Crashpad

by Gary Panter

This fine art monograph/faux underground comic facsimile is a psychedelic trip through the hippie movement. In 2017, Gary Panter created an art installation, Hippie Trip , inspired by his first visit to a head shop in 1968. It expanded his mind to the possibilities of psychedelic art and music, analog crafts and drug culture. Crashpad is an extension of that installation and a riff on underground comics creators such as Zap 's R. Crumb, Victor Moscoso, Robert Williams, and other icons of that era. An art object itself, it will be reproduced as both a deluxe, oversized hardcover reproducing Panter's pages at full size on heavy art paper, as full-color facsimiles of the originals. In addition, Crashpad will be printed as an old-fashioned and stapled black-and-white (with color covers) underground comic book, on newsprint, approximately 6" x 9", inserted into a sleeve within the hardcover so it can be removed and enjoyed on its own. A mix of color and black and white illustrations.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics

80 pages, Hardcover

Published March 9, 2021

About the author

Gary Panter is an American cartoonist, illustrator, painter, designer, and part-time musician, widely regarded as a leading figure in the post-underground, new wave comics movement. His work, described by The Comics Journal as defining him the "Greatest Living Cartoonist," has influenced alternative comics and visual culture for decades. Panter grew up in Texas, studying at East Texas State University under Jack Unruh and Lee Baxter Davis. In the 1970s, he became a key participant in the Los Angeles punk scene, producing gritty, expressive art for the fanzine Slash and numerous record covers. This period saw the creation of Jimbo, Panter’s punk everyman, who combines influences from Jack Kirby, Picasso, and underground comics, appearing in Raw, Slash, and Panter’s own graphic novels, including Jimbo in Purgatory and Jimbo’s Inferno. These works blend classical literature, particularly Dante’s Divine Comedy, with punk sensibilities, and Jimbo’s Inferno won an American Book Award. Panter’s influence extended to television as the set designer for Pee-wee’s Playhouse, where his densely layered, chaotic designs earned him two Daytime Emmy Awards. He also created online comics like Pink Donkey and published retrospectives such as the two-volume Gary Panter. He contributed album cover art for Frank Zappa and Yo La Tengo, bridging the worlds of comics, music, and fine art. His style is expressionistic and fast, balancing painting, commercial art, illustration, cartoons, and alternative comix. Exhibitions of his work include the Phoenix Art Museum, Dunn and Brown Contemporary Gallery, and the "Masters of American Comics" show at New York’s Jewish Museum. In 2012, Panter received the Klein Award from the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, recognizing his enduring contributions to the field.

Reviews

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 4 out of 5]

If all you know of stoner comics is Simon Hanselmann (of Megg & Mogg fame), then you need to go to the roots of stoner comics with Gary Panter (and Crumb and many others)!

Gary Panter is, among other things, a painter, from Texas, now west coast, LA. He has drawn alt comics such as his Jimbo series. He had a long association with Pee Wee Herman, helping him create his Playhouse. Worked with and drew covers for various punk/psychedelic bands. In 2017, he created an art installation, Hippie Trip, inspired by his first visit to a head shop in 1968. This book, which is a very large hardcover and also contains a stapled comix version of itself in a cover envelope, is a kind of homage to the sixties and what it accomplished artistically and socially. And drugs, connected to alternative states of consciousness (thanks, Timothy Leary. Tune in, Turn On and Drop Out! as I was around in 1968 and almost ready to retire, I just might be ready to follow his advice, at long last).

As he says, the sixties birthed some great movements that never quite went away, it just went further underground for awhile, during the long Reagan to Trump years, but some of the Left alt art and ecological movements we see today as he sees it are linked to the best impulses of the sixties. The characters in this short book are straight out of sixties alt comix, fueled by a lot of acid. So, yes, psychedelics, which also seem to be taken seriously for healing properties again. Not by me, but hey, baby, there's work going on there now:

https://www.apa.org/news/press/releas...).

