head imports
Head Imports was an early 1970’s underground publisher.
There is nearly nothing in the way of information on this publisher on the internet. They only put out 4 titles (and only one with more than one issues), all in 1972 and then nothing. There aren’t even any publishing numbers for how many copies were printed for the four titles they released, and none of them have ever been reprinted. I cannot find out who founded or owned the comic, I’d assume it was a San Francisco publisher and it has a lot of the same artists and writers as many other Northern Cali firms did.
Underground comics companies, especially the smaller ones, were notorious for letting the cover artist recreate their logo (if they even had one) in his own style or even completely redesign it. Here we have 2 versions, fuktup funnies doesn’t sport a logo at all.
The reason for that may be none of these score very well over at the definitive guide, Comixjoint, except Fuktup Funnies, a 1972 one-shot that appears to have come and gone without leading to any semblance of a cartooning career for anyone involved.
These types of comics are fairly common in the underground world (Comic Book, Dirt Ball Funnies, Hit the Road, Noof Unnies, among many), though Fuktup Funnies is among the handful of those that were actually pretty good comic books. Regarding the quality of the comic itself, Fuktup Funnies is a pretty good one, as far as one-shots by people with fleeting comic careers go.
Head Imports did attract some stellar talent to their titles. All the big names are there, Lynch, Spiegelman, Kinney, Deitch, Siergy, Crumb and scripting by the likes of P.J. O’Rourke(!):
Jay Lynch • Bhob Stewart • Art Spiegelman • Jay Kinney • Rory Hayes • Kim Deitch • Sam Cornell • Jim Siergy • Don Dohler • Lou Pearson • Cormo • Lyn Chevil • Joyce Farmer • Skip Williamson • Robert Crumb • Marty Nelson • Joe Arthur Potts • Bill Skurski • Leslie Cabarga • Norwood Farley • Peter Bramley • P.J. O’Rourke • Joe Kane • Ned Sonntag • Michael Sullivan • Peter Locke • Dianne Wade • Tom Hatchman (aka Mary Pickles) • Gail Burwan • Leonard Rifas • Nick Ciampi • Bob Garcia • Larry Rippee • Phil Collins • Charly Price
So we’re happy to host these titles, contra Comixjoint’s opinion, there’s a lot of good here, humor, art and attitude.
Fuktup Funnies
