Yellow Dog (comics)

Yellow Dog
The cover to Yellow Dog 1 (May 1968), featuring an illustration by Robert Crumb
Publication information
Publisher	Print Mint
Schedule	weekly, then biannually
Format	Ongoing series
Genre	underground comix
Publication date(s)	May 1968 – Fall 1973
No. of issues	22
Creative team
Artist(s)	Joel Beck, Robert Crumb, Rick Griffin, S. Clay Wilson, Kim Deitch, Gilbert Shelton, Victor Moscoso, Robert Williams, Jay Lynch, Vaughn Bodē, Justin Green, Trina Robbins, Larry Welz, Skip Williamson, Greg Irons, Harvey Kurtzman, George Metzger, Roger Brand, Joel Beck, Bill Griffith, Fred Schrier, Dave Sheridan, Carl Lundgren, Robert Armstrong
Editor(s)	Don Schencker

Yellow Dog was an underground comix newspaper and later comic book published by the Print Mint in Berkeley, California. It published 22 issues from 1968 to 1973, featuring many of the period's most notable underground cartoonists, including Robert Crumb, Joel Beck, Robert Williams, Rick Griffin, Greg Irons, and Trina Robbins. Other frequent contributors included Andy Martin, Franz Cilensek, John Thompson, Buckwheat Florida, Jr., Jim Osborne, Ronald Lipking, and Hak Vogrin. The founding editor was Print Mint co-publisher Don Schencker.

Yellow Dog has the distinction of having published more issues than any other true underground comix publication.

There is some disagreement about the impetus for Yellow Dog. Print Mint publisher/editor Don Schencker claims he came up with the idea, wanting to create an underground comix version of the old comics section of the Sunday newspaper. Cartoonist John Thompson claims that he and Joel Beck came up with the idea of a comix newspaper with the title "Puck the Yellow Kid" (a reference to Richard F. Outcault's' pioneering comics strip character The Yellow Kid). Thompson states that after some coaxing by the artists, Schencker agreed to publish the newspaper, but changed the name to Yellow Dog.

Yellow Dog started out as a tabloid-size fold-out newsprint broadsheet with black-and-white interiors featuring some yellow spot color. The first issue, published in May 1968, had eight pages, while issues #2–8 had 16 pages each. From issue #9–10 onward, Yellow Dog had at least 32 pages, most commonly running 44 pages long. With issue #13/#14 (July 1969), Yellow Dog switched format from a newspaper broadsheet to standard comic book size and format, with color covers and black-and-white interiors.