LOT of 2 Subvert Comics 1 & 3 Rip Off Press Underground Comix Spain Rodriguez 👀

Description: Lot of 2 Subvert Comics by Spain Rodriguez #1 & #3 1970-1976 Rip Off Press Underground Comix Nice Shape. Some Wear. See pictures of actual items! Securely Boxed & Shipped with USPS Media Mail. See my other listings to save with COMBINED SHIPPING! DOMESTIC SHIPPING IN USA: Pay only 25 CENTS shipping per additional item/lot! FREE SHIPPING on orders over $100 in the USA! Wait for a combined shipping invoice or just pay and any extra shipping charges paid will be reimbursed. International buyers get combined shipping discounts as well but I’m using eBay Global Shipping so you’ll need to contact me before you buy. Read instructions below. INTERNATIONAL COMBINED SHIPPING: If you wish to buy more than one of my items and have them ship together, WRITE TO ME FIRST before doing anything and tell me which items you want, and I will make a custom listing just for you that includes all of them in one listing. Global shipping will end up being much less this way. Info from Comix joint —> Subvert Comics _ 1970-1976 / Rip Off Press - Keith Green Industrial Reality _ Manuel Rodriguez, born in Buffalo in 1940, grew up in the working class; his Spanish immigrant father toiled as an auto body repairman while his Italian mother was a struggling artist. Rodriguez was proud of his Spanish heritage, which led to shouting matches with neighborhood Irish boys who taunted him by calling him "Spain." The derisive nickname stuck to Rodriguez through high school, but as he began to develop a reputation in comics some years later he realized he was getting confused with Charles Rodrigues (of National Lampoon fame), so he adopted Spain as his official moniker. High school was a unique phase of life for Rodriguez, as he became a juvenile delinguent who shoplifted and stole cars, but also had a passion for art in all forms, including comic books. As a younger boy, he used to draw cartoons on the sides of household trash bags to entertain the garbage men who picked them up. He was angered by the 1954 Senate hearings (featuring Fredric Wertham) that resulted in the heavy-handed censorship of comics, which took away his beloved EC comics. It was likely the first of a million times he got pissed off at the establishment. After high school Rodriguez left home to attend art school in Connecticut, where he learned a lot but also recognized that his realistic drawings were out of vogue in the age of Abstract Expressionism. He quit art school after three years, returned to Buffalo and took a menial job in a telephone wire factory, where he continued his art education by drawing the industrial machines and his co-workers. He also also drew the motorcycles and fellow members of the Road Vultures, a violent, law-breaking motorcycle gang that he joined in the early 1960s. Rodriguez evolved into a political leftist who supported Marxism and the Socialist Labor Party, which was not quite the sinister badge it might be today. After several visits to New York City, Rodriguez finally left Buffalo and moved to the Big Apple in early 1967, when he began producing weekly comic strips for the East Village Other (EVO). At first Rodriguez produced a variety of comics, but in 1968 he created Harry Barnes, a.k.a. Trashman, who became Rodriguez's most popular and well-recognized character. Trashman is a cocksure, well-armed underground comic superhero clad in black leather with a black beard and thick black hair. Though he never met a pussy he wouldn't mount, as an agent of the mysterious anarchist organization Sixth International, Trashman mostly fights against the enemies of the working class. In his post-apocalyptic world, Trashman is continually pitted against a fascist police state, tyrannical mega-corporations, and evil political leaders. He's expertly trained to use a variety of weapons and has mastered the "para-sciences," which enable him to alter his shape and molecular structure to any desired form and prevent him from being killed by conventional weapons. Most of the Trashman stories from EVO were first compiled in The Collected Trashman in 1969, and after Rodriguez moved to San Francisco at the end of that year, Trashman starred in 88 pages of hyper-violent adventures in three issues of Subvert Comics. The first two were published by Rip Off Press and the third by Justin Green's brother, Keith Green. Despite his super (para-science) powers, Trashman always remained a comic-book reflection of Rodriguez's own social and political beliefs, which echoed counterculture positions in the '60s. It was a tense and turbulent time in Trashman's heyday, as America seemed perpetually on a knife's edge; beset with racial tension, violent conflicts, assassinations, and a futile, unwinnable war in Vietnam. Trashman's stories take place in a ruptured society with a totalitarian form of government, mass poverty, repressive social control systems, a military-like police force, and a lack of individual freedoms. Anything sound familiar? Rodriguez blazed a new trail with Trashman, taking the well-worn genre of comic superheroes and giving it fresh life with