I'm (potentially) going to be controversial here and say that Gilbert Shelton is, in my mind, the absolute best underground comics WRITER of his era. R Crumb was my favourite artist, Vaughn Bodē was a phenomenal colourist, Corben was the BEST overall artist of the bunch.... But Sheltons the best writer who wrote some amazingly funny stories. There's twists and turns in his stories that you don't see coming. One of my favourite comics of all time is a simple one page gag strip that he did, which was the Freak Brothers van catches a bit of tumbleweed beneath their van making it catch on fire. And the last panel is two tumbleweeds, in a total B Movie "Alien invaders" moment, stating everything is going according to their diabolical plans. Where as Crumb and Bobby London and a lot of the other comix makers seemed very stream of consciousness, Shelton wrote actual plots with a beginning, middle and end. Oddly enough, Woody Harrelsons a big comics guy. You don't really expect that, but he's a big fan of Dan Clowes and Shelton.
No question, especially as he is just as willing to poke fun at his audience as the establishment. Shelton was a HELL of a comics writer and his plotting is on the level of an 18th century novelist like Swift or Fielding.
I very much agree. Crumb's work, as great as it is, can get a little bit hard to read and focus on, which makes your comment "Stream of Consciousness" very accurate.
I worked in a leather store/head shop in the 1970’s and they carried the Freak Brothers comics. Gilbert Shelton was such an amazing comedic storyteller. I have one of the Freak Bros anthologies from 1978-ish and it’s still a treasure to me.
I was in a dive bar in VT recently and Shelton created some of their signage. A few orginals were on the wall. I was utterly thrilled but couldn't mange to spread the excitement around the bar.
It’s been so much fun enjoying your works over the years, here’s to 200,000-300,000 hours and beyond! All of the fantastic information and knowledge I’ve learned from this channel has deepened a lifelong passion of mine. Best
The copyright in my 50¢ copy is dated 1971 ... so we're looking at half a century here !!! I bought it in Chicago's Near-North-Side, at a shop in a place called Piper's Alley.
I've been waiting for this one for a long time. Meeting Shelton at a convention and discovering his work was a pivotal moment for me. He would be a wonderful subject for a shoot interview.
That opening story appeared earlier in the all-Austen artist Radical Amerika Comix, along with Shelton's incredibly gauche and hilarious "Smilin' Sgt. Death and the Merciless Mayhem Patrol." The earliest underground newspapers were mostly regional, so strips were "syndicated" in that they appeared in multiple venues, usually without pay and sometimes without permission. This carried into the earliest underground comix, like Yellow Dog and San Francisco Comix and for a short period you might see a strip appear in more than one place.
So cool whenever you guys put an underground classic under the microscope! Being around the same age as Ed, I was far too young (not born!) when these were first coming out, and now tracking down affordable copies (or ANY for that matter) of underground’s is difficult. I’ve got a few odds and ends, got an old Freak Bro’s TPB, and a few other underground compilations, but until about a month ago I had never rested my eyes upon a large swath of them. But my local shop came into possession of someones collection for consignment that is 75% 60’s/70’s underground’s and 25% 80’s/90’s alt comics from Fanta, D&Q and the like. I’ve been promised first dibs and can’t wait to finally procure some of these gems! Thanks for guiding the way to which ones are the best guys!!! Your show is both entertainment perfected, as well as education of the highest value possible!
I forgot how good this comic was. It was one of my first undergrounds, and I read it so many times I can still recite it. Gilbert Shelton truly is one of the most talented comics creators ever.
As a kid I had a choice, buy comics at the country store for a quarter or walk across the street to the bookstore and buy Freak Bros, Fat Freddy's Cat, Rip Off and Zap for a whopping dollar. My allowance was a buck a week, so I scraped together pop bottle refunds (10 cents a bottle!!!) and lawnmowing money and slapped down my cash for some Undergrounds. I am pretty sure I convinced my brother to kick in some pennies. The owner never second guessed selling "stoner" comics to kids...the 70's were a different time. I still have a few Fat Freddy's Cat issues. Shelton was and still is one of my favs! Thanks for the review!
I'd never heard of Gilbert Shelton before today. This is why I follow the channel because you turn me on to the dopest shit! Just ordered that omnibus. Can't wait! Thanks guys!
