Bayou Collection of Underground Comix

Mowry’s Opera House originally opened in 1879 and was located at the corner of Grove and Laguna Streets.  The building had a very colorful history to say the least—it served as a temporary City Hall and Coroner’s Office following the 1906 earthquake and fire, it was a boxing arena, where John Sullivan fought Gentleman Jim Corbett (Fogel 1999), and during the early 1910-20s it served as a popular middle-class nightclub (SF Public Library).  The 1960s saw Mowry’s Opera House in decline as “white flight” to sprawling suburbia led to urban exodus.  Apex Novelties’ Don Donahue rented loft-space in the old opera house to rock bands, nude dancers, and even Rip Off Press (Kennedy 1982).  The precise date of the fire is still a point of contention, but Donahue recalls that it was during the printing of Cunt Comics (c. 1969) that the loft caught fire, a “spectacular blaze” that burned the roof off (Kennedy 1982) and consumed approximately 500 copies of Zap Comix #1 (1^st) stored on-site. 

The “Apex Novelties Pedigree Collection” consists of 12 partially burned copies of Zap Comix #1 (1^st) personally salvaged from the Mowry’s Opera House Fire@ by publisher Don Donahue.  The cache of Mowry-salvaged Plymells were relocated by Donahue in November 2006 following personal communications with myself.#  Of the 12 discovered, 11 were sold to Michael Carbonaro (Neatstuff Collectibles LLC) around April 2007, with the remaining copy simultaneously sold to me.  The copies were first offered for sale to the public at San Diego Comic Con 2007, and they range from copies that are little more than charred remains, to those that exhibit only tell-tale water damage & scorching at the edges.

Each “Apex Novelties Pedigree Collection” Zap Comix #1 (1^st) includes a signed certificate of authenticity (MOWRY_COA.jpg) that includes a brief printing history, description of the fire, and the signatures of both Donahue and Fogel’s Underground Price Guide (FUG) author Dan Fogel. 

Most images courtesy Neatstuff Collectibles, LLC.

Fogel, D.  (1999).  UG!3K.  Hippy Comix, Inc., El Sobrante, CA.  160 pgs. 

Kennedy, J.  (1982).  The official underground and newave comix price guide.  Boatner Norton Press, Cambridge, MA.  Xx pgs.  ISBN 0960665439S. 

@  Note that some debate exists over the precise date of the fire. 

#  More info: http://www.comicspriceguide.com/forum2/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=38619

Keno Don Hugo Rosa, herein Don Rosa, is a comic book writer and illustrator who is well regarded for his award-winning “duck” and Disney stories (mostly Scrooge McDuck or Donald Duck).  Rosa has also been recognized as among the first scholars of “fandom,” writing and illustrating columns for major fanzines, such as the “Information Center” in The Rocket's Blast Comicollector (1974-1979), or other features in Comic Buyer’s GuideCBG; formerly The Buyer's Guide to Comics Fandom), Comics Journal, & Amazing Heroes (CBP 2008).

Don Rosa is also a noted comic book collector who began collecting around 1962.  It is said that his collection contains “every comic book and magazine issued from every publisher from 1966 to the late 1980's” (CBP 2008a).  “Don Rosa Collection” books typically exhibit tight bindings, sharp corners, deep ink reflectivity, and a fresh newsstand appearance (CBP 2008). 

To date, only “groundlevel” comix like Comix Book or Comix Intl. have surfaced from the “Don Rosa Collection,” however given Rosa’s similar involvement in comics fandom as many UG artists (e.g. early Crumb, Lynch, Williamson, etc.), it is very likely that the collection includes some u-comix.  As of this writing, only comics from 1970-present have been released for sale which are dominated by Bronze Age Marvel, DC, Charlton, & Gold Key. 

Known “Don Rosa Collection” comix: 

• CGC 9.6 Comix Book #2 (1^st) Don Rosa @
• FN Comix Book #4 (1^st) Don Rosa w/ COA
• FNVF Comix Book #5 (1^st) Don Rosa w/ COA
• VFNM Comix International #2 (1^st) Don Rosa w/ COA
• VFNM Comix International #4 (1^st) Don Rosa w/ COA
• CGC 9.0 Comix International #5 (1st) Don Rosa  http://www.pedigreecomics.com/detail.php?issue_id=10002
  

Comic Book Pedigrees (CBP).  (2008a).  The Don Rosa collection.  Retrieved on February 14, 2008, from http://www.comicpedigrees.com/don-rosa-collection.htm. 

@  This copy was briefly listed on Pedigree Comics website & I was able to bid on it.  However, for weeks my bid went unanswered and follow-up communications showed that the book was pulled from the website & its whereabouts unknown. 

