RAW (magazine)

Raw
Cover to Raw volume 1, number 1 (July 1980). Art by Art Spiegelman
Publication information
Publisher	Raw Books & Graphics (1980–1986) Penguin Books (1989–1991)
Schedule	Annually
Format	Ongoing series
Genre	Alternative
Publication date	Fall 1980 – 1991
Number of issues	11
Editor(s)	Art Spiegelman Françoise Mouly

Raw was a comics anthology edited by Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly and published by Mouly from 1980 to 1991. It was a flagship publication of the 1980s alternative comics movement, serving as a more intellectual counterpoint to Robert Crumb's visceral Weirdo, which followed squarely in the underground tradition of Zap and Arcade. Along with the more genre-oriented Heavy Metal it was also one of the main venues for European comics in the United States in its day.

Spiegelman has often described the reasoning and process that led Mouly to start the magazine: after the demise of Arcade, the '70s underground comics anthology he co-edited with Bill Griffith, and the general waning of the underground scene, Spiegelman was despairing that comics for adults might fade away for good, but he had sworn not to work on another magazine where he would be editing his peers because of the tension and jealousies involved; however, Mouly had her own reasons for wanting to do just that. Having set up her small publishing company, Raw Books & Graphics, in 1977, she saw a magazine encompassing the range of her graphic and literary interests as a more attractive prospect than publishing a series of books. At the time, large-format, graphic punk and New Wave design magazines like Wet were distributed in independent bookstores. Mouly had earlier installed a printing press in their fourth floor walk-up Soho loft and experimented with different bindings and printing techniques. She and Spiegelman eventually settled on a very bold, large-scale and upscale package. Calling Raw a "graphix magazine", they hoped their unprecedented approach would bypass readers' prejudices against comics and force them to look at the work with new eyes.