'Slow Death' Comix No. 2 (1970)

Issue 2 (1970) of Last Gasps’s ‘Slow Death’ eco-horror comic states its manifesto clearly on the inside cover page, with the aid of a pollution-spawned version of the ‘host’ from the EC horror comics of the 50s (which were much admired by the underground comix artists).

This issue featured some good stories by Dave Sheriden with ‘The Sex Evulsors of Technicus’; Richard Corben (‘Gore’) with ‘How Howie Made It in the Real World’; and Jim Osborne’s ‘Routine’, which I’ve posted here. Osborne’s distinctive draftsmanship and art style is well displayed here; it’s a shame he dropped out of the comix field in the mid-70s.

 

 

 

 

In one of those bizarre, only- in -the – hippy -era sort of pop culture collisions, Kristen Carpenter, the daughter of Mercury program astronaut Scott Carpenter, wrote in to complain about the unflattering depiction of her father in a strip (evidently titled ‘Ego-Trip on Babylon’, by a Mr Grimshaw) featured in issue 1 of Slow Death.

In his (somewhat stoned-sounding) response, Grimshaw is less than apologetic, as one might expect of an eco-conscious artist on a political mission in those halcyon days of Power to the People…… although in my opinion, since Kristen was a comix reader and thus quite ‘hip’ and ‘groovy’, rather than an ordinary ‘square’ , she should have been given a more welcoming reception.