Long before starring in their first solo comic book in 1971, Gilbert Shelton's Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers were already a widespread, wildly popular counterculture phenomenon. The trio of pothead hippies (and not actually brothers) made their first public appearance in 1967 in the Austin Rag, a local Texas underground newspaper, and were soon appearing in alternative press publications all over America through the Underground Press Syndicate (essentially a file exchange network of over 100 underground publications, which included the Austin Rag itself as its sixth member).

Beyond the innate brilliance of Shelton's comics, the fortuitous timing of his creation of the Freak Brothers with the sudden, widespread utilization of an underground press syndicate in major media markets was a significant factor in Gilbert Shelton's own success story. Shelton already had one popular underground cartoon character, Wonder Wart-Hog, but the Wart-Hog's popularity paled in comparison to what the Freak Brothers would achieve.

In 1968, flush with the sudden success of the Freak Brothers but still living in Austin, Texas, Shelton bought and read the first issue of Zap Comix. Before reading that Zap, he had minimal interest in comic books, thinking that the most natural format for underground comic strips was in tabloid newspapers. But after reading Zap #1, Shelton was inspired to produce his own comic book featuring the Freak Brothers. He gathered existing strips, added some new work, and Feds 'n' Heads Comics was printed later that year in a garage in Austin, on the same type of press used by Don Donahue for Zap. Feds 'n' Heads was an instant success and Shelton shifted the second printing of the book to the Print Mint in February, 1969. 12 more printings would follow in the next decade.

By 1970 the Freak Brothers were a national media phenomenom, and Shelton was contributing Freak Brothers strips to the L.A. Free Press on a weekly basis. Within a few months he had enough strips to combine with older stories for Rip Off Press (which Shelton had co-founded) to print the debut issue of The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. The first issue was enormously popular, selling about half a million copies in ten printings, which were printed so closely together they all had 50-cent cover prices. However, this was merely the tip of the iceberg, as today it is estimated that the Freak Brothers have sold over 40 million total books worldwide.

In 1972, Shelton had once again accumulated enough Freak Brothers strips to publish the second issue of the comic book serial. He did the same in 1973, but then he had published all the recently published comic strips that Shelton considered worthy for reprinting and was no longer producing Freak Brothers strips for any other publication. So he had to draw an all-new set of strips for the fourth issue, and he recruited Dave Sheridan to help him with the artwork. Sheridan continued assisting Shelton with the comics until he passed away in 1982 from a brain hemorrhage acquired from an accidental fall. Paul Mavrides, who had already begun helping Shelton a few years earlier, stepped in as Shelton's primary collaborator on subsequent issues of the Freak Brothers.

In 1977, Rip Off Press launched their successful Rip Off Comix anthology series and Shelton produced several new Freak Brothers stories to get that title up and running. The Freak Brothers comic book took a three-year hiatus after the brilliant fifth issue, then returned in 1980 with its sixth issue, which reprinted stories that had appeared in Rip Off Comix. The year before the sixth issue came out, Shelton and his wife Lora Fountain, now flush with money from selling the movie rights to the Freak Brothers (intended to be a live-action movie, but it was never made), moved to Europe and took up residence in Spain.

In 1982 Freak Brothers #7 combined reprinted stories from Rip Off Comix with some original Freak Brothers adventures. That same year, Shelton and Fountain temporarily moved back to San Francisco so that Shelton could work with Paul Mavrides to develop a full-color international adventure for the Freak Brothers entitled The Idiots Abroad. The first 16 pages of the story appeared in two eight-page chapters in the 11th and 12th issues of Rip Off Comix in 1982 and '83, but then that anthology series took its own four-year hiatus due to financial issues. But Shelton and Mavrides continued to build The Idiots Abroad into a 96-page epic, which was published in Freak Brothers #8, 9 and 10 from 1984 to 1987.

In 1985, three years after moving to San Francisco, Shelton and Fountain went back to Europe, where they permanently settled down in Paris. Shelton complete The Idiots Abroad trilogy with Mavrides by collaborating from opposite sides of the world. Rather appropriate, given the international adventure of the story.

To some degree, The Idiots Abroad represents the last hurrah of the Freak Brothers commercial success, but the comic book enterprise kept going for another decade. Publication of new issues did slow to a crawl, as the 12th issue (the last one with new material) came out in 1992 and the 13th and final issue in 1997, which reprinted stories in black and white that originally appeared in color in High Times and Playboy magazine (those stories had also been collected in the full-color 1978 paperback book, Thoroughly Ripped). But reprints of all the issues were easily obtained after the dawn the internet age and birth of eBay (in 1995, going strong by 2000).

In 1985, at around the time Freak Brothers #9 was published, Freak Brothers #0 was also published by Rip Off as Underground Classics #1. It featured older strips that had appeared in various publications but were not previously considered for reprinting. After the final Freak Brothers comic book was published in 1997, several compilations of the strips have been put together in both deluxe and trade paperback versions and the characters remain a reliable marketing brand to this day, though certainly not what it was in its first twenty years.

The popularity of the Freak Brothers would have made the comic books influential under any circumstances, but it is the quality of Shelton's writing and artwork that sets him apart from his many imitators. Shelton's artwork is exceptionally detailed and rife with amusing embellishments hidden throughout the panels. Moreover, his writing is original, clever, and often very funny. And though much of the humor revolves around drugs, it also touches on many aspects of everyday life, including despair, friendship, financial hardship, family, apathy, and a hyperconventional society and government that shuns people who are different. Alan Moore said that "Gilbert Shelton is as near as comics have come to producing a natural comedic genius of the same stature as a Chaplin or a Tati."

The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers are the most popular and recognizable comic characters from the underground era. Nobody would ever put them on a pedestal as role models, but there are aspects in each of the characters that make us all feel more human, and perhaps a little better about ourselves.