By Gary Panter. Published by Fantagraphics. Hardcover, 80 pages, B&W, 2021. This fine art monograph/faux underground comic facsimile is a psychedelic trip through the hippie movement. In 2017, Gary Panter created an art installation, Hippie Trip, inspired by his first visit to a head shop in 1968. It expanded his mind to the possibilities of psychedelic art and music, analog crafts and drug culture. Crashpad is an extension of that installation and a riff on underground comics creators such as Zap's R. Crumb, Victor Moscoso, Robert Williams, and other icons of that era. An art object itself, it will be reproduced as both a deluxe, oversized hardcover reproducing Panter's pages at full size on heavy art paper, as full-color facsimiles of the originals. In addition, Crashpad will be printed as an old-fashioned and stapled black-and-white (with color covers) underground comic book, on newsprint, approximately 6" x 9", inserted into a sleeve within the hardcover so it can be removed and enjoyed on its own. PRAISE "Publishing these pages in all their oversize glory reveals the human gradations of [Panter's] inky sky, occasional marginalia, faint pencil often visible underneath the figures." — The New York Times "Panter's painstakingly detailed acid-trip vision offers art comics heads an immersive rabbit-hole experience and sneaky satire on a navel-gazing subculture." — Publishers Weekly (starred review) "It's hard to overstate the importance of Gary Panter to the art world and to popular culture." — Artforum "In Panter's drawings, a line is not the shortest path between two points, but a slow, wavering one, a termite's crawl with endless detours and distractions... this line is the constant. It intensifies his viewers' gaze, forcing them to reexamine forms they thought they knew." — Art In America "Gary Panter, a prolific cartoonist who emerged in the eighties as the leading proponent of punk comics, has long been interested in blending mystical fantasy and literature to create wryly irreverent comics." — The New Yorker
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