Trashman is a fictional character, a superhero who appeared regularly in

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, ...

and magazines between 1968 and 1985. He was created and drawn by

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 ...

.Rodriguez, Spain. ''Trashman Lives!'' (Fanatagraphics Books, 1997), p. iv.

Publication history

Trashman's first appearance was as a full-page serial

comic strip A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st ...

in the

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

underground newspaper The terms underground press or clandestine press refer to periodicals and publications that are produced without official approval, illegally or against the wishes of a dominant (governmental, religious, or institutional) group. In specific rec ...

the ''

East Village Other ''The East Village Other'' (often abbreviated as ''EVO'') was an American underground newspaper in New York City, issued biweekly during the 1960s. It was described by ''The New York Times'' as "a New York newspaper so countercultural that it ma ...

''. After moving from New York City to

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

in 1970, Spain's ''Subvert Comics'' series (1970–1976) featured "three full length ''Trashman: Agent of the Sixth International'' stories".''Trashman Lives'', pg. v. Since 1976, Trashman has appeared in such publications as ''

High Times ''High Times'' is an American monthly magazine (and cannabis brand) that advocates the Legalization of non-medical cannabis in the United States, legalization of cannabis as well as other counterculture ideas. The magazine was founded in 1974 by ...

'', '' Heavy Metal'', '' Weirdo'', ''

'' magazine, ''

Zap Comix ''Zap Comix'' is an underground comix series which was originally part of the youth counterculture of the late 1960s. While a few small-circulation self-published satirical comic books had been printed prior to this, ''Zap'' became the model for ...

'' #11-13, and the

Fantagraphics Fantagraphics (previously Fantagraphics Books) is an American publisher of alternative comics, classic comic strip anthologies, manga, magazines, graphic novels, and the erotic Eros Comix imprint. History Founding Fantagraphics was found ...

anthology '' Zero Zero'' #2.

Fictional character biography

Trashman is a hero of the working classes and a champion of the radical left causes. The Trashman stories are set in a dystopian near-future America, which after having been ravaged by nuclear weapon attacks, has become a fascist police state, with "vast urban conglomerations. Social ferment asdivided the land into a patchwork of virtually self-governing areas".Subvert Comics, Vol, 1, No. 1 Mild-mannered auto mechanic Harry Barnes turned to a life of petty crime after finding his wife murdered in their home by Gestapo-like soldiers. As Barnes flees capture by the police, a mysterious stranger in a hooded robe calling himself "Citizen X" appears and leads him down a hidden passageway to a secret underground installation. There, Barnes is told he was chosen by the mysterious and elusive "Sixth International", an underground anarcho-

Marxist Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

organization, to be trained as a master of the "para-sciences" and to use these powers to fight the oppression of the fascist governments of the world. Trashman is typically cast as the defender of the working-class masses against the tyranny of fascist police/military forces, agents of governmental oppression, and the plots of the rich and powerful to oppress the common people. He is depicted as a strong, rugged, black-clad militant figure, with dark hair and beard and eyes always in shadow, who wields conventional military weapons such as

machine guns A machine gun is a fully automatic, rifled autoloading firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges. Other automatic firearms such as automatic shotguns and automatic rifles (including assault rifles and battle rifles) a ...

pistols A pistol is a handgun, more specifically one with the chamber integral to its gun barrel, though in common usage the two terms are often used interchangeably. The English word was introduced in , when early handguns were produced in Europe, an ...

daggers A dagger is a fighting knife with a very sharp point and usually two sharp edges, typically designed or capable of being used as a thrusting or stabbing weapon.State v. Martin, 633 S.W.2d 80 (Mo. 1982): This is the dictionary or popular-use def ...

and

explosives An explosive (or explosive material) is a reactive substance that contains a great amount of potential energy that can produce an explosion if released suddenly, usually accompanied by the production of light, heat, sound, and pressure. An expl ...

in addition to his super powers.

Super powers

"Harry Barnes, known to the world as Trashman, trained by the elusive Sixth International as a master of the para-sciences, is able to change his molecular structure or decipher a crack in the sidewalk". (quote from Trashman's first comic strip in the ''East Village Other'') Trashman's powers include superhuman strength, stamina, speed, agility, reflexes, equilibrium and durability. He is not invulnerable to harm, but his powers usually enable him to avoid being wounded or killed by conventional weapons. He also has the ability to "shape-shift", or alter his shape and molecular structure to any desired form, including non-organic ones. For example, he once shifted himself into the shape of a copy of the ''East Village Other''. He retains his mental abilities even while shifted, and can change back to human form at will. Trashman also has a power called the "Random Alert Factor", based on the fictional "science of numantics". One of the principles of numantics, according to ''Trashman's'' Professor of Numantics Dr. Eugene Kranker, is that "from observing random phenomena, a general pattern may be deduced". Trashman is tuned into this mode of perception, giving him a

synchronicity Synchronicity (german: Synchronizität) is a concept first introduced by analytical psychologist Carl G. Jung "to describe circumstances that appear meaningfully related yet lack a causal connection." In contemporary research, synchronicity ...

