Debut Issue
Premiering in 1968, Zap #1 was unlike any comic book sensibility that had been seen before. Labeled "Fair Warning: For Adult Intellectuals Only", it featured the publishing debut of Crumb's much-bootlegged "Keep on Truckin'" imagery, an early appearance of unreliable holy man Mr. Natural and his neurotic disciple Flakey Foont, and the first of innumerable self-caricatures (in which Crumb calls himself "a raving lunatic", and "one of the world's last great medieval thinkers"). Perhaps most notable was the story "Whiteman", which detailed the inner torment seething within the lusty, fearful heart of an outwardly upright American. While a few small-circulation self-published satirical comic books had been printed prior to this, Zap #1 became the model for the "comix" movement that snowballed after its release.
The contents of the first Zap were not intended to be the debut issue. Crumb had drawn a completely different issue's worth of comics, but the artwork was stolen prior to publication. Rather than repeat himself, Crumb drew a new assortment of strips, which replaced the missing issue. Fortunately, Crumb had made Xerox copies of the missing pages, which (according to fellow Zap contributor Victor Moscoso) successfully captured the linework but not the solid blacks. After being reinked, those cartoons subsequently appeared as Zap #0 (which was first published about the same time as Zap #3).
Read more about this topic: Zap Comix
Famous quotes containing the words debut and/or issue:
“Had I been less resolved to work, I would perhaps had made an effort to begin immediately. But since my resolution was formal and before twenty four hours, in the empty slots of the next day where everything fit so nicely because I was not yet there, it was better not to choose a night at which I was not well-disposed for a debut to which the following days proved, alas, no more propitious.... Unfortunately, the following day was not the exterior and vast day which I had feverishly awaited.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
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—Stanley I. Greenspan (20th century)