The United States is increasingly limiting women’s rights, reducing public knowledge about sexuality, and targeting the LGBTQ+ community. Due to the Dobbs v. Jackson decision, several American states have outlawed abortion. School libraries and systems have banned books with mild sexual elements, e.g., Maus or Gender Queer. And legislators are proposing and drafting bills that restrict transgender care not only for young people, but also adults.
To the cartoonist Joyce Farmer, our country is sliding backward; speaking with her, I can see how humor becomes less viable as the country swerves right. Co-creator with the writer and artist Lyn Chevli (who died in 2016) of the anthology series Tits & Clits (1972-1987) and the one-shots Abortion Eve and Pandora's Box Comix (both 1973), Farmer experienced the new liberties that the pill and Roe v. Wade provided to American women. However, she now witnesses legislators taking away those freedoms. As a self-publisher together with Chevli under the label Nanny Goat Productions, Farmer created Tits & Clits to depict the uncommonly portrayed and “unsexy” parts of sex that women experience: IUDs falling out, periods, vaginal drips, molestation, and selfish lovers. In spite of the ostensible seriousness of these topics, the comic presents its themes through satire, and discusses how women can find sexual fulfillment through reproductive control and experimentation. Tits & Clits also has stories empathetically portraying lesbians and transgender people. Abortion Eve entertainingly explains how abortion procedures work. Fantagraphics has just released Tits & Clits 1972-1987, collecting the seven-issue run of Tits & Clits (absent a small number of stories at the request of their authors, or due to the difficulty in contacting the authors) along with Abortion Eve and Pandora's Box.
I felt that discussing these works with a few of the people involved would develop scholarship further. For this oral history, I spoke with Joyce Farmer herself, the artist Mary Fleener (who co-edited the seventh and final issue of Tits & Clits), and Ron Turner (who, through his company Last Gasp, served as publisher for three issues of Tits & Clits in its later years). I wanted my conversations to go beyond a broad overview of the series, because Sam Meier, the editor of this complete anthology, has already extensively researched and written about Tits & Clits and Abortion Eve - efforts with which I cannot hope to compete. Instead, I decided to focus on elements Meier didn't always incorporate into her research: the creators' in-depth opinions on how political trends, economic shifts, other works of fiction, and regional Californian society influenced the series overall. I organized the following statements in a roughly linear manner, beginning with inspirations encountered before Tits & Clits, and ending with a question regarding what the anthology means for modern audiences.
-Edward Dorey
* * *
Before Tits & Clits
In her introduction to The Complete Wimmen’s Comix (Fantagraphics, 2016), the historian and cartoonist Trina Robbins mentions how surprised she was that Wimmen’s #1 and the first issue of Tits & Clits (issue "α") were released within only a few weeks of each other. She ponders, “Was it something in the water” of California that made these two women’s “groups” produce underground comics at the same time? To address what was in that water, I asked Farmer, Fleener and Turner about the inspirations behind Tits & Clits and the psychology of the two self-described “housewives” who made the series.
EDWARD DOREY: In our emails, you noted that your father left Margaret Mead’s Coming of Age in Samoa conspicuously lying around so that you could learn about sex. How much did the book inform you about the subject, and in what way did the anthropological study affect Tits & Clits?
JOYCE FARMER: My mother died when I was 11. She was ill and became non-functional when I was 10. My dad was left to educate me about sex, although my mother taught me the basics when I was very young, so I knew more than the other grammar school kids.
I don't know if dad left the book out intentionally; I never spoke to him about it. It was around the house.
I felt I had to sneak Coming of Age because it was about sex, and all kids snuck sex back then. One day, I dropped it in the bathtub and tried to dry it without him knowing, fearing punishment. Later, I realized he probably left it for me because he was too shy to address the topic with his daughter.
What was the psychology of Lyn and Joyce when they made Tits & Clits?
MARY FLEENER: Joyce and Lyn Chevli are 10 or 12 years older than I, and, until Reagan made abortion available in California in May 1967 with the Therapeutic Abortion Act, women were expected to graduate from high school, wear a girdle, set their hair in rollers, and get a job as a teacher or nurse. The two were a part of that Happy Days generation. So I think much of what Lyn wrote about was repressed rage.
Lyn was funny; she had long, blonde hair. She told me she used to go to parties, comb her hair onto the ground, and have guys walk on it. She was basically saying, “You can look, but you can’t touch!” She wanted to fuck with guys because she had been so unsatisfied with her marriage. You can feel the frustration and anger in her stuff.
I think that makes Lyn’s work scary to a lot of men and what pissed off the censors.