-based

precognition Precognition (from the Latin 'before', and 'acquiring knowledge') is the purported psychic phenomenon of seeing, or otherwise becoming directly aware of, events in the future. There is no accepted scientific evidence that precognition is a ...

clairvoyance Clairvoyance (; ) is the magical ability to gain information about an object, person, location, or physical event through extrasensory perception. Any person who is claimed to have such ability is said to be a clairvoyant () ("one who sees cl ...

, of seemingly unrelated information by making observations of random (complex) phenomena. For example, on the inside back cover artwork of ''Subvert Comics'' #1, Trashman "hears" a crack in the sidewalk "speak" to him, warning him of an attack from behind. Strangely, Trashman's powers are diminished when he is exposed to an atmosphere lacking in a certain level of pollution.

Cultural influence

The ''Trashman'' series is one of the very few superhero stories depicted in the underground comix of the 1960s and 1970s, particularly as a recurring character. ''Trashman's'' post-apocalyptic setting and Marxist-anarchist overtones expressed Spain's own social and political beliefs, as well as the sensibilities of the

anti-Vietnam War Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War (before) or anti-Vietnam War movement (present) began with demonstrations in 1965 against the escalating role of the United States in the Vietnam War and grew into a broad social move ...

movement and the underground

counterculture A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Hou ...

of the era. Like many underground comix, the ''Trashman'' stories are replete with graphic depictions of violence, sex and profanity, which were all but unknown in superhero comics of the past. There are also many times that the characters break the "

fourth wall The fourth wall is a performance convention in which an invisible, imaginary wall separates actors from the audience. While the audience can see through this ''wall'', the convention assumes the actors act as if they cannot. From the 16th cen ...

" boundary between the fiction and the reader, typical of

post-modern Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of moderni ...

art. In one exchange with another character, Trashman "admits" he is a comic book character: "You heard Dr. Kranker. It was all figured out thru numantics. It's just odds and fixed points and all that stuff". Do you expect me to believe that?" "Shhh! Don't blow it man. There's all those readers out there watching".''Subvert Comics'', vol. 1, #3 The style and setting of the ''Trashman'' comics are similar to many of the

post-apocalyptic Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction is a subgenre of speculative fiction in which the Earth's (or another planet's) civilization is collapsing or has collapsed. The apocalypse event may be climatic, such as runaway climate change; astro ...

graphic novels A graphic novel is a long-form, fictional work of sequential art. The term ''graphic novel'' is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comic scholars and industry ...

and films that followed it years later, such as the ''

Blade Runner ''Blade Runner'' is a 1982 science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott, and written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples. Starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, and Edward James Olmos, it is an adaptation of Philip K. Dick' ...

'' and ''

Mad Max ''Mad Max'' is an Australian post-apocalyptic Action film, action film series and media franchise created by George Miller (filmmaker), George Miller and Byron Kennedy. It began in 1979 with ''Mad Max (film), Mad Max'', and was followed by thre ...

'' films, the '' Dark Knight'' series of

Batman Batman is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character was created by artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger, and debuted in Detective Comics 27, the 27th issue of the comic book ''Detective Comics'' on ...

graphic novels, and the ''

V for Vendetta ''V for Vendetta'' is a British graphic novel written by Alan Moore and illustrated by David Lloyd (with additional art by Tony Weare). Initially published between 1982 and 1985 in black and white as an ongoing serial in the British antholog ...

'' graphic novel and film. In an interview with John Ascher, Spain claims no direct influence on these later works, but concedes: "These ideas are out there. The artist pursues a cultural thread, and there are other people pursuing that cultural thread as well, so you exchange these ideas, they’re thrown back and forth, amplified, then the cultural thread goes underground, then it pops up again, often".

Notes

References

* Spain Rodriguez: ''My True Story'', Fantagraphics Books (Seattle), 1994. * Spain Rodriguez: ''Trashman Lives!'', Fanatagraphics Books (Seattle), 1997.

External links

Sifting Through the Trash: Spain and Trashman
- interview with Spain conducted by Jon Ascher in 1998 {{DEFAULTSORT:Trashman (Comics) Anarchist comics Comics superheroes Last Gasp titles Underground comix Fictional characters who break the fourth wall Fictional characters with precognition Fictional activists Fictional anarchists 1968 comics debuts Comics characters introduced in 1968 Fictional American people American comics characters Male characters in comics Shapeshifter characters in comics Vigilante characters in comics