Rebus from a series in SLANT (1991)

Here’s a rare blast from the past: Fan Free Funnies; click here to visit the home page for the collection at the VCU Library’s digital collections.

In the spring of 1973, then-editor of the Commonwealth Times, Ed Slipek, decided to change the VCU student newspaper’s format. He went all-comics, or “comix,” as the idiom/vernacular of the day would have preferred.

Note: at that time the student staff actually had that much say-so.

Underground comic books were the rage in the early-1970s. In this time R. Crumb, of Zap Comix fame, was an unparalleled inspiration to a set of Fan District artists, many who were VCU products. A number of artists who had passed/were passing through the university’s painting and printmaking department worked in a decidedly cartoon style.

Perhaps chief among them was Phil Trumbo.

‘Toons were cool.

Phil, who later played in the art-rock ensemble known as the Orthotonics, was a big influence on a generation of handbill artists in the Fan District. Then he won an Emmy working for Pee Wee Herman.

Click on the link for the VCU Library to see plenty of Phil’s work, lots of other authentic 36-year old goofy art, and a couple of old Rebus strips by yours truly. How to navigate the site, to see all three issues, is not easy, but it’s possible.

– H/T to Ray Bonis