Zap Comix #3 welcomes a fifth member to the Zap Collective: Gilbert Shelton, who had recently moved from Austin, Texas to San Francisco. The original fab four could hardly have picked a more deserving candidate, as Shelton had already been producing unconventional comics for many years and had self-published the instant classic
Feds 'n' Heads just months after
Zap #1.
But just for shits and giggles, let's ask "who else would've been a viable candidate to invite into the Zap Collective in the summer of '68?" I might suggest Vaughn Bodé, Frank Stack, Jack Jackson, Joel Beck or Jay Lynch. All of them would've been great contributors and added to the diversity of the content. Perhaps Bodé would've been too much of a diva (and who knows, he might've declined the invite). And Stack and Lynch had their own gigs way outside of San Francisco, so maybe they wouldn't have been enticed. But imagine how an invitation might have changed (or even saved) Joel Beck's life. Ah well, water under the bridge. Shelton was eminently qualified to join the crew for
Zap #3.
The third issue of
Zap is a flip book with two front covers; one cover drawn by Rick Griffin and one by S. Clay Wilson, with 24 pages of interior content following each cover. Each half of the book ends in the middle, requiring you to flip the book over to read the other side (unless you enjoy reading upside down). The
first side of
Zap Comix #3 is generally considered to be the one with the Griffin cover, though both covers include the title of the book and the 50-cent cover price, and neither side includes any indicia (three elements that usually determine
which side of a flip book is really intended to be the front cover). But only Griffin's cover includes the lovely appellation "Special 69 Issue," indicating that the book is meant to be relished in two festive directions.
Both front covers are pretty great, but Griffin's cover was especially dazzling, featuring a gleaming winged beetle standing at the base of stairwell in a subterranean tunnel littered with skulls and barbarous eyeball creatures. The beetle appears to be either following or berating a flaming solar disc scampering up the stairs. The lone word balloon above the beetle contains Hebrew lettering that spells out Yahshuah (Jesus), but the archaic spelling Griffin employs seems to honor Kabbalistic mysticism and centuries-old Christian occultists. The subtext of Griffin's grand cover surely flew over the heads of his fellow
Zap creators as well as the vast majority of the book's readers (yeah, that would include me).
Griffin's incandescent cover art makes it more ironic that Wilson's "side two" cover covers the better half of
Zap #3. Not that both halves of the book don't deliver solid content, and there are more hits than misses, but this issue is surprisingly fickle. The hits are rather mind-blowing while the misses leave us wanting for the hits. Not that the "misses" suck, but it's apparent that some contributors aren't quite hitting their peak.
Surprisingly, Robert Crumb is one of the creators still looking for that pinnacle of performance
in
Zap #3. His daring has clearly been inspired by S. Clay Wilson's pioneering in
Zap #2, but he was still reaching for the peak of his creative genius in this issue. Of his four solo stories, "Street Corner Daze" may be the best, even though it's the underground comics equivalent of a Public Service Announcement warning about the dangers of shooting speed. Still, it's tremendously stylish and funny. His other three stories also show his maturing style, but don't pack the wallop of "Street Corner Daze" or his later work.
The bulk of Shelton's work is in his "Wonder Blows an Easy One," a nine-page Wonder Wart-Hog adventure, in which Philbert Desanex changes into his superhero persona to catch a bank robber. It's basically a slastick comedy, which Shelton excels at, but despite all the action it drags a little for most of the story.
Victor Moscoso
provides 10 pages of content within two stories (perhaps "multipanel compositions" is more apt than "stories"); a four-pager that serves as the centerfold flip for the book and a six-page wordless story that features his trademark surrealism integrated with M.C. Escher-style construction. The six-pager, "Camel," is as non-linear as his work in
Zap #2 and perhaps even more abstract. Like much of his early comic work, "Camel" seems to have no beginning, middle or end, but only a series of interactions between (or within) anthropomorphic creatures, celestial objects and body parts.
The four-pager set in the middle of the book represents a bifurcation, as it defines the split between one half of the book and the other upside-down half. To innovatively convey this movement from head to tail and tail to head, in the absolute center of the book Moscoso portrays a male duck and a female duck engaged in "69," the ultimate yin-yang sexual position. With this cartoon, Moscoso fulfills the "Special 69 issue" tagline on Griffin's front cover art, and gives every reason for the reader to flip over the book and study it from both sides.
As much as Crumb or Wilson, Moscoso presents comic art that has never been seen before, opening unforeseen doors for artists who may have never considered a career in comic books before. But when it comes to opening new doors, no one is yet ready to match the rebellious S. Clay Wilson. As in
Zap #2, Wilson is the one who delivers the most inspired work in this issue. His first one-pager on "side one" is "Come Fix," in which Bernice cooks up some fresh cum so Lulu can inject it like heroin or speed, which causes her to sprout a whopping crank.
