Kicking and Screaming

A A A Comments By Silke Tudor Wednesday, Mar 24 2010

More About

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Events Newsletter: What's happening in town? From underground club nights to the biggest outdoor festivals, our top picks for the week's best events will always keep you in on the action.

Legend has it, a trip to the toilet with Zap Comix inspired Ron Turner to borrow $2,500 to start his publishing company, Last Gasp. It was 1970, a year fraught by both optimism and opposition. Turner, like a holy fool with a whoopee cushion, released Slow Death Funnies just in time for Earth Day. He sold it out of the back of his car. 40 years later, the original home of R. Crumb and Art Spiegelman has grown into the largest purveyor of high-minded lowbrow books in the world. (Beyond your own bookshelf, this might be the only place you’ll find The Cunt Coloring Book and the 17th-century Insects of Surinam side-by-side.) Forever guided by Turner’s twisting sense of humor and nose for offbeat beauty, Last Gasp embraces items ranging from graphic guides to Hinduism and Shakespeare and detailed instructions in lock-picking to anthologies of Cometbus and monographs by Mark Ryden. It is an underground roadmap for elegiac derelicts. “The Last Gasp 40th Anniversary Art Show” celebrates four decades of divine delinquency with a gallery show featuring no fewer than 50 of Last Gasp’s most beloved artists, including Robert Crumb, Spain Rodriguez, Robert Williams, Attaboy, and many more.
Thu., April 1, 6 p.m., 2010

Check out this week's featured ad for Arts

Priceless Medical Evaluations

View Ad View Website

More Ads >>

Get the Events Newsletter

What's happening in town? From underground club nights to the biggest outdoor festivals, our top picks for the week's best events will always keep you in on the action.