Yes, many men will read stuff like Lyn’s work and think, “I am not like that. We are not all like that.” This is true, but, if you get into a community of artists—these men with these huge egos—many lack the self-awareness needed to realize how they are, in fact, like that. For example, Laguna Beach—where Joyce and Lyn resided—was a male proving ground.
When I met Joyce, we went to a bar called The Ivy House. At this establishment, many cartoonists hung out, like the Interlandi brothers [twins Frank & Phil] and guys who did a lot of single-panel gag cartoons. They were older men, the WW2 generation. They would arrive at two in the afternoon and leave at two in the morning, drinking all day. The first time I went there with Joyce, I felt like the “new meat”. Everyone was nice enough, but I felt so out of place and wasn’t a drinker.
Joyce has informed me of the sexism of these sorts of men, and it was off the charts! I think that this is where both Lyn and Joyce were coming from.
Were Joyce and Lyn simply “everyday housewives,” as Lyn calls the heads of Nanny Goat Productions in a letter [transcribed in the Fantagraphics collection]?
RON TURNER: Not quite, though Lyn was married to a man with a small newspaper in Laguna Beach, and Joyce had a son. Joyce Farmer was a bail bondswoman, a profession not open to women at the time, unless a bails bondsman croaked and the man’s wife continued the business….
Sure, they may have technically been “housewives” at certain points in their lives, but that was a put-on: “I’m just an ordinary housewife; what would I know about this or that?” With that pseudo-identity, they were saying, “You can think of me as a ditzy idiot, but I am a whole-brained woman, and I can teach you many things.” The plight of most women is that men give them second billing, and they often attempt to reclaim first by proving they are as good, if not better, than anybody else.
The Start of Tits & Clits
As commonly portrayed in histories of Tits & Clits, Lyn Chevli, an ex-bookseller with an interest in underground comics, introduced Joyce Farmer to Zap Comix in 1972 in order to recruit Farmer for a feminist version of that series; the pair would provide all the stories and art for the first two issues. Yet what intrigued me about this frequently-recounted event is their mixed feelings toward Zap. In some interviews, Farmer emphasizes Zap's "stupendously good" quality, yet she also implies that the artwork "horrified" Chevli due to its poor treatment of women. Curious about Farmer's own opinions, I wanted to explore her views in more depth.
May you speak more about the influence that Zap Comix, particularly S. Clay Wilson and R. Crumb, had on Tits & Clits?
JOYCE FARMER: They were major. First, I admired their artwork. Second, I respected their ability to kick loose and say whatever was on their brains. I liked both Robert Crumb and S. Clay Wilson. Crumb and I have only met once but have written to each other over the years. Wilson and I were friends, occasionally calling and visiting each other.
Zap had the freedom to articulate its message, no matter how distasteful. It wasn't that offensive to me because I understood it as an expression of what the contributors considered honest, valuable stories.
Their stories were not “nice” to women. However, I always found Wilson gentlemanly enough: he could be wild on paper, yet he treated me very decently. We never fought in print.
The Zap crew wrote fantasy stories like we did. Lyn and I created narratives to help the world loosen up and challenge cultural rigidity. Zap Comix encouraged us to be as outspoken as the guys. I adored Crumb for his candidness, not understanding how someone could dare to do that.
When Lyn and I decided to do comics, we wanted to create an answer to Zap that was not as violent. Thus, we modified the Zap format. Lyn went in her direction; I in mine.
Do you think that the Zap crew could be a bit too cruel in how they portrayed women?
Sure, the comic held a misogynist point of view. Zap was often unsupportable and wrong. So Lyn and I felt like addressing its problems.
In his doctoral dissertation, the critic Chadwick Lee Roberts asserts that Tits & Clits α’s story “The First Day of Spring” is about women finding their own sexual fulfillment away from men. Roberts looks at how the character Mary Multipary urinates penises that pleasure her and argues that this fantasy speaks to the quandary that many heterosexual women found themselves in during the '70s - how to explore their own sexuality independently while dealing with men who could be coercive, misogynist, and even violent. How true do you think this interpretation of one of your first stories is?
His assessment is accurate, but I am unsure of his motivation for analyzing my narratives. Perhaps he aimed to write well or be philosophical....
I drew the story while participating in a consciousness-raising group where we discussed sex. Lyn and I were drawn to the topic of women and masturbation because, when women pleasure themselves, they can control the orgasm. This is not always possible with men who are not paying attention. Well, even men in general; it is hard to know when the first person is on the trajectory of climax. While I consider "The First Day" asinine, it does touch on the concept of "cosmic orgasm" that was frequently examined in these women's groups.
