It didn't take long for underground comix to go overground as anyone who was opened up a magazine in the early seventies could have told you. It was only a few short years after their late-sixties debut that alla those cutting edge and anything goes artists began popping up in the pages of PLAYBOY and NATIONAL LAMPOON and really, if your Aunt Petunia knew who R. Crumb was it ain't underground no' mo an' ain't that the truth!
Come to think of it, the undergrounders rose to the top even earlier if you count R. Crumb's cover of the CHEAP THRILLS album and even Wacky Packages. And given the fanzines from whence these cartoonists sprang not to mention college humor rags and HELP! like, even Helen Keller coulda seen the whole shebang rising to the top like curdled milk.
And for something that was considered to be all hush-hush and verboten these books sure did get around, something which is evident by this rather easily enough obtainable mid-seventies collection of the first three issues of YOUNG LUST comics. Billed as "THE UNDERGROUND ROMANCE COMIC", YOUNG LUST was a deft spoof of them lovey dovey titles that used to clutter up a whole load of fat gals with pimpled thighs's bedrooms amidst the records scattered all over the floor and Bobby Sherman posters. Trouble is, this ain't just ANY love 'n kisses title but one whose usage of the hoary old format is more'n just a fine way not only to "satirize" the genre but make some rather cutting observations at what was then passing for mid-class Amerigan living. Believe it or don't but YOUNG LUST reveals the sordid and gritty underbelly of ranch house suburban slob living (amongst other things) in a way that makes PEYTON PLACE look like MISTER ROGERS' NEIGHBORHOOD!
Underground reg's Jay Kinney and Bill Griffith were the mastermind behind this 'un which makes YOUNG LUST all the more potent. Naturally others do make appearances (Justin Green, Roger Brand etc.) but this is pretty much Kinney and Griffith's ballgame which is superbo by me since I think these guys were the funniest, most on-target undergrounders not only in style but in content and taste.
It can get pretty dirty but you'll be laughing your libido off at a good portion of it (some does fall flat, don't get me wrong). But amidst the porno parts there are some rather high-larious bits from the fake ads for other titles (RAPE FANTASIES, QUEER DIARY, JUST LAID...) and the usual neo-Johnson Smith tomfoolery which I must admit comes off pretty funny for a guy who spent most of his just-pre-pubesprout days pouring through tons of titles wondering if it was worth it to spend a whole two bucks on a plastic slot machine I was hoping to sucker the neighborhood kids into plunking their nickels with.
The stories that appear in YOUNG LUST should get anyone who has a sense of humor similar to mine in a more'n just jovial mood and I'm not even talking about the overall dirtiness. Some of these sagas are pretty keen in the way they satirize the pre-teenbo girl titles with a then-modern-day twist which just might be a good history lesson for some and plain ol' nostalgia for others. Take for example this story by Kinney about some young lass torn between a campus hippie and a young and clean cut ROTC member who, after shunning the latter after he punches out a protester, tells the hippie that even though he is a gosh swell guy the radical life is not for her and well, it's sayonara adios and maybe even goodbye. In typical teen gal tingling twist ending fashion the guy reveals his true self, an undercover narc out to bust some local ne'er do wells so all ends swell enough for those of you who still believe that there's love and romance in this world.
You might prefer "My Rock 'n' Roll Lover", a sweet saga where a fourteen-year-old gal with an eighteen-year-old body and one of those typically teenage gal bedrooms like I mentioned in paragraph two gets to do the groupie thing with the leader of the rock group God and the Bunwads. Well, things do seem to start out fine, at least until our lass discovers that the guy's secret desires just might be somewhat out of the ordinary even though I'm sure a good portion of you readers have engaged in what this specimen has done, and often at that. And this is just one of the milder stories that pop up so you better brace yourself for what IS in store.
The one that should most appeal to the typical BLOG TO COMM reader is "Armed Love", a tale 'bout some Detroit area White Panthers who like to hang out at the Grande Ballroom and see the MC5 in between their various revolutionary and lovemaking endeavors. After being hassled by a cop while passing out legalize marijuana pamphlets they knock the officer out, shove him in the trunk of their car and, since true revolutionaries don't waste anything, butcher him for meat. Getting somewhat sick over the entire ordeal (mainly a finger that's sticking out of her stew), leading lady Sheila rushes out of the commune and gets picked up by a seemingly well-meaning fellow who turns out to be an undercover cop who takes her to the station for a gang bang that doesn't quite end up the way you woulda thought!
There's more from "Teen Talk With The Wholesome Twins" who ain't as scrubbed up as you may think, plus the aforementioned comic ad spoofs for everything from records (Hymen and Arbuckle) to some of them items that the Comics Code strictly forbade publishers to sell for years on end. One interesting soo-prise's a page of one-panel comics that feature a few of the really big names in the underground who don't appear anywhere else in the book like R. Crumb and Gilbert Shelton. I kinda liked Jay Lynch's contribution where some guy tells his gal that he's gonna buy her a new ass because the one she was using has a crack in it!
And what's really cool about YOUNG LUST are the covers which at a distance look like authentic olde tyme above-ground titles aimed at the gal set (well, excepting ish two with some teenbo couple doing it standing up right on the sidewalk), and I can just imagine a scenario that might have taken place where some armchair hippie wannabe kid who wears bell bottoms and takes the messages delivered in GREEN LANTERN/GREEN ARROW to heart has a buncha these hidden in his room and his li'l cyster discovers 'em while snoopin' 'round. Obviously thinking that they're legit romance titles the brat pours through them right out there in the open, getting a lesson in sex that she just wouldn't get from her parents stutterin' and circumventing the issue at hand. If the folks ever found out about these comics I just wouldn't want to be there when dinnertime came and pop brings up the subject right before the apple pie's bein' served!
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