ylst 01 thrill
ylst 01 thrill
Company & Sons October 1970
The comic I chose for this assignment was Young Lust #1. It was published in 1971 by Company & Sons. Bill Griffith and Jay Kinney, the writers of the first issue, headed Young Lust, although Art Spiegelman also contributed a story to this issue. Both Kinney and Griffith were successful writers in the underground comix movement. Kinney went on to publish several book on Western esoteric traditions, including one about the history of Freemasonry. He strayed from the comics scene, though he still does illustrations for an online sci-fi magazine called Infinite Matrix. Bill Griffith created a character named Zippy the Pinhead, with whom he has since syndicated a daily strip. His work has been published in National Lampoon, High Times, Arcade, Yow, Weirdo, and the San Francisco Examiner. He married Diane Noomin, a fellow underground comix writer and a pioneer in women’s comix.
Young Lust was conceived as a parody of the typical romance comic—one that had a lot more sexual content, thus infusing the culture of the seventies. This first issue stayed very true to the structure of a traditional romance comic; it is an anthology containing five stories and several more one to two page shorts.
The style of the art in this issue is very distinctive and clearly done to emulate romance comics in almost every possible way. Griffith’s art is thick, with heavy inking and strong lines. It more closely resembles the comics he is mocking than Kinney’s style, which is a lot simpler— he pens thinner lines and does much less shading. With regards to the lettering and the style of the captions and dialogue, both artists very clearly are imitating the style found in old comics in general. The all-caps type, the repetitive use of ellipses and dashes, and the constant exclamation points are all found in many times of comics but especially in romance comics, as are the emphasis of certain words for dramatic effect, either through bolding or underlining. Even the titles of the stories echo the tone of traditional romance comics—where a romance comic from the 1940s might be called “Because His Lips Thrilled,” “Your Money Or Your Love,” or “Romance on the Menu,” the stories in this first issue of Young Lust include “Love Nest for Three,” “They Called Our Young Love Pornographic,” and “I Fell For A Mama’s Boy.”
Bill Griffith – 1, 3-7, 16-17, 20-28, 35, 36+ • Jay Kinney – 2, 8-15, 18-19, 29-33, 36+ • Art Spiegelman – 34
2 – Tantric Institute Of Cosmic Sensuality • 3 – Love-Nest For Three! • 8 – Sin Or Salvation • 16 – I Fell For A Momma’s Boy… And Momma Can Have Him! • 18 – Kinky Klothes For Kute Kittens • 20 – They Called Our Young Love – Porno-graphic! • 28 – “Don’t Ever Fuck Me!… Unless You Mean It!!!” • 29 – My Rock ‘n’ Roll Lover • 34 – Love’s Body • 35 – I’m “Uncle” Chick… I Will Send You Prizes “Like” These • 36 – Lookin For Love?