The underground comics were super interesting for me to read and I think they really represent what was going through the 60's, as people were exploring the idea of sexuality and different drug usage. You can see all of that shown in these comics, and the styles range from Crumb's realistic style to the more simplistic styles to even some styles that bordered on surrealism. With the underground comics, anything went.
Since the underground comics didn't worry about getting censored, I found that they could get intensely personal. The creators were simply looking to get their story out there, so I felt like the comics connected with the reader more. There was no false pretense in trying to please a mass audience, it was just a form of self expression. The underground comic movement would help broaden people's ideas of comics and what could be done with them, as they were the grounds for a lot of experimentation. I feel like the underground comics also would've contributed to idea of graphic novels which had just started; while Eisner had talked about a personal story, the underground comics ran with this idea, and went even more personal. The comics would talk about the creator's first time discovering experimenting with drugs or their sexuality, and it was a way to share information with others and share their own experiences. Another thing that separated the underground comics from everyone else was the fact that most of them were meant for adults only. Because of the age restriction, I feel like the underground comics also broke ground in establishing that the comic book was an art form that didn't have to be limited to just jokes. It broke down a lot of the assumptions people had about how comics had to look and allowed people to be more creative with what they could do and what stories they could tell.
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