Goin' Underground: Monolith (Last Gasp, 1972)

San Francisco was a haven for underground comics in the early seventies, and Last Gasp was right up there alongside fellow underground publisher Print Mint as part of the biggest underground art movement at the time. Hundreds of comix were published by the Big Two between 1970-1975, so there's a chance you might have missed Monolith, featuring the work of Larry Welz and Larry Sutherland. The cover sports a towering Jukebox behemoth staring down at you, reminiscent of something out of a giant monster movie. Awesome.

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Cult Classic Comics: FREAKWAVE! Pt. 2

Continuing on from the previous post is our look at Freakwave, the post-apocalyptic surf-scavenger epic by Peter Milligan and Brendan McCarthy. After concluding the first Freakwave story for Pacific Comics, the next episode of the saga would go on to appear in Eclipse Comics' Strange Days.

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Cult Classic Comics: FREAKWAVE! Pt. 1

I have a special treat for readers of this week's feature. Are you ready to ride the Freakwave? Go ahead and put your Fog-Mask on, and I'll fill you in on the background of this insanely awesome series while we wait. It all began at the San Diego Pacific Comics' office in 1983. Brendan McCarthy, a talented British artist trying to find work in American comics, made the trip to San Diego and showed Pacific's editors his portfolio of work, including some of the work he had done for 2000 A.D. No doubt they were blown away, and recruited McCarthy's talents for their upcoming sci-fi anthology series titled Vanguard Illustrated.

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Spotlight: X-Ray (1986-1988)

X-Ray is a character that began life in a comic called B-Movie Presents, which was published by B-Movie Comics out of South Bend, Indiana in 1986. Created by Mark Paniccia (now editor of Marvel Comics and Tokyopop), you'll need to think of a poor man's Cyclops...then throw in a dash of The Crow, and we're close to getting to what X-Ray is all about.

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