Yep, it was Rip Off Press that had the fire. (and Eclipse had a flood; NorCal is dangerous for alternative comics publishers ;)) By the way, pot does NOT make you sloppy as a cartoonist(well, not necessarily). It can fuck up your work ethic as far as sitting at the table. But it can HELP you do pages because you get obsessively focused--at least I do! I draw EVERY page stoned and it's always helped me stay in the seat working. The pot is in fact, if anything, evident in Shelton in how meticulous and even overdrawn it can be.
great show guy's. i love the freak brothers. i got all my underground comics at the head shop back in the day. i'm glad to have them still in my collection. my house was a lot like the piskor house back in the day. a place where all the fuck up's were welcome. a cool place to hang out and have some mindless fun. i wish i could go back to the good old days of my youth. i just got my first 5 issues of red room from fantagraphics and they were awesome .i cant wait for the next batch .well guys thanks for the kick ass content, take care and have a wonderful day.
I remember being 13 or 14 years old and sneaking the first issue of Freak Bros. so my parents wouldn't know I bought an underground comic. It definitely felt like "forbidden fruit." I was pleasantly surprised to find that the contentswere so well-crafted and funny. As the years went by, I would find the rest of the series in back issue bins, and no longer bothered to conceal them from my folks. That might be a fun topic for a future Kayfabe video: comics that you bought as an adolescent that you were sure your parents would forbid you to read.
My uncle Fred collected the Freak Bros and Fat Freddy's Cat, I read most of them when I was a kid and he rented the basement suite in our house. He also had an extensive collection of adult magazines, biker & tattoo mags, MAD, National Lampoon, Heavy Metal and random comic books.
German underground cartoonist Gerhard Seyfried worked with Shelton in his studio for a while and remembers them smoking mexican weed pretty much all day long and starting to drink beer at lunchtime. You'd guess the work would be way more sloppy... The effects of the weed they had at that time is way overplayed for humor in the strips, probably also to make fun of reefer madness and stuff like that. Weed today is generally much stronger and still won't give anyone acid trip-like hallucinations. It's just more fun to draw that stuff...
I always wondered if (DC and Marvel) comics nut Nick Cage would be interested in appearing in such a vehicle as an underground thing like Zap or the Freak Brothers. (Even those crazy church comics put out by Jack Chick...?)😎
I met Gilbert Shelton at a cartoon festival in Waterford Ireland some time around the mid nineties, he drew me a picture of Fat Freddie’s Cat and to my eternal regret I have no idea where it is
got a lot of love for these comics-- i started looking them up after watching some of the TV show and they're even better! can't beat the OG, naturally i appreciate that the show brings these characters to a new generation, it felt really cool discovering a piece of stoner history of yore. shelton is a genius
You guys should take a look at Wood & Stock by brazillian cartoonist Angeli. It's heavily inspired by the Freak Brothers and the cartooning is wonderful.
LoL.... ..i'm 70 years oLd, and i'm Laughing my ass off just Remembering these comics from my youth..... . i used to buy these comics along with black light posters, from a shop way downtown in Greenwich Village, New York City..... ..i Also bought mr. NaturaL conics(keep on truckin) and Fritz the Cat... those underground comics were the best..!!. ((Weird times back then...long hair and bell bottom pants...Lotsa fun) .. i am way more settled down now in my oLder age.. Not !!
As a college student when Furry Freak brothers came out we lived the Furry Bros episodes in real life. There was so much grass around it almost liike it was legal
Someone turned me on to the show, and I was instantly like "very underground comix". A friend of mine is in his mid 60s I'm in my 50s. I'm going o have to keep my eyes out for any of the older print runs as well as try to order myself some that are still in print. I'm so sick of the Marvel & DC crap form the past 30 years it's made me blind to looking for comics. Think i have to start looking for comix and other non-supers stuff again.
I'm (potentially) going to be controversial here and say that Gilbert Shelton is, in my mind, the absolute best underground comics WRITER of his era. R Crumb was my favourite artist, Vaughn Bodē was a phenomenal colourist, Corben was the BEST overall artist of the bunch.... But Sheltons the best writer who wrote some amazingly funny stories. There's twists and turns in his stories that you don't see coming. One of my favourite comics of all time is a simple one page gag strip that he did, which was the Freak Brothers van catches a bit of tumbleweed beneath their van making it catch on fire. And the last panel is two tumbleweeds, in a total B Movie "Alien invaders" moment, stating everything is going according to their diabolical plans. Where as Crumb and Bobby London and a lot of the other comix makers seemed very stream of consciousness, Shelton wrote actual plots with a beginning, middle and end.
Oddly enough, Woody Harrelsons a big comics guy. You don't really expect that, but he's a big fan of Dan Clowes and Shelton.
No question, especially as he is just as willing to poke fun at his audience as the establishment. Shelton was a HELL of a comics writer and his plotting is on the level of an 18th century novelist like Swift or Fielding.
I very much agree. Crumb's work, as great as it is, can get a little bit hard to read and focus on, which makes your comment "Stream of Consciousness" very accurate.
