The Wildlife stories are drawn in the style of artists I’ve admired from 60s-70s underground comics like Zap Comix and American Splendor.
The above page title bespeaks a guilty conscience about using artists’ work without benefitting their estates. This, then, is a page of gratitude and tribute. Lacking vocabulary and background for this task, I've asked ChatGPT to compose the homages to these greats. -Heapingscorn.com
Frank Stack
"Professor Emeritus, ink wrangler, and accidental historian of American irony."
Stack’s line is loose and forgiving, a quick, candid record of what he saw and thought. A pioneer of underground comix—best known for his irreverent Jesus stories and wry portraits of ordinary American life—he balanced decades of teaching at Missouri with a lifetime of sketchbook truth-telling. His work favors the honest stumble over the heroic pose, choosing momentary truth instead of polish. Every line seems to say: this is how it looked, this is how it felt. That modesty of finish—spare, humane, and slyly self-aware—makes his drawings feel like field notes from a life spent watching the world’s contradictions with affection and irony.
“Mechanic, Marxist, and master of motion.”
Spain’s pages hit the eye like a revving engine—thick brush lines, hard blacks, muscle and motion. A Zap Comix radical and creator of Trashman, he funneled working-class anger and city grit into visual power. His characters never pose; they brace, stride, or lunge, caught mid-story in the engine noise of their own lives. That sense of physicality—political and personal—makes every frame hum with intent. In darker scenes, his bold chiaroscuro lends even small gestures a heroic charge, giving quiet moments the tension of something about to happen.
