Another discovery I've made since procuring my underground price guide is that a lot of the big names in underground comix actually did work in National Lampoon. A few years back I got a bunch of issues of the magazine in a lot I bought of Heavy Metals and other fantasy magazines. I was never really that into them, but held on to them just in case they came in handy for something. Which, inevitably, they have.
Actually, I have rifled through them a bit. Neal Adams's "Son of God" comics are amazing, and I'm sure I could have fit them into my dissertation somehow. And there's a bunch of Jeff Jones strips in them, and Jones is an artist I absolutely adore.
So what I did today, and probably will for the foreseeable future for this magazine, is I just read the comics. There were 23 pages, plus a few single-panel gags sprinkled throughout, which is just about the same as a regular comic. The text bits are funny, but are also very, very topical. Some of the critique of Nixon that I see in the comics is perhaps a little more relatable to us nowadays, but I don't know who a lot of the figures that get fun (and occasional vitriol) poked at them are.
The comics were cool. As I noted, there's some Jeff Jones with his excellent "Idyl," some single panel and strips from Gahan Wilson, and a full "comic" inserted that's riffs on the old EC titles, but is about the life of George Wallace. And this is the problem - I don't know who that is. The comic was funny, but I was missing the context.
I think I'll poke about through these a bit more for a few days. I had planned out a full month of interesting things to read, but these mags have taken my attention. More to come...
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