Synopses & Reviews
Guy Colwell's 1970s underground comic book series tread new territory: it was filled with stories about prison, black culture, ghetto life, the sex trade, and radical activism. It portrayed the unpleasant realities of life in the inner city, where opportunities were limited and being on the lowest end of the economic ladder meant that one's vision of the American dream was more about survival than lifestyle choices. Every issue of is included in this collection, as well as many of the highly detailed paintings Colwell created at the time. In an accompanying text piece, Colwell provides context for the material.
Review
"While it remains something of an anomaly in the chronology of underground comix, the book remains significant in a way that few of its peers in the movement can still boast. ... With a remarkably concise body of work Colwell established himself as one of the most essential cartoonists of his era, and deserves a wider readership today." Tim O'Neil
Review
"Fine artist and painter Colwell's sporadically appearing stories of race, class and culture are collected here, along with some of his other amazing work. The unique anti-racist series was a cult favorite, with little known about its creator; was he black or white? Helpful and revealing essays complement this representation of one of the greats of the golden age of underground comix." The A.V. Club
Review
"Relying on his own experiences in prison and fractious San Francisco neighbourhoods, Colwell creates a vision of inner-city life that remains compelling - multiracial, marginalized, but collectively working for change." Richard Pachter The Miami Herald
Review
"These gritty, sometimes hedonistic short stories about multiracial prison and low-income life spare no details of sex, drugs, or radical activism." Sean Rogers The Globe and Mail
Review
"The sociopolitical parables of ... are pure, uncut products of cagey, post-Sixties radicalism. Across five issues, cartoony-photorealist from the Bay Guy Colwell shakes off his free love hangover and wrestles with the disillusionment that pops-up once idealism hits a wall. ... There's no other underground comic quite like this one." Martha Cornog Library Journal
Review
"It is a fascinating, engrossing, powerful investigation of an artist addressing his times.The collected takes a sustained, unflinching look at lower depth America through a variety of lenses." Brandon Soderberg The Comics Journal
Review
"Page after page, the drama unfolds. Guy Colwell's new full collection of his comic is a roller coaster ride through stories that will frighten, provoke and amuse. ... Get into the deep, dark trenches of Colwell's mind as you read through this collection. It's heady stuff." Bob Levin The Comics Journal
Review
"Guy Colwell's brilliant is... an intense, often sexually explicit and darkly violent comic that tells stories of ordinary life in a way that's neither Pekaresque nor picaresque. At times it feels like a graphic documentary of inner city life; at times a startling flight of dark imagination; at times a brilliant character study of people who have been forgotten or ignored by the larger mainstream society. ...Earthy, smart, passionate, intelligent and endlessly surprising, is a true comics classic. Thank goodness it's no longer a lost classic." Kristin Farr Juxtapoz
Synopsis
Every issue of --Guy Colwell's '70s underground comic book series about prison, black culture, ghetto life, the sex trade, and radical activism--is collected in this book, along with Colwell's paintings and a contextual, autobiographical essay.
About the Author
Guy Colwell (b. 1945, Oakland, California) is a painter and comics artist best known for his underground comix series Inner City Romance, which once sold 50,000 copies an issue. It was inspired by the two years Colwell spent at McNeil Island federal prison for draft refusal in the late '60s. He also illustrated the underground paper Good Times, and worked as a colorist for and contributor to a number of underground comix projects, before focusing on his work as a painter. Today he is well known for his political paintings, including Litter Beach and The Abuse, as well as wildlife murals, like the 700-square-foot rainforest wall Colwell painted for the Oakland Zoo.