The first issue of Tits & Clits aimed to portray women's sexuality as positive rather than negative. “Negative” as in how men tended to think of women - as something to use rather than someone to love. Sex was so weird by modern standards. People felt that they were “free” and “sexual” back then because most writers on the topic were men who depicted women as objects for their own pleasure rather than as people. Rarely did women receive genuine tenderness from the screwing in these accounts.
Lyn and I debated whether to create a Zap-inspired comic that would castrate men and depict them being subjected to brutal acts as retribution for how men often wrote about women. Ultimately, we chose to explore sex from a woman's perspective, which had not been done much in comics.
What are the best elements of the first issue of Tits & Clits, and what are the worst?
Bad artwork is one negative. Innovative thinking is a positive; we were right on the money when it came to doing what we were trying to do - i.e., women not being apologetic about sex….
One of the issue’s stories, "The Perfect Wife and Mother” [written and drawn by Chevli], is harmless and could be reprinted anywhere, yet it addresses the demands placed on women's time during the 1970s. In this comedic piece, we show a mother who gets to be alone for a bit and can pluck her chin in peace as opposed to reading some feminist journal, for which she does not have the resources or social connections.
“With Little Help from a Friend” [written and drawn by Farmer] was a boring and stupid story. However, Lyn did well with “Vaginal Drip”. Back then, women had vaginal drips, and little information was available on the subject. It was good that Lyn discussed this issue in her narrative, with the protagonist visiting doctors who would use a cold speculum. While the later plastic speculums were better, they were not re-usable. The orgy scene in “Vaginal Drip” reflects the fantasies that Lyn had regarding multiple men having sex with her. I did not share this desire; I confess that I felt that her fetish was “icky”....
Our goal with Tits & Clits was to do comix about women from a woman’s point of view. Yet I would not call this perspective “feminist”.
The Making of Abortion Eve
Included in the Tits & Clits collection is Abortion Eve, a comic released shortly after the Roe v. Wade decision. Many have written about this one-shot, so I questioned Farmer about the “point” of the comic, when other options for educating oneself on abortion existed during the work’s release.
Abortion Eve is quite ambitious for a comic. Rather than being an anthology, it tells a full story from its beginning to its end. How did you feel taking on the challenge of a lengthy narrative for the first time?
JOYCE FARMER: The length of the story was not even on my mind when I wrote it. It follows the perspectives of five different women, each with their own approach to the topic of abortion. Rather than a long narrative, I see it as a collection of small stories woven together….
While I had experienced an abortion, I'm not sure if Lyn had. Lyn did not talk about her life, whereas I was willing to put mine on the page. We were doing what we called “problem pregnancy” counseling at a free clinic. I have probably worked with between 150 and 500 women who were pregnant and did not want to be. At the time, there was very little available on the topic. Our Bodies, Ourselves was out, but it did not focus specifically on abortion. Abortion Eve was mostly in head shops and, therefore, also not obtainable for everyone, but, at least, it was in comic form and, thus, more accessible.
The 1976 Return of Tits & Clits
In late 1973, shortly after the release of Chevli's & Farmer's next one-shot, Pandora's Box, authorities arrested the owners of Chevli's former bookstore, Fahrenheit 451, likely targeting Lyn and Joyce due to the two’s association with the shop and their creation of Tits & Clits. The duo avoided arrest but ceased making comics for several years. However, Nanny Goat Productions resumed in 1976 with Tits & Clits #2.
The late '70s proved challenging for underground comix as head shops reduced their sales and the growing system of comic book specialty stores prioritized superhero and genre fantasy material. Additionally, the end of America's postwar economic boom, inflation, and a shift away from an industrial-led economy hurt many pockets of the nation. Despite these challenges, Tits & Clits continued throughout the decade, with Last Gasp stepping in to publish the series from issue #5 (1979) onwards. To understand the economic realities of making comics during this time, I asked Joyce Farmer and Ron Turner how the monetary challenges of the '70s affected the series' sales and production.
In the introduction to the Tits & Clits collection, Sam Meier uses a quote from a 2011 Q&A wherein you stated that the Fahrenheit 451 bust made you insecure about your work. As you say, “[It] pretty much poisoned my free thinking, my ability to think up these wonderfully imaginative stories about women and sexuality… I just lost my enthusiasm for it. In a word, that's what censorship does. It poisons you.” If you became afraid of making new comics because of the bust, then why return in 1976 with Tits & Clits #2?