I worked in a leather store/head shop in the 1970’s and they carried the Freak Brothers comics. Gilbert Shelton was such an amazing comedic storyteller. I have one of the Freak Bros anthologies from 1978-ish and it’s still a treasure to me.
11:00 "Replace Garfield's lasagna with weed...and there you go!" -Ed Piskor explaining the hook of Freak Brothers
I was in a dive bar in VT recently and Shelton created some of their signage. A few orginals were on the wall. I was utterly thrilled but couldn't mange to spread the excitement around the bar.
It’s been so much fun enjoying your works over the years, here’s to 200,000-300,000 hours and beyond! All of the fantastic information and knowledge I’ve learned from this channel has deepened a lifelong passion of mine. Best
The copyright in my 50¢ copy is dated 1971 ... so we're looking at half a century here !!!
I bought it in Chicago's Near-North-Side, at a shop in a place called Piper's Alley.
I've been waiting for this one for a long time. Meeting Shelton at a convention and discovering his work was a pivotal moment for me. He would be a wonderful subject for a shoot interview.
That opening story appeared earlier in the all-Austen artist Radical Amerika Comix, along with Shelton's incredibly gauche and hilarious "Smilin' Sgt. Death and the Merciless Mayhem Patrol."
The earliest underground newspapers were mostly regional, so strips were "syndicated" in that they appeared in multiple venues, usually without pay and sometimes without permission. This carried into the earliest underground comix, like Yellow Dog and San Francisco Comix and for a short period you might see a strip appear in more than one place.
Of all the wacky characters, like Don Longjuan and Norbert the Narc, I think the best supporting character is Fat Freddy's Cat.
So cool whenever you guys put an underground classic under the microscope! Being around the same age as Ed, I was far too young (not born!) when these were first coming out, and now tracking down affordable copies (or ANY for that matter) of underground’s is difficult. I’ve got a few odds and ends, got an old Freak Bro’s TPB, and a few other underground compilations, but until about a month ago I had never rested my eyes upon a large swath of them. But my local shop came into possession of someones collection for consignment that is 75% 60’s/70’s underground’s and 25% 80’s/90’s alt comics from Fanta, D&Q and the like. I’ve been promised first dibs and can’t wait to finally procure some of these gems! Thanks for guiding the way to which ones are the best guys!!! Your show is both entertainment perfected, as well as education of the highest value possible!
I forgot how good this comic was. It was one of my first undergrounds, and I read it so many times I can still recite it. Gilbert Shelton truly is one of the most talented comics creators ever.
As a kid I had a choice, buy comics at the country store for a quarter or walk across the street to the bookstore and buy Freak Bros, Fat Freddy's Cat, Rip Off and Zap for a whopping dollar. My allowance was a buck a week, so I scraped together pop bottle refunds (10 cents a bottle!!!) and lawnmowing money and slapped down my cash for some Undergrounds. I am pretty sure I convinced my brother to kick in some pennies. The owner never second guessed selling "stoner" comics to kids...the 70's were a different time. I still have a few Fat Freddy's Cat issues. Shelton was and still is one of my favs! Thanks for the review!
Don't forget Fat Freddy's Cat!
I'd never heard of Gilbert Shelton before today. This is why I follow the channel because you turn me on to the dopest shit! Just ordered that omnibus. Can't wait! Thanks guys!
I remember them !! The Quest For A Big Fat Joint.
Miss Peach is the newspaper strip that was parodied among others.
Yep, it was Rip Off Press that had the fire. (and Eclipse had a flood; NorCal is dangerous for alternative comics publishers ;))
By the way, pot does NOT make you sloppy as a cartoonist(well, not necessarily). It can fuck up your work ethic as far as sitting at the table. But it can HELP you do pages because you get obsessively focused--at least I do! I draw EVERY page stoned and it's always helped me stay in the seat working. The pot is in fact, if anything, evident in Shelton in how meticulous and even overdrawn it can be.
great show guy's. i love the freak brothers. i got all my underground comics at the head shop back in the day. i'm glad to have them still in my collection. my house was a lot like the piskor house back in the day. a place where all the fuck up's were welcome. a cool place to hang out and have some mindless fun. i wish i could go back to the good old days of my youth. i just got my first 5 issues of red room from fantagraphics and they were awesome .i cant wait for the next batch .well guys thanks for the kick ass content, take care and have a wonderful day.
It's quite depressing what they did with the cartoon
Yes its awful. A lot of $ went into it.
Started buying these while looking for Zap’s. Totally obsessed at this point and the fact I live in Austin makes me like the Sheldon stuff even more.
