Underground comic artist Jim Osborne had a big influence on many of his fellow comic artists. Jim moved from San Antonio, Texas to San Francisco in 1967, at the dawn of the underground comix era. His first work, 'Okay, Mister K' was published in Yellow Dog #5 in 1968, followed by many more stories over the next few years in underground gems like Bijou Funnies, All Stars, Illuminations, Insect Fear, Promethean Enterprises, Slow Death, and Felch Cumics.
During his all too brief comics career from 1968 to the mid-1970s, Jim Osborne made a significant impact on his readers and fellow artists. His fascination with crime and the occult and his meticulous attention to gruesome detail in his art brought him attention and respect from fans and colleagues. His high standards and rapid grasp of new technical skills during this period make his body of work still inspiring today.
Tracking the artistic growth from his first published work to his last fully mature pieces, his admirers can only wonder how much further he might have gone if he had only kept drawing. Instead, he opted to drop out of the underground in the mid-1970s and laid low for the next 25 years.
Although most of Jim Osborne's work is long out of print, D.O.A. Comics, published by Keith Green in 1976, collected many of his stories from earlier comic books. The comic anthology, "The Best of Bijou / Apex Treasury of Underground Comics," features some of his stories.
The 58-year-old cartoonist died in a San Francisco boarding house on 24 November 2001, with three bottles of vodka and a Will Eisner 'Spirit' comic book at his side.
Some of Jim's many fellow artists, friends and admirers were S. Clay Wilson, Jay Lynch, Kim Deitch, Bill Griffith, and Glenn Head.
Thanks to Patrick Rosenkranz for the details in this biography, quoted from his article in 'The Comics Journal' #242, April 2002.