JOYCE FARMER: The times [the late '70s] had changed…
During my conversation with Ron Turner about Tits & Clits, we discussed how the inflation of the 1970s affected consumer spending on underground comix. Did you see how the economic difficulties of the decade, particularly in its latter half, affected the sales of Tits & Clits?
We had to raise prices due to inflation, but I don't recall people refraining from buying comics because of the price tag. The issue was the lack of access to stores that sold them. Head shops declined in number, and bookstore owners, beyond those in Laguna Beach, were arrested for selling underground comix. No one wants to risk imprisonment for peddling a 50-cent item, which ultimately crippled the industry.
I don't believe inflation was the main cause of decreasing underground comix sales in the latter part of the decade.
There is an interesting dichotomy between Ron Turner’s perspective on why underground comix sales decreased in the late '70s and Sam Meier's and your ideas regarding how the fear of censorship caused fewer vendors to take the risk of peddling these comics.
Turner focused on selling comics, whereas Lyn and I created them. As a result, Turner might have a different perspective on why comics didn't sell. However, the real reason was that the fear of arrest for a low-priced item like a comic effectively contributed to the decrease in comic sales at the time…
Why did Ron Turner end up publishing your book in 1979 with Tits & Clits #5?
Unlike us, Turner could print four books at a time, making the process more financially efficient for himself. He could produce a book far cheaper than we could. After facing the threat of arrest, we found publishing comix through Last Gasp in San Francisco to be safer as the anti-porn advocates wouldn't have as favorable a legal environment there compared to Orange County.
Sam Meier, in her introduction to the Tits & Clits collection and in other written material about your series, talks about how the second-wave feminist movement had an anti-pornographic element to itself, particularly in the late '70s. Hence, many feminists disliked your work. Is this true?
Yes, it certainly was. This anti-pornographic stance among second-wave feminists was one of the things Lyn and I targeted.
In 1972, we acted on our instincts but later became more familiar with feminist theory. Some feminists admired us, like Celeste West, a San Francisco librarian, who was our heroine, and we hers. Tee Corinne, who contributed stories under a pseudonym, was another ally. However, such sympathetic feminists were relatively rare.
Inflation was high in the '70s. According to Princeton professor Alan S. Binder, it reached double digits in 1974 and again between 1979 and 1980. Other sources also note how the value of savings decreased substantially, and oil, meat and milk prices surged during the latter part of the decade. The nation was not in a good spot when, in 1979, Joyce Farmer and Lyn Chevli published Tits & Clits #5 through Last Gasp. Why would you decide to begin publishing the comic when consumers had less money to spend on comics, particularly expensive underground comix, which were already often unprofitable?
RON TURNER: This is difficult for people to understand today, but, in the early '70s and late '60s, you could live on nothing. With a part-time job, you could afford a decent place and food. People had a jingle in their pockets. (It was a thing called “coins.”) And it only took two quarters to buy an underground comic book (when they emerged).
Inflation started due to the cost of the Vietnam War and accumulating debt. Consequently, people had to cut back on "frivolous" things.
You're right about inflation decreasing American consumers' freedom, and I want you to see another reason why someone might be surprised that I began to publish Tits & Clits: I earned little money from comic sales. Last Gasp’s first comics were at 50 cents apiece, and the profit was split up roughly like this: the retailer kept 20 cents and paid 30 to the distributor; the distributor paid 20 cents and kept a dime; the publisher got 20 cents, but spent 6 on printing and 6 on royalties. Essentially, the publisher received 8 cents, most of which went towards company upkeep and wages. So, at the end of the year, you'd be lucky to get a penny per comic sold.
Also, few comic book stores existed in the early to mid '70s, maybe 15 or 20 by 1972 in the whole country. These shops were rare and tended to be conservative, often run by kids who collected comics and continued doing so as adults. (Talk about arrested development…) The comics sold in these venues were also for young people, not grown-ups. If you go to a bookstore, you expect it to have books aimed at all ages, not just children, but comic book stores were different. Record stores typically offered drugs, sex, and rock and roll, but comic book stores avoided "nefarious" influences. Puritanical values were passed down to children, and while most outgrew them, these shops didn't want to upset parents with "filth being sold to children."
But this is why, in part, I began publishing Tits & Clits: sex sells, and the comic sold well. Joyce and Lyn were exceptional, creating and repeatedly self-producing an underground comic in Laguna Beach and successfully selling it in head shops.
Somewhere around '73, I met the duo. We hit it off, and I started to distribute their comics. Then, they realized how, by not having to spend all the income they earned on copying their comic and trying to sell it, they could have a publisher (me) do it and provide them with royalties. By getting Last Gasp to publish their comic, they got their lives back.
