Underground comix are small press or self-published comic books which are often socially relevant or satirical in nature. They differ from mainstream comics in depicting content forbidden to mainstream publications by the Comics Code Authority, including explicit drug use, sexuality and violence. They were most popular in the United States between 1968 and 1975, and in the United Kingdom between 1973 and 1974.^{[citation needed]}

Robert Crumb, Gilbert Shelton and numerous other cartoonists created underground titles that were popular with the hippie counterculture scene. Punk had its own comic artists like Gary Panter. Long after their heyday underground comix gained prominence with films and television shows influenced by the movement and with mainstream comic books, but their legacy is most obvious with alternative comics.

Between the late 1920s and late 1940s, anonymous artists produced counterfeit pornographic comic books featuring unauthorized depictions of popular comic strip characters engaging in sexual activities. Often referred to as Tijuana bibles, these books are often considered the predecessors of the underground comix scene. Early underground comix appeared sporadically in the early and mid-1960s, but did not begin to appear frequently until after 1967. The first underground comix were personal works produced for friends of the artists, in addition to reprints of comic strip pages which first appeared in underground newspapers.

Melinda Gebbie is an American comics artist and writer, probably best known for Lost Girls, the three-volume graphic novel she produced in collaboration with writer (and now husband) Alan Moore, published by Top Shelf.

Melinda Gebbie was born in San Francisco. She became interested in comics in 1973, when she met writer/artist Lee Marrs at a publishers' fair. Formerly a fine artist, she contributed her first comic strip to Wimmen's Comix #3, the seminal all-women anthology published by Last Gasp. She wrote and drew short stories for Wimmen's Comix and many other anthologies, including Tits & Clits Comix, Wet Satin, and Anarchy Comics. In 1977 she completed her own solo book, Fresca Zizis.

In 1984 she moved to England to work on the animated film adaptation of Raymond Briggs' When the Wind Blows. Following this, she worked in a variety of illustration and office jobs and continued making short stories for anthologies such as Strip AIDS and Heartbreak Hotel. During this time she was briefly involved in an obscenity trial when Knockabout Comics was prosecuted by the UK's customs agency over the importation of 'pornographic' comics, including her Fresca Zizis. The verdict was that all the comics should be confiscated and burned; Fresca Zizis was made illegal to possess in the UK.

Graham William Nash, OBE (born 2 February 1942) is an English singer-songwriter known for his light tenor voice and for his songwriting contributions with the British pop group The Hollies, and with the folk-rock super group Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Nash is a photography collector and a published photographer. Nash was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Crosby, Stills & Nash in 1997 and as a member of The Hollies in 2010.

Nash was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2010 Birthday Honours for services to music and to charity.

Nash holds three honorary doctorates, the latest in Music from the University of Salford (England) in 2011.

Nash was born in Blackpool, Lancashire, England, in 1942, his mother having been evacuated there from the Nash's hometown of Salford, Lancashire because of the Second World War. The family subsequently returned to Salford, where Graham grew up. In the early 1960s he was co-founder with schoolfriend Allan Clarke of The Hollies. Nash was a leading 'group figurehead' member of The Hollies, one of the UK's most successful pop and "British Invasion" groups. Credited on the first album as 'Group Leader' and recognised as a key member of the group, plus their public spokesman, he occasionally took a lead vocal. Nash was featured vocally on 'Just One Look' in 1964, and sang his first lead vocal on the original Hollies song "To You My Love" on the band's second album In The Hollies Style (1964). He then progressed to often singing featured 'bridge vocals' on Hollies recordings; 'So Lonely', 'I've Been Wrong' 1965, 'Pay You Back With Interest' 1966 etc., also by 1966 Nash was providing a few solo lead vocals on Hollies albums & then from 1967 'B' sides to singles.

Gilbert Shelton (born May 31, 1940, Houston, Texas) is an American cartoonist and underground comix artist. He is the creator of The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, Fat Freddy's Cat, Wonder Wart-Hog, Philbert Desanex, Not Quite Dead, and the cover art to The Grateful Dead's 1978 album Shakedown Street. He also did the cover of the early classic computer magazine compilation "The Best of Creative Computing Volume 2" in 1977.

He graduated from Lamar High School in Houston. He attended Washington and Lee University, Texas A&M University, and the University of Texas at Austin, where he received his bachelor's degree in the social sciences in 1961. His early cartoons were published in the University of Texas' humor magazine The Texas Ranger.

Directly after graduation, Shelton moved to New York City and got a job editing automotive magazines, where he would sneak his drawings into print. The idea for the character of Wonder Wart-Hog, a porcine parody of Superman, came to him in 1961. The following year, Shelton moved back to Texas to enroll in graduate school and get a student deferment from the draft. The first two Wonder Wart-Hog stories appeared in Bacchanal, a short-lived college humor magazine, in the spring of 1962. He then became editor of The Texas Ranger and published more Wonder Wart-Hog stories.

Skip Williamson (born August 19, 1944) is an American underground cartoonist and central figure in the underground comix movement. Williamson is known for being the most political and satirical cartoonist of the underground comix movement.

Williamson was born in San Antonio, Texas, but later moved to Lynchburg, Virginia, and then to Canton, Missouri. Williamson's real first name is Mervyn; however when he was a child, he was a bit of a troublemaker, so his Nana gave him the nickname "Skip" after Percy Crosby's comic strip character "Skippy".

Williamson's first published cartoon was in Harvey Kurtzman's HELP! magazine in 1961. The cartoon was accepted by then Help! editor Gloria Steinem. The cartoon was of two New Orleans trash cans. One was labeled "Negro Trash" the other "White Trash". Subsequently, comedian Dick Gregory went on The Tonight Show and showed the cartoon on national television, launching Williamson into the mainstream.

Williamson moved to Chicago in 1967 to help long time friend Jay Lynch publish The Chicago Mirror. The Chicago Mirror was later changed to Bijou Funnies.