The Freak Bros Omnibus is also available on Kindle
I remember being 13 or 14 years old and sneaking the first issue of Freak Bros. so my parents wouldn't know I bought an underground comic. It definitely felt like "forbidden fruit." I was pleasantly surprised to find that the contentswere so well-crafted and funny. As the years went by, I would find the rest of the series in back issue bins, and no longer bothered to conceal them from my folks.
That might be a fun topic for a future Kayfabe video: comics that you bought as an adolescent that you were sure your parents would forbid you to read.
Gilbert Shelton shoot interview pls!!
My uncle Fred collected the Freak Bros and Fat Freddy's Cat, I read most of them when I was a kid and he rented the basement suite in our house. He also had an extensive collection of adult magazines, biker & tattoo mags, MAD, National Lampoon, Heavy Metal and random comic books.
Loved these when I was a kid.
German underground cartoonist Gerhard Seyfried worked with Shelton in his studio for a while and remembers them smoking mexican weed pretty much all day long and starting to drink beer at lunchtime. You'd guess the work would be way more sloppy...
The effects of the weed they had at that time is way overplayed for humor in the strips, probably also to make fun of reefer madness and stuff like that. Weed today is generally much stronger and still won't give anyone acid trip-like hallucinations. It's just more fun to draw that stuff...
Garfield's ears perked when you suggested switching out his lasagna for weed.
Dude just say this material is Gold from yester year. Buy it and treasure it forever.
I always wondered if (DC and Marvel) comics nut Nick Cage would be interested in appearing in such a vehicle as an underground thing like Zap or the Freak Brothers. (Even those crazy church comics put out by Jack Chick...?)😎
I met Gilbert Shelton at a cartoon festival in Waterford Ireland some time around the mid nineties, he drew me a picture of Fat Freddie’s Cat and to my eternal regret I have no idea where it is
The Pop Will Eat Itself song Can U Dig It? references the Freak Brothers
ua-cam.com/video/36nWNAvtwrw/v-deo.html
Cool! Just found my old school Freak Bros. comics today!!! Was hoping for this. Very serendipitous! Jesus joins the Armed Forces next!
got a lot of love for these comics-- i started looking them up after watching some of the TV show and they're even better! can't beat the OG, naturally
i appreciate that the show brings these characters to a new generation, it felt really cool discovering a piece of stoner history of yore. shelton is a genius
Remember the one with fat Freddie in a voltswagon at a cross walk little car goes beep beep
This is the shit I love collecting. I have a bunch of motor city comics and other things like womyn and Zapp!
Hey! The Fantastic Furry Freak Brothers even made an appearance in Hulk Grand Design Volume 1!
My grandmother has those comics and the sex to sexty comics. Though she waited until i was an adult to let me read them
Also did Car Toons magazine for gearheads comics
You guys should take a look at Wood & Stock by brazillian cartoonist Angeli. It's heavily inspired by the Freak Brothers and the cartooning is wonderful.
The Furry Freak brothers got us through the turbulent 60's - and of course, our music...
I have a game that came out in an early 70's Playboy that features the Freak Brothers. It's called FED'S n HEADS
Some original pages I saw years ago were quite large - maybe around 3X4 but that's a guess
dr.atomic was another stoner comic book with decent stories and in the back of one issue they showed you how to make hash oil.
Jim when can we get an announcement about your next book? The suspense is killing me…
Ik vraag me af of ze ooit nog in Amsterdam zijn gaan wonen.
I feel fortunate to have the entire collection incredibly entertaining and funny as shit!!! But considering selling them so…. 😯
LoL.... ..i'm 70 years oLd, and i'm Laughing my ass off just Remembering these comics from my youth..... . i used to buy these comics along with black light posters, from a shop way downtown in Greenwich Village, New York City..... ..i Also bought mr. NaturaL conics(keep on truckin) and Fritz the Cat... those underground comics were the best..!!.
((Weird times back then...long hair and bell bottom pants...Lotsa fun)
.. i am way more settled down now in my oLder age.. Not !!
Y'all are my fave no fucking doubt !
As a college student when Furry Freak brothers came out we lived the Furry Bros episodes in real life. There was so much grass around it almost liike it was legal
I sort of lived like the Freak Brothers in the 1970s.
I always viewed the Freak Bros like the Three Stooges as drugged-out hippies.
Tubi: lemme get on suma dat
Someone turned me on to the show, and I was instantly like "very underground comix". A friend of mine is in his mid 60s I'm in my 50s. I'm going o have to keep my eyes out for any of the older print runs as well as try to order myself some that are still in print.
I'm so sick of the Marvel & DC crap form the past 30 years it's made me blind to looking for comics. Think i have to start looking for comix and other non-supers stuff again.
Can you blokes review Mickey rat it's tops