authentic energy from the urban streets of the '60s and '70s, filled with raw sexual energy, profane slang, and a blunt, savage style. His post-apocalyptic world and dark attitude was emulated by much more famous productions that followed it, such as the Blade Runner and Mad Max films, Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns, and the V for Vendetta comics. After Subvert Comics' run was over Trashman continued to appear in publications like High Times, Heavy Metal, Weirdo, and Zero Zero. Rodriguez also featured the character in two later issues of Zap Comix, after which Fantagraphics published another Trashman compilation in 1989 (Trashman Lives!). As the Amazon description for that compilation declares, "Trashman became the Superman of the New Left, idolized by the Weathermen and admired by a generation of young people disillusioned with the collapse of the American dream." In the biography that his long-time wife Susan Stern wrote, Rodriguez said, "My hopes are that mankind will build a more just society." He passed away at his San Francisco home in late 2012 after a long battle with cancer. Subvert Comics is a lasting testimony to everything that was justifiably wild—and incomprehensibly unfair—in the world of Spain Rodriguez. Subvert Comics #1 _ November 1970 / 36 pages / Rip Off Press _ Spain Rodriguez opens Subvert Comics #1 with the eight-page "The Origin of Trashman," which depicts Harry Barnes evolution from a humble auto mechanic to a bad ass superhero. It all begins when Harry (with short hair and no beard) comes home for lunch to find his wife murdered and three "enforcers" of the corrupt regime trying to take him into custody. Harry beats one of the cops to death and chases off the other two, but his life changes forevermore. He swears vengeance on those who killed his wife and becomes a fugitive from "justice," which leads him into a life of petty crime. One day, when he's on the lam from the law, his escape in a dark alleyway is aided by a mysterious man in a hooded shawl, who already seems to know all about Harry Barnes. The man calls himself Citizen X and explains that his organization, the Sixth International, was formed after the brief nuclear war (which was actually a secret conspiracy by the USA and Soviet Union) led to tyranny in America. The Sixth International fights against this tyranny and for the freedom of exploited classes. Harry accepts Citizen X's invitation to become an agent of the Sixth International. He goes through months of intensive conditioning and rigorous meditations to learn the para-sciences, including the art of molecular disintegration that enables him to change his molecular structure at will (for example, turning himself into a banana peel). He is bestowed with the nickname "Trashman" and his mission from that day forward is to roam the world defending the rights of the "humble and oppressed." Trashman's origin story is followed by "Trashman Meets the Fighting She Devils," which takes up the remainder of the first issue. After all this talk of fighting against tyranny, Trashman's first adventure involves getting kidnapped by a band of militant feminists, who seem more horny than revolutionary. After a couple pages of gratuitous sex and nudity, the Fighting She Devils camp is attacked by the slave traders from Ptwanga Canyon, where it's legal to buy, sell and kill women. Trashman is obviously more offended by murderers and slave traders than kidnappers who have sex with him, so even after escaping his imprisonment by the She Devils he launches his own attack against Ptwanga Canyon. After decimating the core group of slave traders, he's joined by the Fighting She Devils who lay waste to the entire colony. "Trashman Meets the Fighting She Devils" may not portray heroic fighting for the "humble and oppressed," but it's a fast-paced story with plenty of sex and violence. Rodriguez's art throughout the book is bold and striking, though his compositions are hit and miss, sometimes looking rather flat. Both stories are riddled with spelling errors and omissions of punctuation, which wasn't uncommon in undergrounds. But Rodriguez does a great job of setting up the Trashman character and defining his personality with telling details, like his willingness to face danger to save a friend from peril. Subvert Comics #1 is a solid introduction to Trashman for new readers who haven't already seen the character in his appearances in other publications. For Trashman's devoted fans, Subvert #1 provides a satisfying origin story. Rodriguez would get two more issues to continue Trashman's adventures and further expand the character's mythology. _ HISTORICAL FOOTNOTES: There are 4 printings of this comic book, all by Rip Off Press. It is unknown how many copies were printed for any of the printings. None of the printings included a cover price (the intended price for all 4 printings was 50 cents), but each has a cover tell that differentiates it. In the 1st printing, the circular line around the Rip Off Press logo is broken on the bottom right side. The color around Trashman's head in the emblem at the top left corner is yellow. _ In the 2nd printing, the