Flamed Out: The Underground Adventures and Comix Genius of Willy Murphy

One day, Willy Murphy, a rising young star at a prestigious Madison Avenue advertising agency, whipped off his tie, cast away his suit, and said goodbye to a high-pressure, high-profile, high-paying career. All just to draw ― not comics ― but comix.

What followed was the flowering of a sharp comedic sensibility paired with a terrific ear for dialogue that delighted his friends, tickled the funny bones of his readers, and earned him the respect and admiration of virtually every other underground cartoonist.

Flamed Out traces Willy’s quirky comix career written and edited by those who knew him best. This book is bursting with personal reminiscences, Willy’s playful sketches and drawings, never-before-seen photographs, and a cornucopia of the comix ― most newly scanned from his original art. With such recurring characters as Arnold Peck (the Human Wreck), Henry Henpeck, and the unsavory Beasley Boys, Willy’s clever cartoons regularly punctured pomposity, poked fun at politicians, and promoted peace and love through his peerless, fearless pen.

Willy Murphy (1936 – 1976) was an American underground cartoonist, who poked fun at fellow hippies and contemporary American culture throughout the 1970s with characters often borrowed from real life. His signature character was Arnold Peck the Human Wreck, “a mid-30s beanpole with wry observations about his own life and the community around him.” He contributed to such seminal underground anthologies as Arcade, Bijou Funnies, San Francisco Comic Book, as well as the National Lampoon.

Nicki Michaels and Willy Murphy eloped in 1968 when he quit a high-paying Madison Avenue advertising career to seek fame and fortune as a cartoonist in the promised land of underground comix, San Francisco. (They were young. They were in love.) A personal consultant and life coach for many years, Nicki now curates the Audio Archives of pioneering composer, philosopher, and astrologer Dane Rudhyar.

Ted Richards was one of the most important figures of the underground comix movement. Through the 1970s, he created his own Dopin' Dan, E.Z. Wolf and The Forty Year Old Hippie strips for the Rip Off Press Syndicate, and collaborated closely with Murphy and Gilbert Shelton on Give Me Liberty! A Revised History Of The American Revolution. At the same time, he was one of the prime movers in the Air Pirates collective, embroiled in an eight-year lawsuit from Disney over two parody comics from 1971. Following the suit, Richards left comics for a long career in Silicon Valley. He died of lung cancer in April 2023.

Mark Burstein is a book editor (Alice in Comicland, Jerry Garcia: The Collected Artwork, The Annotated Alice: 150th Anniversary Deluxe Edition), a noted scholar of Lewis Carroll and Walt Kelly, and a collector of - and sometime dealer in - original comic (and comix) art. He previously edited Dave Sheridan: Life With Dealer McDope, The Leather Nun and The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers for Fantagraphics.