Forty Year Old Hippie

Gilbert Shelton — the underground comix legend behind The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers — introduced the Forty Year Old Hippie to readers of Rip Off Comix in 1977, a Bronze Age creation that felt like a wry, knowing wink at the counterculture's own mythology. Published by the fiercely independent Rip Off Press, this character headlined their own title and even a collected volume, The Whole Forty Year Old Hippie Catalog, sharing the irreverent pages of that world with icons like Wonder Wart-hog and the Freak Brothers crew. It's a small but perfectly formed corner of underground comix history — the kind of cult curio that reminds you just how wild and wonderfully weird the fringes of 1970s comics could get.