In recent years, many different comix have surfaced labeled as "File Copies,” whether they be accumulations from the publisher (e.g. Print Mint & Apex Novelties) or from individual professionals from within the comix movement (e.g. Don Donahue, Fred Todd, or Harvey Kurtzman).  With "aboveground" comics, the accumulations of professionals often elevate to pedigree status with collectors, whereas publisher file copies are sometimes relegated to “warehouse finds” because they may contain multiple copies of many issues in high grade (CBP 2008b).  Generally, u-comix File Copies are in high demand and fetch a premium over equivalent high-grade copies because of the established provenance.  

Prior to his involvement in publishing u-comix, Don Schenker was a poet who co-publishing a chapbook of poetry with David Meltzer titled Poems: Poetry (c. 1957), as well as contributing to literary journals such as the RC Lion (No. 3; 1967) and others.  In the early 1960s Schenker founded the Print Mint as a printing and framing establishment that would soon specialize in satirical, concert, and psychedelic posters (Harvey 1996).  Eventually, he would parlay Print Mint’s involvement in printing and distributing posters into establishing the head shop distribution network for u-comix (c. 1968-1969; Skinn 2006).  Schenker would eventually sell the Print Mint to Bob & Peggy Rita (Skinn 2006). 

The “Don Schenker” or “Print Mint” file copies represent the personal file copies of the Print Mint publisher, which were originally sold by Sotheby's in 1997 (per Heritage auction description).  The copies were certified by the CGC and re-sold through Heritage Auctions from October to December 2002. 

Known “Don Schenker File Copy” comix: 

• CGC 9.2 Zap Comix #0 (1^st) File copy (slight stain)
• CGC 9.2 Zap Comix #2 (1^st) File copy
• CGC 9.4 Zap Comix #3 (1^st) File Copy
• CGC 9.4 Zap Comix #4 (1^st) File Copy
• CGC 9.2 Zap Comix #8 (1^st) File Copy  zap08_file.jpg

The “Fred Todd File Copies” were originally sold Heritage Auctions from November 2003 through July 2004, and are the personal file collection of Rip Off Press’ publisher, co-founder, and “Texas Mafioso” Fred Todd (McCleary 2004).  A former computer technician, Todd solely presided over ROP beginning in 1979, surviving the company’s Bayview (CA) warehouse-fire that burned 17 years of accumulated comix, and eventually oversaw it move to Auburn, CA (ROP 2008). 

Each “Fred Todd File Copy” should come with a signed certificate of authenticity (COA) stating the provenance, which includes comix title, issue #, artist information, and a ROP embossed foil label. 

Known “Fred Todd File Copy” comix@: 

• CGC 9.4 Air Pirates Funnies #1 File Copy
• CGC 9.2 Air Pirates Funnies #2 File Copy
• NM Baron Von Mabel's Back Packing - Softcover - File Copy
• CGC 9.6 Feelgood Funnies #1 File Copy
• FN/VF Forty Year Old Hippie Catalog #1 File Copy
• NM Freak Brothers #1 (18^th) File Copy
• CGC 8.5 Freak Brothers #1 (9^th- Pink Paper) File Copy
• Exile Into Consciousness Limited Edition - File Copy
• VF The Life and Loves of Cleopatra #nn (2^nd) File Copy
• VF Mother's Oats #3 File Copy
• NM-Mother's Oats #3 File Copy, Signed by Sheridan
• NM People's Comics #nn (1^st) File Copy; now CGC 9.6  fredtodd_peoples.jpg (image courtesy comixman)
  
• NM Projunior #1 (3^rd) File Copy; now CGC 9.6  fredtodd_projunior_3rd.jpg (image courtesy comixman)
  
• VF Radical America V3#1 (1^st) File Copy; untrimmed; unstapled
• VF- Radical America V3#1 (1^st) File Copy, Signed by Shelton; unstapled
• NM- Radical America V3#1 (1^st) File Copy, Printer’s proof (untrimmed; unstapled)
• NM- Short Order Comix #2 File Copy
• VFNM Skull Comics #1 (3^rd) File Copy; now CGC 8.5  fredtodd_skull_3rd.jpg (image courtesy comixman)
  
• FN+ Slow Death #1 File Copy
• NM- Turned On Cuties #nn File Copy
• NM- Testosterone City #nn (2^nd) File Copy
• FN- Weird Fantasies #1 File Copy
• NM Wonder Wart-Hog and the Battle of the Titans #nn (1^st) File Copy; now PGX 9.6  fredtodd_wwhog.jpg

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Comic Book Pedigrees (CBP).  (2008b).  The 48 greatest golden age collections ever discovered.  Retrieved on February 13, 2008, from http://www.comicpedigrees.com/pedigrees.htm 

Harvey, R.C.  (1996).  The art of the comic book:  an aesthetic history.  University Press of Mississippi, Oxford, MS.  288 pgs.  ISBN 0878057587

McCleary, J.B.  (2004).  The hippie dictionary:  a cultural encyclopedia of the 1960s and 1970s.  Ten Speed Press, CITY, ST.  720 pgs.  ISBN 1580085474. 

