Zap has reinvented itself at least three times. The first two issues are all R. Crumb, and one can see the heavy Harvey Kurtzman influence, particularly in their presentation. But whereas with Kurtzman's magazine the medium was a big part of the message, Crumb's comics were more playful and his satire was more intensely personal. The anything-goes quality of his work continued into various extremes when the magazine made its first transition into an anthology. From a vantage point 30 years later, one is struck by how extreme the violence and sexual elements are in works from Wilson and Spain, and how elegant the art in cartoons from Moscoso and Williams. Strangely, Crumb and Shelton become almost straight men in this company, although it is Crumb's famous incest comic in issue #4 that ran afoul of New York obscenity law. Even Zap's famous jam illustrations have a subtext of subverting standard creative practices in favour of sheer graphic splendour.
Somewhere along the way, Zap added a reflective element. For instance, the Crumb and Shelton strips in Zap #13 were both in more serious, accomplished styles, and both involved taking stock of the time Zap was created. Even the still shocking Wilson's work is viewed differently in the context of his having done so many years of Checkered Demon comics. Zap's time is past in terms of the accomplishments of the artists - all of whom remain interesting and worth reading - but because fewer and fewer artists are starting comics using similar approaches. What remains is less the movement than the comics, and for visual energy no-one will ever outstrip the creators behind Zap.
ROBERT CRUMB:
(from an interview with The Chicago Tribune, 2014)
In the 1940s, a lot of comics were done for servicemen (his own father had been an illustrator for the Marine Corps), but as culture, it was a very low form of popular entertainment. If you had pretensions to being cultured, you looked down on comics. So, to answer your question, the biggest change I have seen is comics going from being mainstream entertainment for children to something an adult can pick up. Specifically Zap said that this low form of culture could be a form of personal expression, and I think that, for the past 50 years, is our biggest legacy, that sense of comics as a form of personal expression. And maybe if comics are still seen that way, if comics have stayed honest, it's because you don't get rich doing them. The rewards are small. Because of that, (expletive) gets weeded out. You can't put across a good comic without thought. There is not enough reward for the sweat, and I think maybe, now that Zap is finished, that's what we said: If you don't love what you're doing, you're definitely not doing this.
CHRIS WARE:
Without Zap there would be no such thing as alternative / literary / artistic / self-expressive comics and graphic novels. Zap started it all.
