Interview with Gilbert Shelton

A Founding Father of Underground Comix

Few names carry as much weight in the world of underground comix as Gilbert Shelton. From the psychedelic streets of 1960s Austin to the countercultural hubs of San Francisco and Paris, Shelton’s creations—most notably The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, Fat Freddy’s Cat, and Wonder Wart-Hog—have become iconic symbols of anti-establishment wit, wild storytelling, and absurdist humor.

Hi Gilbert. We appreciate you doing this interview.

I hope we can come up with something interesting.

Can you tell us where you were born and what is your background?

I was born in Dallas, Texas, on May 31, 1940, and I grew up in Houston where I lived from 1945 to 1958.

Were you always creative as a child?

I learned to read early, but I wasn’t especially creative.

What started your path to comics?

The daily comic strips in Houston’s newspapers the Post and the Press.

What were your favorite comics or characters as a child?

In the papers, Dick Tracy, Little Orphan Annie, and Smilin’ Jack. In comics, Donald Duck, Scrooge McDuck, and Little Lulu.

What are your favorite art techniques?

Pen and ink and watercolor.

Do you use any shortcuts to hit deadlines?

Stay up all night, sniff cocaine.

(Laughs) I guess that would do it. Where did the idea for Wonder Wart-Hog come from?

I had a dictionary with a picture of a Wart-Hog.

You worked for the magazine Help! What was it like to work with Harvey Kurtzman?

Kurtzman was a brilliant editor, very helpful. He could make suggestions for improvements without being overbearing, although this editorial attitude led to his breakup with John Severin.

You published Frank Stack’s The Adventures of Jesus, one of the first underground comix. Did you get any flak from religious groups?

The Adventures of Jesus was the first underground comic. No one ever complained about it on religious grounds. In fact, it was pro-Christian in a moral sense.

Now we must talk about The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. What inspired that comic and its characters?

I saw a double feature film show at the Vulcan Gas Company in Austin, with the Marx Brothers and The Three Stooges. I can do as good as that, I thought, and I made a twenty-minute film with a film student friend of mine, Renée Tooley, called “Texas Hippies March on the Capitol”, and I made the first Freak Brothers page as an advertisement for the film. Well, people liked the comic strip better than the film, the only copy of which has been lost, so we cannot know, but it turned me toward cartooning.