Last Gasp
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| Founded | 1970 |
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| Founder | Ron Turner[1] |
| Headquarters location | San Francisco, California |
| Key people | Colin Turner[2] |
| Publication types | Books |
| Nonfiction topics | Comics, Music, Art |
| Official website | www |
Last Gasp is a book and underground comix publisher and distributor,[3] with its headquarters in San Francisco.[4] Notable artists published by Last Gasp include Tim Biskup, Robert Crumb, Richard Corben, Ron English, Camille Rose Garcia, Justin Green, Bill Griffith, Spain Rodriguez, Mark Ryden, Dori Seda, Larry Welz, Robert Williams, and S. Clay Wilson.
Today Last Gasp publishes few comic books, though they have published English-language versions of some manga titles, including Barefoot Gen, Pure Trance and Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms. The company publishes art and photography books, graphic novels, fiction, and poetry.
Last Gasp operates as a publisher, distributor, and wholesaler for books of all types, often with a lowbrow art and counterculture focus.[5]
History
Last Gasp was founded in 1970 by San Francisco State University graduate student[6] Ron Turner,[7][8] with the help of Gary Arlington,[2] to publish the ecologically-themed comics magazine Slow Death Funnies (in conjunction with the first Earth Day). Last Gasp followed Slow Death Funnies with the all-female anthology It Ain't Me Babe,[2] spearheaded by Trina Robbins. The company's success with the two titles enabled it to expand into distribution in addition to publishing.[6] The company soon became a major part of the underground comix movement.
In 1972, Last Gasp published Justin Green's seminal autobiographical comic Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary.
Sociopolitical themes were explored in Last Gasp series such as Wimmen's Comix (1972), which focused on women's liberation, Armageddon (1973), which focused on anarcho-capitalism[9] and Anarchy Comics (1978), which focused on left-wing politics.
Last Gasp also published Weirdo in 1981, and Cherry Poptart beginning in 1982. In 1977, Last Gasp picked up publication of Joyce Farmer and Lyn Chevely's Tits & Clits Comix.
In the early 1980s Last Gasp published some of the first books about the West Coast punk rock scene.
Comix titles
This is a partial list of underground comix published by Last Gasp.
Books
- American Surreal
- Despite Everything: A Cometbus Omnibus, 2002, ISBN 0-86719-561-4
- The Cunt Coloring Book
- Dead Kennedys: The Unauthorized Version, by F. Stop Fitzgerald and Marian Kester (1983) ISBN 0-86719-312-3
- StreetArt: The Punk Poster in San Francisco 1977-1981
- Hardcore California: A History of Punk and New Wave
- Labour
- Notes From the Pop Underground
- Xcapees
- Turntable Timmy, written by Michael Perry and illustrated by Doug Cunningham
- Zippy Stories, by Bill Griffith, 1986. ISBN 0-86719-325-5
See also
References
- ↑ Ron Turner at Michigan State University Libraries
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Lepage , Cécile. "A 40-year Last Gasp that's getting stronger," San Francisco Bay Guardian online (March 30, 2010).
- ↑ "On the Town: with Ron Turner" SF Chronicle, April 29, 2007
- ↑ "F A Q." Last Gasp Books. Retrieved on July 30, 2012. "Last Gasp 777 Florida Street San Francisco, CA 94110"
- ↑ "Last Gasp Hero" The Wave Magazine
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Nelson, Gayle. "The Origins of Last Gasp," Last Gasp website (Jan. 1999). Accessed Dec. 14, 2013.
- ↑ R. Crumb: Conversations by Robert Crumb & D. K. Holm. University Press of Mississippi, 2004 ISBN 978-1-57806-637-7 (p. 93)
- ↑ A history of underground comics, Mark James Estren. Ronin Publishing, 1992 ISBN 978-0-914171-64-5 (p. 254)
- ↑ Multicultural Comics: From Zap to Blue Beetle - Race and Comix by Leonard Rifas pp. 33-34