circular line around the Rip Off Press logo is complete, and the color around Trashman's head is still yellow. But in the 3rd printing, the Rip Off Press logo has been removed altogether and the color around Trashman's head has been changed to red. The circle around the "Fight the Oppressor" graphic (below "Comics") is broken on the bottom side. The 4th printing is the same as the 3rd, except the circle around the "Fight the Oppressor" graphic is now complete. The cover paper stock for the 4th printing is also more matte finished than the 3rd. _ COMIC CREATOR: Spain Rodriguez - 1-36 Subvert Comics #3 _ Only Printing / 1976 / 36 pages / Rip Off Press _ Subvert Comics #3 presents one book-length story, which is only titled "Trashman" inside the book but is called "The Road That Knows No Law" on the front cover. Unlike the depiction on the cover, Trashman doesn't ride his motorcycle on "the road" anywhere in the story, though he does steal a motorcycle near the end of the book. The "road" in question is known as Route Zero: a 40-lane, 3000-mile super-highway built by the government that is intentionally not governed by any laws. Once on the highway, drivers can get away with speeding, road rage, and even murder. One gets the sense that Spain Rodriguez built the entire story just to have Trashman engaged in such a lawless adventure on a cross-country highway. So the story purportedly begins on the inside front cover with Trashman having sex with a woman, but as it turns out she doesn't appear anywhere else in the rest of the book. Rodriguez explains the scene by stating, "Due to numerous complaints about the dearth of sexual material in our previous issue we have decided to get this one off to a fast start." And so he does! The real adventure gets going on the next page, as Trashman is asked by the leader of the science laboratory in the liberated zone (where Trashman lives) to recover a stolen "vital part" of a revolutionary new power generator. Tracking down the vital part will be a challenge, since it was secretly hidden in the hubcap of a vehicle belonging to a well-protected oil tycoon named Howard Mantee. The leader tells Trashman that the vehicle (with the hubcap) will be part of a convoy that the oil tycoon will soon be traveling with on Route Zero. Trashman's mission is to get on the highway, track down and infiltrate the convoy, find the hubcap in question, and steal back the vital part. After conferring with four of his buddies, Trashman accepts the mission and also agrees to work with a woman from the leader's organization named Prunella Pringledorf. All of this exposition is merely pretext to getting Trashman on an open road with some really fast and dangerous vehicles, accompanied by his outlaw buddies and this Prunella chick. Their adventure soon leads them to the oil tycoon's convoy and a series of violent conflicts, all of which Trashman handles with his usual aplomb. As is sometimes the case with Rodriguez's stories, some of the story is a bit muddled as Trashman barrels through one challenge to the next, but it all moves along at a quick pace and offers plenty of action. The concept of the "road that knows no law" is a good setting for Trashman to chew some scenery and blast a few bad guys. With only three issues, Subvert Comics didn't have a long run, but it gave underground comic fans (especially those who came from mainstream comics) their own superhero to root for. Trashman was something new and different and, though little evidence exists to prove it, it's entirely plausible that Trashman had some influence on the development of anti-hero entertainment in the '70s and '80s, like Mad Max films and the V for Vendetta comics. Whether or not Trashman was a direct influence on these works (which are awesome on their own), Spain Rodriguez's signature character was the first in a long wave of anti-heroes who routinely used slang and curse words, thoroughly enjoyed sex, and committed shameless violence in the name of justice. The fact that he was a socialist is almost an afterthought, though all of his fans would (or should) be sure to trumpet that fact. _ HISTORICAL FOOTNOTES: It is currently unknown how many copies of this comic book were printed. It has not been reprinted. _ COMIC CREATOR: Spain Rodriguez - 1-36

Price: 29.99 USD

Location: Spring, Texas

End Time: 2024-12-09T19:28:06.000Z

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Product Images

Item Specifics

All returns accepted: ReturnsNotAccepted

Artist/Writer: Spain Rodriguez

Character: Trashman

Tradition: US Comics

Cover Artist: Spain Rodriguez

Series Title: Subvert Comics

Universe: Underground Comix

Publisher: Rip Off Press

Intended Audience: Viewer Discretion Advised

Vintage: Yes

Publication Year: 1970

Type: Comic Book

Format: Single Issue

Issue Number: 1 & 3

Language: English

Era: Bronze Age (1970-84)

Style: Partial Color

Genre: Animal, Bad Girl, Cartoon, Comedy, Cosmic, Drugs, Fantasy, Fiction, Folklore, Good Girl, Gothic, Horror & Sci-Fi, Monster, Occult, Pin-Up, Political, Science Fiction, Supernatural, Underground, Weird, Heroic Fantasy

Country/Region of Manufacture: Spain