The term "underground comics" or "comix" describes the self-published or small press comic books that sprang up in the US in the late 1960s. The movement was centered in San Francisco, but also included important artists and publishers in New York, Chicago and Austin, Texas. Prominent artists associated with this movement include Robert Crumb, Robert Williams, S. Clay Wilson, Rick Griffin, Gilbert Shelton, Art Spiegelman, Kim Deitch, Jay Lynch, Spain Rodriguez, Bill Griffith, and Trina Robbins.
Underground comix reflect the concerns of the 1960scounterculture: experimentation in all things, drug-altered states of mind, ridicule of "the establishment."
The underground comix were largely distributed though a network of "head shops" which also sold underground newspapers, psychedelic posters, and drug paraphanalia. In the mid-1970s, the Vietnam War was over, no longer a rallying cause, sales of drug paraphanalia was outlawed in many places, and the distribution network for these comics (and the underground newspapers) dried up. Although many of the underground artists continued to produce work (see "alternative comics") , the underground comix movement is considered by most historians to have ended by 1976.
