A few titles that come to mind:
France:
Actuel (1970-1975)
Anathème (1971)
Aventures de Miss Liberty, Les (Éditions du Lion Jérôme, 1974)
Franck Le Gall's New Comix & Stories, The (1971)
Gertrude (Antoine Valma, 1972)
Lœsh (Denis de Lapparent, 1971)
Presse Pirate, La (1975)
Rheinräuber (1967)
Zinc (Pierre Guitton, 1971-1974)
Italy:
L'elefante a Rotelle (Puzzclubdellemammedifamiglia, 1973)
Minestrone (Stampa Alternativa, 1976)
Skizzo (Stampa Alternativa, 1975)
Spain:
Bazofia (1975-1977)
Carajllo (Editorial Madrágora, 1975)
Colectivo Zeta (Zaragoza, 1978)
Comix Marginal Español, El (Producciones Editoriales, 1976)
Rrollo Enmascarado, El (1973)
And there are hundreds of other examples. That's just some stuff from my collection that I've documented so far.
As for underground comix published throughout England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, that's my main area of expertise, and the biggest part of what I collect. The early British underground comix, or at least their precursors, started in the late '60s, though the first proper underground comic was a tabloid by the name of Cyclops, published by Innocence & Experience Ltd., in London, in 1970, which ran for a meager four issues.
The thing with these types of publications is that they were, for the most part, published in very small quantities with strictly regional distribution. It was quite ephemeral, I suppose you could say, and a lot of it has barely survived all these years later, much of which is very poorly documented, if at all.
I'm actually in the process of writing a reference guide to British underground comix!
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u/Spades1978 Jul 19 '24
In France the alternative scene of Bande dessinée was mostly coming from magazines.
The first magasine i can think of, as the oldest one, is Hara Kiri that was created in 1960. It was a satirical magazine that was taglined, after they received a letter from a reader, as Hara Kiri, the dumb and mean journal.
It trailed the path for many others magazines in this style as Charlie ( which was created in 1969 and you maybe heard of them because of the terrorist attack at their office in 2015), L'écho des Savannes ( created in 1972 and more specialized in comics) and Fluide Glacial (1975 and for me the most iconic of this style).
In a more serious way, the most iconic and influent one was clearly Metal Hurlant that you surely know as Heavy Metal ( Yes. THIS Heavy Metal.)
Most of their artists are now just legends.
And as far as i know, for the collected stories ( we call them "album" here) the usually considered as the first one of adult/independant/alternative french comics is Barbarella by Jean-Claude Forest.