Don't shoot me, I'm just the messenger here, man!

The last line from the last full page depiction of some crazy guy is a call to action: “Okay, you kids! Get your shit together! We have to get out there and plant a billion trees!” I agree with the dude, though I am not sure I am going to be following him anywhere anytime soon! I'd take his keys before I'd let him drive. But hey, relax, chill, this is a fun book with a heart so don't ruin his vibe, dude!

An appendix lists hippie comics like Zap Comix and movements such as the Hairy Who? art collective in Chicago as evidence of cool trippy sixties happenings of note, and then shows us contemporary happenings that extend from that early work from fifty years ago.

[Drew Canole · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short Zap-like/Underground Comix about 4 hippies tripping on acid and a redneck getting upset and trying to track them down. The art is nice and psychedelic.

[Victor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great work from Panter, gorgeous production in every possible way, but this is the first time Panter's comics have ever felt nostalgic, and while it's interesting, it isn't his best look. This probably is worse for me because I collect 60s and 70s underground comix, and this is basically a version of a lesser one done by an exemplary creator--this basic plot and the last panel/page "twist" are a story that at least 30 different artists or creative teams told as comix stories during the height of the underground that I own in my large-but-not-complete-at-all collection, which, sure, massively adds to the metacommentary Panter is making lately (with this and his installation Hippie Trip) on the counterculture art movements during his youth, but is a bit disappointing. I'm not asking for Jimbo's Adventures in Hippiedom, here, but I have to imagine Panter thirty years ago would have done something as great on the subject with more depth to it, so four stars.

[StrictlySequential · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the full-sized submission version but the actual "issue" is also included

They spent only five pages -at the very end- in their crashpad. Why did he choose that name?

The art is fabulous!

[Peter Landau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spent my Saturday night with Gary Panther and his magic pen. To quote Eldridge Cleaver on first seeing the Black Panthers, armed and dangerous, “Where as my mind? Blown! There’s also a great list in the back of suggested reading which sent me down a K hole.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Groovy and gorgeous, bravo to Panter and Fantagraphics for this psychedelic hippie romp.

[Bill Coffin · Rating 1 out of 5]

The pencil reproduction does not provide any significant perspective on the color version of a story that almost nobody will be stoned enough to appreciate. And even if you were, reading this book probably wouldn't be om your to-do list. Probably a revelation if you're really into early stoner culture. If not, it'll make a handy doorstop.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

More than an ode to the optimistic utopianism of late ‘60s hippie activism, Crashpad is also a plea to engage with its concerns for environmentalism and artistic and spiritual exploration via dope and hallucinogens.

The main story is like a chapter from the Freak Brothers’ cartoons: a group of friends score a jar of LSD in liquid form (“Dip a toothpick in the LSD and put it on your tongue,” urges the dealer). The acid kicks in faster and harder than expected, and the friends are quickly tripping. As one of them says at this point—eyes wide open, pupils fully dilated, mouth a teeth-bearing rictus: “Only twelve more hours!!!” Yes, well.

On their heels is a cowboy who does not approve of their hippie ways and wishes to express to them his displeasure. Deux ex machina will have none of that, and our hippie heroes are saved from peril. Spoiler alert.
The end papers and back cover illustrate books and assorted paraphernalia readers might want to look into to better understand the issues and art of the times, as well as the books that inspired the hippies’ environmental concerns.

Crashpad consists of two versions of the book: one, the hardcover, showing Panter’s drawings at original size; the other is the work printed at comic-book-scale (with nice color painting by Leslie Stein)—stoner-sized for your enjoyment.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

A celebration of hippie culture and the underground comix that intertwined with it, this is Panter in full-on psychedelic homage mode. The book launches with a few pages of lofty musings on truth, space time, and the nature of the universe, told by grotesque one-eyed creatures melting from one panel into another, but the bulk of it is about some anthropomorphized cat and dog hippies who drive around and get high.

