Zap Comix Were Never for Kids!

Disreputable and censored COMIX improbably brought the art form from the gutter to the museums.

- By Brian Doherty

IN 1969, IN an atmosphere of simmering animus toward youth culture, an undercover agent from the New York Police Department's Public Morals Squad visited two bookstores to buy copies of Zap No. 4. This minor bit of commerce had violent repercussions. This bearded guy pushed the door open aggressively and said 'OK, this place is closed down! remembered Terry McCoy of the East Side Bookstore. I thought he was a street guy. I instinctively blocked the entrance. 'Hey, buddy,' I said, trying to calm him down and get him outside, 'what's the problem?' He said, 'You work here?' I said, 'Yes,' and he said, 'You're under arrest. McCoy, the boss, and another employee were all taken to the precinct and then the Manhattan Detention Complex.

Zap No. 4 is an anthology with stories and drawings by seven different cartoonists: Robert Crumb, S. Clay Wilson, Rick Griffin, Victor Moscoso, Spain Rodriguez, Robert Williams, and Gilbert Shelton. Their tales include everything from sexual torture to an anthropomorphic clitoris, but the star of the lurid show, the most unmistakably offensive and troublesome story-so-far beyond what anyone might call problematic today is Joe Blow, written and drawn by Crumb. We see a father watching a blank TV, musing that he can think up better shows than the ones that are on, who then stumbles upon his masturbating daughter. From there, things degenerate into an incestuous orgy, with the characters drawn to seem more toylike than human. In the end, after the dad declares I never realized how much fun you could have with your children, the strip shifts into a mock socialist propaganda mode. The kids, we are told, are to build a better world!! Yes, youth holds the promise of the future!

The New York Times asked Crumb about this comic in 1972: What was your intention?