By Jessica Shock
Displaying artwork from university students and local artists alike, “The Underground Comix Show” opened on Friday at Ashmore Gallery. The show focused on self-published comic books featuring subject matter that strays from the norm.
“It’s the first event like this,” Chelsea Swift, third-year illustration major, explained. “I think it’s gonna be awesome. I’ve been looking at all the comics, and the ones I’ve seen so far are pretty good.”
At the entrance to the exhibit, guests were provided with pencils and a slip of paper listing instructions and empty spaces to write desired mini comic titles. And the featured comics were different, to say the least. From a lesbian vampire couple to a car crash involving an Egyptian death god, they were anything but “mainstream.”
“This is the first show that I’ve curated,” Ty Underwood, fourth-year interactive game design major, said. “I wanted to see if I could take comics and get them out there where people could see them as high art.”
Inside the gallery, the artists’ original comic book pages were individually framed, hanging on the wall from left to right for easy reading. Some artists put notes up, such as “Original Print w/ frame $60” or “For sale $35.” But the exhibition also offered full comics for sale as well.
“The actual work is up on the walls, but the printed mini comics – every artist has them available,” Underwood explained. “You can get anything you see here for five bucks. Just write the comics down, all the ones you like, and you can hand your list to the cashier at the end. You can stack up the mini comics for five bucks a piece.”
Mini comics go hand-in-hand with self-published underground comics because they are homemade. The mini comics on sale at the show were printed at Creative Approach, where Underwood was able to get discounts for the artists.
“Mini comics are great. You can swap them, you can give them to a friend – you can show more people your art,” Underwood said. “I’m going to continue selling them … places downtown, like Planet Fun.”
Underwood has other things in store for comics, too. He’s also developing a portfolio site called Sequility, which is still in its early stages.
“It’s going to be this really cool way for artists – at first, just at SCAD, but eventually everybody – to upload and show off their portfolios for free, no ads … I’m going to … continue doing shows like this, and get other people interested in comic book shows and hopefully have that be a ‘thing’ in Savannah.”
Although unusual comics aren’t a big hit in Savannah yet, the art at “The Underground Comix Show” will be on exhibition until February 12 and it’s definitely worth a look (and read!).
