Thrasher Comics #7, 1988, Spain Rodriquez, “Urg Mrpf Olg Phloopfft Ng!” High Speed Productions, San Francisco, CA, Skateboarding Underground Comic Near Mint Condition

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Thrasher Comics #7, 1988, Cover $1.50, Manuel Rodriguez (March 2, 1940 – November 28, 2012), better known as Spain or Spain Rodriguez, was an American underground cartoonist who created the character Trashman. His experiences on the road with the motorcycle club, the Road Vultures M.C. provided inspiration for his work, as did his left-wing politics. Strongly influenced by 1950s EC Comics illustrator Wally Wood, Spain pushed Wood's sharp, crisp black shadows and hard-edged black outlines into a more simplified, stylized direction. His work also extended the eroticism of Wood's female characters.

Manuel Rodriguez was born March 2, 1940, in Buffalo, New York. He picked up the nickname Spain as a child, when he heard some kids in the neighborhood bragging about their Irish ancestry, and he defiantly claimed Spain was just as good as Ireland. Rodriguez studied at the Silvermine Guild Art School in New Canaan, Connecticut alongside cartoonist M.K. Brown.

In New York City, during the late 1960s, he became a contributor to the underground newspaper the East Village Other, which published his own comics tabloid, Zodiac Mindwarp (1968). He covered the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago as a reporter for the East Village Other, adventures which were chronicled in My True Story (Fantagraphics Books, 1994). One of his earliest strips, "Manning," featured a hard-boiled, over-the-top cop and was later cited as an influence on the British comics character Judge Dredd.

A co-founder (with Robert Crumb) of the United Cartoon Workers of America, Spain contributed to numerous underground comics in the 1960s–2000s, including San Francisco Comic Book, Young Lust, Arcade, Bijou Funnies, Weirdo, and Harvey Pekar's American Splendor. Spain joined the Zap Comix collective in issue #4 (August 1969), and contributed stories to every issue from then until the comic's demise in 2005. In such classics as Spain's Mean Bitch Thrills (Print Mint, 1971), Spain's women are raunchy, explicitly sexual, and sometimes incorporated macho sadomasochistic themes.

Trashman's first appearance was as a full-page serial in the East Village Other. After moving from New York City to San Francisco in 1970, Spain's Subvert Comics series (1970–1976) featured "three full length Trashman: Agent of the Sixth International stories." Trashman later appeared in such publications as High Times, Heavy Metal, Weirdo, San Francisco magazine, Zap #11–13, and the Fantagraphics anthology Zero Zero #2.  From 1976 to 1998, Spain contributed cover art to more than a dozen issues of the popular pornographic magazine Screw.

Spain drew Salon's continuing graphic story, The Dark Hotel, which ran on the website in 1998–1999. His starkly forceful, naturalistic style perfectly matched Conan Doyle's eerie stories in Sherlock Holmes' Strangest Cases (Word Play Publications, 2001).

Spain's later work included an illustrated biography of Marxist revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara, Che: A Graphic Biography (Verso Books, 2008). Published in several different languages, it was described by cartoonist Art Spiegelman as "brilliant and radical." His history of the California farmworker movement, Farmworker Comix was published posthumously in 2014 by the California Federation of Teachers.  Spain designed several posters for the San Francisco Mime Troupe, a political satirist theatre company.   Rodriguez taught art classes at Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts for many years, and he supported the creation of murals in the Mission District.

If you like Spain Rodriguez’s work then you ‘must’ have a copy of Thrasher Comics #1 High Speed 1988.  RARE and hard to find elsewhere. 

We will combine shipping if buying more.

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OUR STORY - While living in Greenwich Village in the sixties. There was a little store off Bleecker that specialized in underground comics.  Every Friday afternoon after work, I’d go there to see what was the latest version just hitting the shelves. With several of my hippy friends grooving, and laughing over Comics, we’d sit around that smoke-filled room, sometimes late into the night.  Fast forward, some fifty years later – my wife and I discovered some old cardboard boxes hidden behind junk in the back of our storage locker.  It was a dry, cool place and the hundreds of underground comics that had only been read once, were in beautiful condition.  It felt like we discovered a pot of gold.  We wrote to dozens of book and comic stores with a list of our inventory.  They said, there was no interest, no market and offered us little to nothing for the collection. We explained to them that these were complete sets, first editions. To the retail outlets they were worthless, but to us they were priceless.  Now we offer them on E-Bay and the collectors are grabbing them up, at our more than fair and reasonable prices.  Many we had universally certified with CGC, so you’ll know we’re trustworthy, reliable and have the best of service.  Just check the feedback and reviews to know we’re honest and responsible.  We are happy to answer any questions you may have and hope you buy them now while they still are available.  First come, first serve.  Thank you again for your time and interest.