It’s unapologetically of an era. If you’re a bit tired of the celebration of all things boomer, then it may grate on you. This is the case of a book I can respect rather than enjoy. It’s not for me, but if you’re looking to dive into a loving take on 60s counterculture, this is absolutely the book for you. Be sure to pick up the physical version, which sounds like a lovely piece of art, reprinting the original art boards in a hardcover with the actual underground-style comic itself included therein in a sleeve. (I have the digital version, which presents one version after the other without much in the way of explanation.)

[Eric T. Voigt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'd looked at all the panels that were available on Google images so I was pretty familiar with the pages of secrets-of-the-universe introductory material, and then a few pages with the hippies and the truck driver, and then there were only like twenty pages of panels I hadn't seen before, if that. It was probably closer to ten. This is a short book. Anyway, there were a few trippier panels that were totally awesome, and then there's a bit of story connected to an alien abduction that were okay. Overall it was way too short! I should've looked at the page count, or realized after reading Songy of Paradise that it was going to be limited, but then I got Jimbo: Adventures in Paradise in the same library haul and that bad boy is dense, so I don't know, maybe my expectations were founded and destined to be dashed. Glad I read it. I'd read it again, even. Maybe I'll go look at it some more.

I'm currently listening to Raum by Tangerine Dream through a YouTube rip of the full album.

[Alex E · Rating 1 out of 5]

This homage to stoner comics of the 70's and beyond is something that I think you have to be a fan of to begin with, to truly appreciate. Because honestly, this wasn't for me.

The art is very sketchy and homage, the plot is ...barely there, the sense of an over arching plot, while present, is obtuse at best. I think maybe I should've smoked a joint before reading this because it just really want resonating with me at all.

And I do understand that these types of underground comics are important, after all who can deny the talent and influence of Robert Crumb and Spain Rodriguez (to name a few), but to me this fell short due to its lack of narrative cohesion.

Again, Im probably not the audience for this, so take that with a grain of salt. If you are into these type of comics, check this out, it might be more up your alley.

[RSC_Collecting · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a bizarre read. In the best way possible, this was an acid trip about an acid trip. The inside cover is already a trippy optical illusion. Once the story starts, you're met with this crazy congested wobbly art bomb. The art is full of everything and nothing. The narration/dialogue matches that perfectly. Spouting nonsensical words that scramble your mind. Once you get through that initial high, you get to a story with a little more narrative. About a group of hippies getting high. The swirly details continue in the background and grow as the characters get higher and higher. Crazier and crazier until the book explodes again. What a wild ride. Highly recommend. I need to get high and read this again. Fantastic.

[John “Hoss” · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked it. The art is really good, and the story is direct. You know what you’re getting into, and Gary tells it in a really engaging manner. I really enjoyed the suggestion comix and publications at the end of the book too. I kinda agree with what he said for Crumb. Great art, but kinda fell into the wrong crowd. I see he’s continuing this story, so I’ll be interested to read more down the road. Keep on truckin’.

[Mike Dixon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a cool book. Basically an artists edition (high resolution reproduction of the original art) with the final printed pamphlet comic book included as a supplement within the oversized hardcover.
The first half is kind of a psychedelic manifesto, second half is somewhat narratively coherent, but the main attraction is the great artwork of Gary Panter.

[Jonah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful. Fantastic. Wow.

[Humbert Cumberdale · Rating 4 out of 5]

This should have been in colour.

[Aaron Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful artwork, and I appreciated all of Panter's book recommendations at the end!

[Neil Carey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful object

[Zac Caprous · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like the dog guy

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 STARS

[uzhuj · Rating 3 out of 5]

A weird hippie drugtrip. Does not feel like a comic and that actually makes it appealing. The story itself does not at all resonate with me tho.

[Patrick King · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Okay, you kids! Get your shit together! We have to get out there and plant a billion trees!”

Not a whole lot to say beyond: “cool!”