FUNNY ANIMALS #1, 1972, 1st MAUS APPEARANCE, ART SPIEGELMAN, UNDERGROUND COMIC

Description: Funny Animals #1, 1972, 1st Maus Appearance, Art Spiegelman Apex Novelties, Underground Comic Near Mint Condition “RARE” (see photos)“IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND ANOTHER - IN THIS CONDITION - AT THIS PRICE”Only 1 left in stock - order soonStories and Art by Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Shary Flenniken, Justin Green, Bill Griffith, Jay Lynch, and Michael McMillan. Cover by Robert Crumb. Features 1st MAUS by Art Spiegelman story. 32 pages, B&W MATURE READERS. Cover price $0.50.Funny Aminals is a 1972 single-issue anthology underground comic book created by Robert Crumb and a collection of other artists. The work is notable for containing the first published version of Art Spiegelman's Maus, though the version that ran in Funny Aminals was aesthetically and thematically different from the series Spiegelman would publish in Raw Magazine and as a standalone book. Apex Novelties published the book in July 1972, and it had one print run of an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 copies. The book was initially formulated by Terry Zwigoff after a scarring visit to a slaughterhouse as an anti-animal cruelty book, but the submitted stories departed from that narrative line. Zwigoff later relinquished all editorial control over the comic. Underground comix database Comixjoint gave Funny Aminals a 9/10 ranking, calling the writing "solid" and the illustrations "exceptional", adding a four-star historical bonus for Maus. Summarizing his review, writer Steven Fox wrote "Funny Aminals is an uneven book, but its review score (especially the writing score) is boosted by "Maus", which also gets credit for the book's historical bonus. And if Crumb hadn't contributed his crafty penmanship and bawdy humor, even "Maus" wouldn't have been enough to earn Funny Aminals the total score of "9" I begrudgingly bestowed upon it".When Funny Aminals was published in 1972, nobody would have guessed that it would lead to one of its creators winning a Pulitzer Prize. But indeed, this is what happened for Art Spiegelman, whose harrowing family memoir "Maus" debuts as a four-page story in this comic book. The debut was worthy of its accolades, though it was several years before Spiegelman really tackled the full story and serialized it in Raw magazine (it was subsequently published in two separate book volumes and then in one compilation). The brief chapter included in Funny Animals was not used in later versions of the story, as it no longer fit in with the plotting nor the illustration style that Spiegelman eventually employed for the longer form biography.Funny Aminals opens with part one of Robert Crumb's two-part cat-and-bird animal tale, "What a World!" The story's three primary characters are portrayed on the front cover of the book, where the foundation of the plot is aptly summarized without a word; two hep cats lust after the savory meat of a giant bird and scheme to capture her for a feast. As with most of Crumb's work, violence and death are presented as a natural aspect of everyday life, and the second part of "What a World!" concludes with the not-so-clever kitties getting their just desserts."Maus" follows part one of the Crumb story, and it really is the highlight of the book. Maus is about a 1950s Jewish father who tells his young son a true-life bedtime story about the months of oppression and danger he and his wife suffered during the Nazi occupation of Poland. The comic story is cloaked under a facade of anthropomorphic animals (namely cats as the Nazis and mice as the Jews), but somehow the use of critters for people does not detract a bit from the humanity of the story.Alas, Funny Aminals can't sustain this peak for the rest of the book. Maus is followed by a Shary Flenniken "Trots and Bonnie" story that is almost entirely about Bonnie's dog Trots fucking a poodle whore. I love Flenniken and there is no such thing as a bad Trots and Bonnie tale (hell, there's no such thing as a mediocre Trots and Bonnie tale), but this one does not rank with her best.After a surprisingly unfulfilling two-page jam comic with Jay Lynch and Robert Crumb (based on their spur-of-the-moment meeting with "Dick Tracy" cartoonist Chester Gould) comes an incomprehensible two-page Captain Flashlight story from Mike McMillan. Then Bill Griffith follows with a pretty weak Toad story, Justin Green stumbles through a poorly scripted jungle animal tale, and Jay Lynch returns with an uninspired two-pager that lives or dies on one joke about armpit odor (it dies). Finally, Robert Crumb returns with the second part of his "What a World!" story, which is not quite as strong as the first part but it comes off like a masterpiece in comparison to the previous several pages.HISTORICAL FOOTNOTES: Apex Novelties printed 20,000 to 30,000 copies of this comic book. It has not been reprinted. COMIC CREATORS: Robert Crumb - 1, 3-8, 16-17 (collaboration), 31-34, 35 (ad), Justin Green - 2, 25-28, Art Spiegelman - 9-11, Shary Flenniken - 12-15, Jay Lynch - 16-17 (collaboration), 29-30, 36, Michael McMillan - 18-19, Bill Griffith - 20-24, 35 (ad), Jim Osborne - 35 (ad) Disclaimer: We may have chosen to alter and block a portion of the cover of this particular comic, because it contains simple drawings, sketches, cartoon funnies and caricatures, showing the features of its subjects in a humorously exaggerated and satirical way. For Adults Only is printed on the cover because it’s not a children’s comic book. We have listed this issue in the Viewer Discretion Advised category to comply to eBay’s policies and rules concerning restricted items that may be considered for Mature Audiences only. However, it is at eBay’s discretion to prohibit items that they deem to be inappropriate and we agree with all of eBay’s decisions to maintain a marketplace that all of eBay members can enjoy. 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There was a little store off Bleecker that specialized in underground comics. Every Friday afternoon after work, I’d go there to see what was the latest version just hitting the shelves. With several of my hippy friends grooving, and laughing over Comics, we’d sit around that smoke-filled room, sometimes late into the night. Fast forward, some fifty years later – my wife and I discovered some old cardboard boxes hidden behind junk in the back of our storage locker. It was a dry, cool place and the hundreds of underground comics that had only been read once, were in beautiful condition. It felt like we discovered a pot of gold. We wrote to dozens of book and comic stores with a list of our inventory. They said, there was no interest, no market and offered us little to nothing for the collection. We explained to them that these were complete sets, first editions. To the retail outlets they were worthless, but to us they were priceless. 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Price: 279.38 USD

Location: Virginia Beach, Virginia

End Time: 2025-01-01T03:15:48.000Z

Shipping Cost: 9.5 USD