Underground Comics (or "Comix," with the X understood to signify X-rated material) include strips and books heavily dosed with obscenity, graphic sex, gory violence, glorification of drug use, and general defiance of convention and authority. All are either self-published or produced by very small companies which choose not to follow the mainstream Comics Code. Some undergrounds are political, carrying eco-awareness, anti-establishment messages, and general revolutionary overtones. Others are just meant for nasty, subversive fun. All have elements of sensation and satire. The origins of underground comics can be traced to the so-called "Tijuana Bibles" of the 1930s and 1940s: illegally produced 8-page mini-comics that depicted mainstream comic strip characters getting drunk and having sex (Popeye, Mickey Mouse, Dick Tracy, etc.). The legacy of underground comics are the Alternative and Independent of the 1980s and 1990s.

Underground comics truly came into their own during the 1960s, thanks...