Rip Off Press
| Founded | 1969 |
|---|---|
| Founders | Fred Todd, Dave Moriaty, Gilbert Shelton, Jack Jackson |
| Headquarters location |
San Francisco (1969–1987) Auburn, California (1987–present) |
| Key people | Kathe Todd |
| Publication types | Comics |
| Nonfiction topics | Politics, Recreational drugs |
| Fiction genres | Underground comix |
| Imprints | Iguana Comics |
| Official website | http://www.ripoffpress.com |
Rip Off Press, Inc. is a mail order retailer and distributor, better known as the former publisher of "adult-themed" series like The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers and Rip Off Comix, as well as many other seminal publications from the underground comix era. Founded in 1969 in San Francisco by four friends from Austin, Texas — cartoonists Gilbert Shelton and Jack Jackson, and Fred Todd and Dave Moriaty — Rip Off Press is now run out of Auburn, California, by Todd and his wife.
Rip Off Press is also notable for being the original company to publish the fourth edition of the Principia Discordia, a Discordian religious text written by Gregory Hill and Kerry Thornley. It was also an early publisher of the infamous booklet on drug manufacturing, Psychedelic Chemistry.
The company was founded January 17, 1969, in San Francisco by four "expatriate" Texans: Fred Todd, Dave Moriaty, and cartoonists Gilbert Shelton and Jack Jackson. The initial plan was to print rock band promotional posters on an old press and do comix on the side — in some ways the company was formed as a sort of cartoonists' cooperative, as an alternative publishing venue to burgeoning Bay Area publishers like Apex Novelties, Print Mint, and Company & Sons. The four men purchased a used Davidson 233 offset printing press and set up shop in the same space as Don Donahue's Apex Novelties, located on the third-floor ballroom of the former Mowry's Opera House, at 633 Laguna Street in Hayes Valley. The first comix Rip Off Press published, in 1969, included R. Crumb's Big Ass Comics (June '69), a reprint of Jaxon's God Nose (originally published in 1964), Jaxon's Happy Endings Comics (August '69), and the first issue of Fred Schrier and Dave Sheridan's Mother's Oats Comix (October '69).
...
Wikipedia