Insect Fear
Insect Fear
Print Mint (1970-1973)
Inspired by horror EC Comics from the 1950s, Insect Fear is an all-star-studded series of deadly, frightening and/or simply unnerving encounters between humans and the superior race of insects. Full series review coming soon.
The Print Mint, Inc. was a major publisher and distributor of underground comix based in the San Francisco Bay Area during the genre’s late 1960s-early 1970s heyday. Starting as a retailer of psychedelic posters, the Print Mint soon evolved into a publisher, printer, and distributor. It was “ground zero” for the psychedelic poster. The Print Mint was originally owned by poet Don Schenker and his wife Alice, who later partnered in the business with Bob and Peggy Rita. As the first publisher to invest heavily in the underground comix movement (and its distribution), the Print Mint was instrumental in the form’s popularity and widespread reach in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
As they were growing the market and putting money in the hands of the cartoonists, however, their business practices were called into question by a number of the more popular artists. A few of those, including Gilbert Shelton and Frank Stack, broke off in early 1969 to form their own publisher, Rip Off Press, taking some of the more established cartoonists (like Crumb) with them. The 1973–1974 venture Cartoonists Co-Op Press was formed out of a similar motivation. From that point on, the Print Mint focused more on bringing new talent into the burgeoning underground industry.
