anybody know who Gilbert Shelton is?

[rche]

Creator of Wonder Warthog and the Fabulous Furry Freak Bros.

I had the pleasure of meeting him today and getting a sig and a picture of Fat Freddy's Cat scribed onto my ancient Freak Bros book. good times

and as we all know:
megos will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no megos. or something like that

[Earth 2 Chris]

I bought a few Freak Brothers comics at a local yard sale when I was in 8th grade. Needless to say it opened my eyes a lot. Lots of fun in a totally non-PC way.

Congrats on meeting him!

Chris

[samurainoir]

That's awesome! Where was he signing?

I wish more of the Underground cartoonists were as accessible at cons and stores signings as the contemporary superhero guys are. Of course most comic shops don't even stock the Freak Bros anymore and the head shops are just about extinct.

[cjefferys]

That's awesome, rche, what were the circumstances of you being able to meet him? Freak Brothers #4 was the first underground comic I ever read, back when I was around 13, and after that I tried to track down as many underground comix I could find (which wasn't easy, me living in small town and being so young ). I think I have all the Freak Brothers and Fat Freddy's Cat comix, it would be awesome getting some of them signed. I too wish that UG artists were more accessible.

[rche]

Mr. Shelton origanlly lived in Austin, TX before he ran off to San Francisco with a couple of other texans to start Rip Off Press.
He was here in Austin to celebrate an art show opening along with a film panel discussion on the Freak Bros movie at the SXSW media festival that is going on at the moment.
He also designed the mascot for Oat Willies - an old school head shop that is still run by the original family that opened it up 40 years ago or so. I suppose he is still sort of tight with the Oat Willies folks as that is where he did the signing.
Very nice guy, he chatted with everybody and did little drawings on most of the items signed.

The piece I gave him to sign was the first piece of counter-culture I ever came across. I found this comic semi-hidden along the path that I walked to school. It was coverless, folded in half, and sort of stuffed away by a fence. I loved comics, so I picked it up to see what was inside. I think I was 11 or so at the time and when I saw the Honks and Tweets and nekkid folks inside, well.... it certainly changed the way I looked at comics.

I cannot even count how many times I read that book.

It was a little bit funny; all the folks in line had these ancient comics in baggies or posters or new omnibus collections and I had a ratty old mag with no cover on it.
Mr Shelton thought it was pretty funny that someone had to hide the book on the side of the road. It didn't even get to stay under the mattress with the Playboys and National Lampoons.

good times
Oh - and the demographic for the signing was pretty funny as well. Everybody had some grey and were all Very South Austin.

[Agent of SHIELD]

Very cool. I was also wondering where you met him (if it was in the US or not), as he moved to France years ago.

[samurainoir]

Did they finally finish the movie?! How was it? They have been talking about it for decades.

I saw this clip a couple of years ago...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YINWUjFQRDU