''Arcade: The Comics Revue'' is a magazine-sized

comics anthology A comics anthology collects works in the medium of comics, typically from multiple series, and compiles them into an anthology or magazine. The comics in these anthologies range from comic strips that are too short for standalone publication to co ...

created and edited by cartoonists

Art Spiegelman Art Spiegelman (; born Itzhak Avraham ben Zeev Spiegelman on February 15, 1948) is an American cartoonist, editor, and comics advocate best known for his graphic novel ''Maus''. His work as co-editor on the comics magazines ''Arcade (comics maga ...

and

Bill Griffith William Henry Jackson Griffith (born January 20, 1944) is an American cartoonist who signs his work Bill Griffith and Griffy. He is best known for his surreal daily comic strip '' Zippy''. The catchphrase "Are we having fun yet?" is credited to ...

to showcase

underground comix Underground comix are small press or self-published comic books that are often socially relevant or satirical in nature. They differ from mainstream comics in depicting content forbidden to mainstream publications by the Comics Code Authority, ...

. Published quarterly by the

Print Mint The Print Mint, Inc. was a major publisher and distributor of underground comix based in the San Francisco Bay Area during the genre's late 1960s-early 1970s heyday. Starting as a retailer of psychedelic posters, the Print Mint soon evolved into ...

, it ran for seven issues between

1975 It was also declared the ''International Women's Year'' by the United Nations and the European Architectural Heritage Year by the Council of Europe. Events January * January 1 - Watergate scandal (United States): John N. Mitchell, H. R. ...

and

1976 Events January * January 3 – The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights enters into force. * January 5 – The Pol Pot regime proclaims a new constitution for Democratic Kampuchea. * January 11 – The 1976 Phila ...

. Arriving late in the underground era, ''Arcade'' "was conceived as a 'comics magazine for adults' that would showcase the 'best of the old and the best of the new comics.'"Fox, M. Steven
"Arcade, The Comics Revue,"
ComixJoint. Accessed June 19, 2018. Many observers credit it with paving the way for the Spiegelman-edited anthology ''

Raw Raw is an adjective usually describing: * Raw materials, basic materials from which products are manufactured or made * Raw food, uncooked food Raw or RAW may also refer to: Computing and electronics * .RAW, a proprietary mass spectrometry dat ...

'', the flagship publication of the 1980s

alternative comics Alternative comics cover a range of American comics that have appeared since the 1980s, following the underground comix movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Alternative comics present an alternative to mainstream superhero comics which ...

movement. Well-known creators who contributed to the anthology include R. Crumb,

Kim Deitch Kim Deitch (born May 21, 1944 in Los Angeles, California)Donahue, Don and Susan Goodrick, editors. Deitch bio, ''The Apex Treasuet of Underground Comics'' (Apex Novelties, 1974), p. 127. is an American cartoonist who was an important figure in th ...

Jay Kinney Jay Kinney (born 1950) is an American author, editor, and former underground cartoonist. Kinney has been noted for "adding new dimensions to the political comic" in the underground comix press of the 1970s and '80s. Kinney was a member, along w ...

Aline Kominsky Aline Kominsky-Crumb (née Goldsmith; August 1, 1948 – November 29, 2022) was an American underground comics artist. Kominsky-Crumb's work, which is almost exclusively autobiographical, is known for its unvarnished, confessional nature. In 201 ...

Jay Lynch Jay Patrick Lynch (January 7, 1945 – March 5, 2017) was an American cartoonist who played a key role in the underground comix movement with his ''Bijou Funnies'' and other titles. He is best known for his comic strip ''Nard n' Pat'' and the r ...

Spain Rodriguez Manuel Rodriguez (March 2, 1940 – November 28, 2012), better known as Spain or Spain Rodriguez, was an American underground cartoonist who created the character Trashman. His experiences on the road with the motorcycle club, the Road Vultures M ...

Gilbert Shelton Gilbert Shelton (born May 31, 1940) is an American cartoonist and a key member of the underground comix movement. He is the creator of the iconic underground characters ''The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers'', '' Fat Freddy's Cat'', and ''Wonder W ...

and S. Clay Wilson.

Overview

By the mid-1970s, the underground comix movement was encountering a slowdown, and Spiegelman and Griffith conceived of ''Arcade'' as a "safe berth." It stood out from similar publications by having an ambitious editorial plan, in which Spiegelman and Griffith attempted to show how comics connected to the broader realms of artistic and literary culture. ''Arcade'' also introduced comic strips from ages past, as well as contemporary literary pieces by writers such as

William S. Burroughs William Seward Burroughs II (; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist, widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular cultur ...

and

Charles Bukowski Henry Charles Bukowski ( ; born Heinrich Karl Bukowski, ; August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994) was a German-American poet, novelist, and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural, and economic ambience of his adopted ...