Rip Off Press (ROP).  (2008).  About Rip Off Press, Inc.  A local mirror of ROP’s website retrieved on February 13, 2008, from http://www.ugcomix.info/history/mirrors/rophist.htm 

@  Based on information retrieved from Heritage Auctions “auctions results archive” on February 13, 2008. 

#  More info: http://www.comicspriceguide.com/forum2/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=38619

Aran Stubbs, a former employee of the Colorado Department of Revenue (CDR), manipulated the Colorado income tax refund computer system to issue refund checks in the names of people that had either died or moved away from Colorado.  He then contracted with comic dealers, e.g. Harley Yee or Michael Dice, to cash the endorsed state refund checks under the guise of representing a group of comic book investors.  Many years and hundreds of thousands of dollars (est. $200,000-500,000) were spent converting the funds into a large collection, before the State of Colorado caught Stubbs in May of 1992 and seized the collection to seek restitution for the crime.  The CDR conducted a full inventory, some 60,000 different comics, and auctioned the collection by sealed bid to the highest bidder (RTS Unlimited, then Golden now Lakewood, CO).

The name “IRS Collection” was coined by Overstreet Advisor Bruce Ellsworth, then owner of Bruce's Comics in Santa Fe, NM.  As such, each IRS comix should come with a serially numbered certificate of authenticity (IRS_COA.jpg) that includes a brief history of the collection, title/issue #/condition, and a holographic label.  However, COAs were not included with the first comics sold until collector demand prompted RTS Unlimited to issue COAs in support of the infamous provenance. 

Like other “collections” the IRS Collection was a group of books accumulated second-hand by a collector, often mid-grade copies, and as such it does not fit the four (4) criteria of a pedigreed comic book collection.  Still, at the time of the sealed auction, the collection represented roughly 20% of all Golden Age, 75% of all Silver Age, and 95% of all Modern Age comics, so it is perhaps not surprising that underground comix would be represented in this collection.

Known "IRS Collection" comix:

• Barbarian Comics #1-? (IRS___)
• VF- Bizarre Sex #9 (5th) (IRS___)
• VFNM Den #2 (IRS10236)  http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v688/oldmilwaukee6er/irs_den2.jpg
• VFNM Den #3 (IRS10237)  http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v688/oldmilwaukee6er/irs_den3.jpg
• F/VF Funny Aminals #nn (1st) (IRS___)##
• VG Girl Fight #1 (IRS2104)  girlfight_irs.jpg
• NM Vaughn Bode Diary Sketchbook #1 (IRS___)
• VFNM Witzend #11 (IRS11689)  http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v688/oldmilwaukee6er/irs_witzend11.jpg
• FN Yellow Dog #17 (IRS3081)  yellowdog17_irs.jpg
• PGX 4.5 Yellow Dog #18 (slabbed w/ COA; IRS3082)  yellowdog18_irs.jpg
• PGX 5.0 Yellow Dog #20 (slabbed w/ COA; IRS3083)   yellowdog20_irs.jpg
• VGFN Yellow Dog #25 (IRS3084)  yellowdog25_irs.jpg

It should be noted that there may be additional, as yet undocumented, "IRS Collection" comix.

____________________

##  I should own this copy and it is definitely “one that got away.”  I tried to order it for $28 from RTS Unlimited in 2003 and when it was shipped to BTR my landlady wrote return to sender on the package and it was sent back.  Chaos ensued and when the seller learned that it was the 1st appearance of Maus, the book was no longer for sale (I later found out at San Diego 2005).

$$  More info: http://moocowcomics.blogspot.com/2005/03/irs-collection.html

To date only one Massachusetts underground has surfaced, the more “ground-level” Comix Book #2 published by Magazine Management Co. (Marvel).  As of this writing, it is uncertain if the Massachusetts Pedigree contains any other undergrounds, but because this collection spans the heart of the u-comix movement (1967-1973) it is anticipated that additional u-comix examples exist… at the very least Comix Book #1 & 3. 

Known “Massachusetts” comix: 

• CGC 9.8 Comix Book #2 (1st)