Mike Diana is an underground comics legend. Starting out in the underground mail order zine scene in the 80’s, Mike rose to worldwide prominence in the mid 1990’s thanks, in no part, to being convicted and gaoled for obscenity for his art – the first and so far only comic artist to befall such a fate!

Since then he has moved to New York and continued creating – exploring painting, developing his art and collaborating with people such as Kembra Pfahler, Bruce La Bruce, Richard Kern, Mike Kuchar and many others.

Interestingly, Mike references Dali, an early proponent of outrage and artistic freedom as a major inspiration. With Mike remembering childhood trips to the Dali museum in Florida as pivotal artistic moments:

“I enjoyed the nightmare like paintings, strange jewelry and even a hologram Dali made of singer Alice Cooper. I felt it inspired me to continue with my art, take it to new levels.”

(Picture below of some art by Mike)

With Mike constantly working, and with a documentary about him in the works, now is the perfect time to get to know the man + his world, by reading the Art Talk below…

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Mr. Shane Bugbee is an underground legend. Born in 1968, he established ‘Mike Hunt’ publishing in the late 1980’s and has been an artist, publisher, writer, photographer, historian, searcher and, in his mother-in-law’s terms, “flimflam man” ever since.

Indeed Shane is a man whose whole reason for existence is creation. Both his own, and propagating others;  releasing or representing underground luminaries such as Mike Diana, Anton  LaVey, Ragnar Redbeard, John Wayne Gacy, Dana Plato and many many more.

(Picture below of the logo of Shane’s publishing company – ‘Mike Hunt Publishing’)

Shane’s motto is “Creative Class Trumps Ruling Class“. A motto and sense of faith in the artist to be admired and indeed propagated.

So get to know Shane Bugbee – a man at the heart of the underground since the 1980’s – by reading the Art Talk below…

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