, and illustrated nonfiction pieces by writers like

Paul Krassner Paul Krassner (April 9, 1932 – July 21, 2019) was an American author, journalist, and comedian. He was the founder, editor, and a frequent contributor to the freethought magazine ''The Realist'', first published in 1958. Krassner became a key ...

and

J. Hoberman James Lewis Hoberman (born March 14, 1949) is an American film critic, journalist, author and academic. He began working at ''The Village Voice'' in the 1970s, became a full-time staff writer in 1983, and was the newspaper's senior film critic ...

Publication history

Spiegelman and Griffith, based in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

— the epicenter of the underground movement — originally conceived of a comics magazine for adults in 1971, planning to call it ''Banana Oil'' as an homage to

Milt Gross Milt Gross (; March 4, 1895 – November 29, 1953) was an American cartoonist and animator. His work is noted for its exaggerated cartoon style and Yiddish-inflected English dialogue. He originated the non-sequitur "Banana Oil!" as a phrase defla ...

(who originated the non-sequitur as a phrase deflating pomposity and posing)."Bill Griffith: Politics, Pinheads, and Post-Modernism," ''The Comics Journal'' #157 (Mar. 1993), p. 73. The publisher,

Company & Sons Company & Sons was an early underground comix publisher based in San Francisco, ran by John Bagley. The company operated from 1970 to 1973, publishing a total of 15 titles, all but one of them consisting of a single issue. Company & Sons was t ...

, they approached about it, however, was unable to make it a reality. Some years later, in Spring 1975, with the help of

, they were able to launch the magazine as "''Arcade''." Soon after, however, co-editor Spiegelman moved back to his original home of New York City, which put most of the editorial work for ''Arcade'' on the shoulders of Griffith and his cartoonist wife,

Diane Noomin Diane Robin Noomin ( Rosenblatt, May 13, 1947 – September 1, 2022) was an American comics artist associated with the underground comics movement. She is best known for her character DiDi Glitz, who addresses transgressive social issues such as ...

. This, combined with distribution problems, retailer indifference, and a general failure to find a devoted audience, led to the magazine's 1976 demise.

Contributors

Contributors to every issue of ''Arcade'' included Spiegelman, Griffith, Robert Armstrong,

Robert Crumb Robert Dennis Crumb (; born August 30, 1943) is an American cartoonist and musician who often signs his work R. Crumb. His work displays a nostalgia for American folk culture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and satire of contem ...

, Justin Green,

, Michael McMillan,

, and

. Crumb illustrated five of the seven front covers. Each issue contained a reprint of work by a cartoonist from the medium's

Golden Age The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology, particularly the ''Works and Days'' of Hesiod, and is part of the description of temporal decline of the state of peoples through five Ages of Man, Ages, Gold being the first and the one during ...

, including

H. M. Bateman Henry Mayo Bateman (15 February 1887 – 11 February 1970, Mgarr, Malta) was a British humorous artist and cartoonist. H. M. Bateman was noted for his "The Man Who..." series of cartoons, featuring comically exaggerated reactions to minor and u ...

Harrison Cady Walter Harrison Cady (1877–1970) was an American illustrator and author, best known for his ''Peter Rabbit'' comic strip which he wrote and drew for 28 years. Biography Early life and career Cady was born in Gardner, Massachusetts, to a tow ...

, Billy DeBeck,

, and

George McManus George McManus (January 23, 1884 – October 22, 1954) was an American cartoonist best known as the creator of Irish immigrant Jiggs and his wife Maggie, the main characters of his syndicated comic strip, ''Bringing Up Father''. Biography ...

. Each issue's title page contained individual self-portraits by the contributors.

Issue guide

Legacy

Although short-lived, ''Arcade'' still has admirers. Famed comics writer

Alan Moore Alan Moore (born 18 November 1953) is an English author known primarily for his work in comic books including '' Watchmen'', ''V for Vendetta'', '' The Ballad of Halo Jones'', ''Swamp Thing'', ''Batman:'' ''The Killing Joke'', and '' From He ...

said it was "the only truly worthwhile material produced during the 1970s." With the general waning of the underground scene, however, Spiegelman despaired that comics for adults might fade away for good. Frustrated with editing his peers because of the tension and jealousies involved, for a time Spiegelman swore he would never edit another magazine.Kaplan, Arie (2006). "Art Spiegelman"
''Masters of the Comic Book Universe Revealed!''
Chicago Review Press. pp. 99–124. , p. 108. Nonetheless, by 1980, Spiegelman and his wife/collaborator

Françoise Mouly Françoise Mouly (; born 24 October 1955) is a Paris-born New York-based designer, editor, and publisher. She is best known as co-founder, co-editor, and publisher of the comics and graphics magazine ''Raw'' (1980–1991), as the publisher of ...

launched ''

'', a "graphix magazine," hoping their unprecedented approach would bypass readers' prejudices against comics and force them to look at the work with new eyes.

References

External links

''Masters of American Comics'' by John Carlin, Paul Karasik, Brian Walker and Stanley Crouch

Some information about the book ''Masters of American Comics''
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Arcade (Magazine) 1975 comics debuts Comics magazines published in the United States 1976 comics endings Underground comix Magazines established in 1975 Magazines disestablished in 1976 Quarterly magazines published in the United States Defunct American comics