Bijou Funnies

Bijou Funnies
Cover of Bijou Funnies #1 (Bijou Publishing Empire, Summer 1968). Artwork by Jay Lynch.
Publication information
Publisher	The Bijou Publishing Empire (1968) Print Mint (1969–1970) Kitchen Sink Press (1970–1973)
Schedule	sporadically
Format	standard
Publication date(s)	Summer 1968 – Nov. 1973
No. of issues	8
Main character(s)	Nard n' Pat Snappy Sammy Smoot The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers Mr. Natural
Creative team
Artist(s)	Jay Lynch, Art Spiegelman, Gilbert Shelton, Skip Williamson, Robert Crumb, Jay Kinney, Justin Green, Kim Deitch
Editor(s)	Jay Lynch
Collected editions
The Best of Bijou Funnies	ISBN

Bijou Funnies was an American underground comix magazine which published eight issues between 1968 and 1973. Edited by Chicago-based cartoonist Jay Lynch, Bijou Funnies featured strong work by the core group of Lynch, Skip Williamson, Robert Crumb, and Jay Kinney, as well as Art Spiegelman, Gilbert Shelton, Justin Green, and Kim Deitch. Bijou Funnies was heavily influenced by Mad magazine, and, along with Zap Comix, is considered one of the titles to launch the underground comix movement.

Bijou Funnies evolved from The Chicago Mirror, an underground newspaper co-produced by Jay Lynch and Skip Williamson, which published three issues in 1967–1968. After seeing Robert Crumb's Zap Comix #1 (published in February 1968), Lynch immediately converted the Mirror from a newspaper to a comic book and, under his own Bijou Publishing Empire produced the first issue of Bijou Funnies in summer 1968 (with Crumb as one of the contributors).

Bay Area publisher the Print Mint published issues #2-4 of the title from 1969–1970 (although the Print Mint's logo never appeared on the covers). The midwestern underground publisher Kitchen Sink Press took over Bijou Funnies with issue #5, publishing the title from 1970–1973. (Indicia in those issues, however, still stated the publisher was the Bijou Publishing Empire, only noting the title was "distributed nationally" by the Print Mint and Krupp Comic Works, respectively.)

ComixJoint's M. Steven Fox details what led to Bijou Funnies cancellation: