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| Founded | 1969 |
|---|---|
| Founders | Fred Todd, Dave Moriaty,Gilbert Shelton,Jack Jackson |
| Headquarters location | San Francisco (1969–1987) Auburn, California (1987–present) |
| Publication types | Comics |
| Nonfiction topics | Politics,Recreational drugs |
| Fiction genres | Underground comix |
| Imprints | Iguana Comics[1] (changed to Magnecom in 1993)[2] |
| Official website | www |
Rip Off Press Inc. is acomic bookmail order retailer anddistributor, better known as the former publisher of adult-themed series likeThe Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers andRip Off Comix, as well as many other seminal publications from theunderground comix era. Founded in 1969 in San Francisco by four friends fromAustin, Texas — cartoonistsGilbert Shelton andJack Jackson, and Fred Todd and Dave Moriaty — Rip Off Press is now run inAuburn, California, by Todd.
Rip Off Press is notable for being the first company to publish the fourth edition of thePrincipia Discordia, aDiscordian religious text written byGregory Hill andKerry Thornley. It was also an early publisher of a booklet on drug manufacturing,Psychedelic Chemistry.
In January 17, 1969, the company was founded inSan Francisco by four Texans: Fred Todd, Dave Moriaty, and cartoonistsGilbert Shelton andJack Jackson. The initial plan was to printrock band promotional posters on an old press and do comics on the side — in some ways the company was formed as a sort of cartoonists'cooperative, as an alternative publishing venue to other Bay Area publishers likeApex Novelties andPrint Mint.[3] The four men purchased a used Davidson 233offsetprinting press and set up shop in the same space as Apex Novelties, located on the third-floor ballroom of the former Mowry's Opera House, at 633 Laguna Street inHayes Valley.[4]
The first comics Rip Off Press published, in 1969, wereR. Crumb'sBig Ass Comics (June '69), a reprint of Jaxon'sGod Nose (originally published in 1964), Jaxon'sHappy Endings Comics (August '69), and the first issue ofFred Schrier andDave Sheridan'sMother's Oats Comix (October '69).
After a fire almost destroyed the opera house in late 1969, Rip Off moved to the decaying former headquarters of theFamily Dogpsychedelic rock music promotion collective[4] (which Jaxon had been a member of starting in 1966). Rip Off Press was located at 1250 17th Street in San Francisco from 1970 until 1985.
By 1972, the poster printing business had faded away and the company had become apublishing house. Other works the company published during this period included comics byFrank Stack, Sheridan (all co-published withGary Arlington's San Francisco Comic Book Company),The Rip Off Review of Western Culture omnibus, and Shelton'sThe Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. The company also published a board game,Feds 'N' Heads, that was based on Shelton's 1968identically named comic.[5]
As the underground comix market began to peter out in the early 1970s, Rip Off Press shifted its focus to other cartoonists and other comics. By this point, Rip Off Press co-founders Moriaty and Jackson had gone back to Texas, leaving the running of the company to Shelton and Todd.[6]
The company started asyndication service, managed by Shelton, that sold weekly content toalternative newspapers andstudent publications.[6] Each Friday, the company sent out a distribution sheet with the strips it was selling, by such cartoonists as Shelton,Joel Beck,Dave Sheridan,Ted Richards,Bill Griffith, andHarry Driggs (as R. Diggs). TheRip Off Press Syndicate, never really a profitable operation, was discontinued by 1979.[6] (Griffith'sZippy, which had debuted in 1976 as a weekly strip with Rip Off's syndicate,[7] was picked up for daily syndication in 1986 byKing Features Syndicate.) Much of the material produced for the syndicate was eventually published in the company's long-runninganthologyRip Off Comix, which had debuted in 1977.
In 1979,Universal Studios paid Shelton and Rip Off Press $250,000 for the rights to make a live-actionFabulous Furry Freak Brothers film.[6] Rip Off used its share of the rights fees to buy a new typesetting machine and a computer system,[6] which enabled it in turn to launch themail order business that later became integral to the company's survival. (The Universal-producedFreak Brothers film never made it to production.)[6]
The future Kathe Todd, who first came to the company in 1975 for a college summer job, married co-founder Fred Todd in 1980; by the mid-1980s she had assumed co-management of the company.[8]
CartoonistJay Kinney joined the company as an editor in 1981,[9] but left after a few months.[10] CartoonistGuy Colwell began freelancing for Rip Off Press in the production department beginning in 1980; he worked on-and-off for the company throughc. 1990.[11]
After bouncing back and forth between Europe and the Bay Area in the late 1970s and early 1980s (thanks to the money he received from Universal),[6] co-founder Shelton and his wife permanently relocated to France in 1984.[12]
In mid-1985, the company moved from 17th Street to a smaller space on San Jose Avenue near the city's southern border, with warehouse space across town at the Bayview Industrial Park. This three-story, block-square building, which housed over a hundred other businesses, burned to the ground on April 6, 1986, followingan explosion in an illegal fireworks factory in the basement.[13]
Freed of a 17-year accumulation of comics and other paraphernalia, Fred Todd (at this point the only original partner still working in the business) decided to relocate Rip Off Press toAuburn, California (part of theSacramento metropolitan area), where he and Kathe continued to run the company while raising their two small children.[6] The move was made in June 1987.[citation needed]
During this era, Rip Off Press continued to publish Shelton'sThe Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers and theRip Off Comix anthology; the popularity oferotic comics in the late 1980s/early 1990s led to the publication of such titles asStrips byChuck Austen,The Girl by Kevin J. Taylor,Doll byGuy Colwell, andSS Crompton'sDemi the Demoness.[citation needed]
The company published two music-relatedindy comics titles byMatt Howarth —Savage Henry andThose Annoying Post Bros., from 1989 to 1994. Rip Off Press also took over the publication of the long-running all-female underground anthologyWimmen's Comix with issue #14 (1989) of that title, publishing it through 1993.[citation needed]
After the collapse of thedirect market in the early 1990s[14] (fueled byMarvel Comics' withdrawal of its 40% market share from the distribution system),[15][16] Rip Off Press began cutting costs and gradually retreated from publishing.[17][18]
By 1997, it had shifted its business to selling backlist comics in its store and to mail-order customers, plus to the fans finding them online.[19] The Todds moved the business to much smaller quarters adjoining their home in 1999, where they continue to sell comics, mostly through the company website.[citation needed]
The website was disabled for a time in 2011–2012, during which time it was completely redesigned and a large number of collector's items (including historic ad pieces, rare press sheets, publisher's overlay proofs from the company's publishing history, and more) were added to its offerings.[citation needed]
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