One of the great underground cartoonists of the 1960’s counterculture scene that also produced Robert Crumb and Gilbert Shelton (Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers) has passed away in San Francisco. In the 1960s, Spain Rodriguez was the epitome of the “fuck the man” angry revolutionary. He despised capitalism, the rich, racism and sexism and expressed his extremely blunt perspectives in Zap Comix and many other places. As happens, he mellowed somewhat as he aged but never lost his politics or morality, or love for life. You can find his artistic DNA in a lot of very, very good cartoonists, including Joe Sacco (Safe Area Goražde) and the Hernadez brothers (Love And Rockets), and really, I can’t see how he couldn’t have influenced Crumb.
Spain was 72 and had battled cancer for six years. You can read his obituary here and The Comics Journal has a more in-depth piece here. He was an important dude. Rest in piece.
