Underground Comix

Present in the earliest years of the underground comix movement, The Mad Peck was a correspondent of R. Crumb and collaborated with Justin Green, that latter whose work appeared in Peck’s Ghost Mother Comics one-shot, and his Mad Peck Catalogue of Good Stuff, which was described in Comix: A History of Comics in America as featuring “ a variety of comics along with a number of advertisements — drawn in old comic-book style — for various unnecessary items available by mail order.” The cartoonist’s singular all-comics title was published in 1969, sold for 35¢ and contained 20 pages, all under the “Prate Press” imprint, and it also included work by his compatriot and fellow Providence resident, John Hawke, and Santa Cruz artist Arcee Cone, as well as the great S. Clay Wilson. (Often it’s difficult to ascertain which is the work of whom as jamming on these pages was a constant... even Peck’s writing pal Les Daniels, masquerading as “Charles Dexter Ward” was among the diverse hands!)