I also respected their ethos. The second comic that I ever published was It Aint Me Babe [1970], the first all-women’s comic, and Last Gasp followed it with Wimmen’s Comix.
In spite of the issues with declining head shops, puritanical comic book stores, and inflation, Last Gasp remained rebellious. We thought the world deserved more knowledge about “tits and clits.”
In 1980, Last Gasp published Tits & Clits #6. After the issue’s release, Joyce Farmer wanted to publish an anthology of the series. However, you convinced her not to do so because selling the anthology in a collected format, according to a letter by her, would “give the death blow to the existing series of individual comix.” In your experience, did collected editions of comics decrease the sales of individual editions overall?
Going back to 1980, I probably did say that. I gave this recommendation before the breakthrough of the graphic novel. I was not in the book business and knew nothing about it, though Last Gasp had published the first six issues of Slow Death as a trade paperback.
I had connections with an alternative book distributor called Bookpeople. They would take in stapled comic books and sell them to the book trade where possible. Unfortunately, most bookstores saw a staple and refused to even open the works up, essentially practicing class warfare.
Twenty years later, bookstores did not have a problem with comics. Manga and comics had exploded in popularity.
In regular comic books, 10 of 32 interior pages were usually advertisements. In contrast, underground comics used every interior page for content. Consequently, Last Gasp couldn't write off printing costs, making the company less lucrative. We had to evaluate how long we could go on being unprofitable: if four comics in a row were failures, you would be out of the business. At that time, a trade paperback collection of Tits & Clits would deter consumers from purchasing existing issues.
If you could go back in time, would you have sold a trade paperback collection of Tits & Clits?
You make the decision that you make, and, often for quite a while, you do not know if it was correct. My choice was appropriate for the time. Would I have been smarter if I had done it differently? Yes…
The 1987 Final Issue
Tits & Clits #7 was the series’ final issue. Joyce co-edited the issue with Mary Fleener rather than Lyn Chevli, who had departed to pursue other projects. I knew that asking the editors how Ronald Reagan's America impacted the comic would prompt a meaningful discussion, given the conservative wave in the late '70s and early '80s. After all, Nanny Goat Productions had already faced backlash from conservatives. I found a complex view on the matter; personal experience trumped a broader political perspective.
In the 1980s, Reagan was trying to pass a lot of anti-porn legislation. And, in particular, he was attempting to stop “distributors of obscenity”. Issue #7 of Tits & Clits feels like a response to the Reagan administration’s decisions. Many stories in the edition are graphic yet function as critiques of the sexual patriarchal control that men have over women. For example, your “Dr. Fuzz” is about a medical doctor who rapes his patients. Also, the issue includes Joey Epstein’s “Somethin’s Rotten in Nutley” wherein the story’s heroine sees a public masturbator. When the protagonist of Epstein’s piece reports this man to the police, the cops do not take her seriously. Therefore, do you feel that issue #7 was a long-form argument against the repressive politics of the Reagan administration and how it was treating “mere pornography”?
The series did not exist to be a “feminist manifesto”. It was just something that would talk about what we have to deal with at different levels than men. I was not a political person at the time, though I voted. (Of course, I voted against Reagan.)
I did not purposefully have patriarchal sexual control in mind when I did “Dr. Fuzz”; I just thought, when you went to the doctor, you got screwed no matter what. For some time, I didn’t have health insurance, so no medical checkups for me! And I felt that, when you did get examined gynecologically, medical personnel were invasive. You feel like you’re an entity inside of a meat suit. Of course, doctors must treat you as such because they are looking at data and making medical decisions. They can’t be subjective about everything. But, every time you go to the doctor, it is dehumanizing.
In her introduction to the Tits & Clits collection, Sam Meier states that you convinced Joyce Farmer to assemble a new issue of Tits & Clits because “it was time.” What was it about the late '80s that necessitated the return of the series? Was the rise of the alternative comics scene and [the expansion of] comic book stores the deciding factor?
Let me back up. I first met Joyce through Wimmen’s Comix. A friend had given me a copy of the “Women at Work” issue [#9, May 1984], and I was amazed by what I saw. I did not know anything about publishing, so I sent a letter and sample of my work to Last Gasp because I didn’t know the chain of command. I received a response from a “Joyce Farmer” who said, “I am editing the next issue of Wimmen’s. Would you like to contribute a one-page story? Here is the pay amount and deadline. I want to see the roughs.” I was impressed by how organized she was…. Back then, I hadn’t been published anywhere. So I was hungry; I was making up for a misspent time, a youth during which I had no idea what I wanted to do. So I did “Madame X from Planet Sex” for the issue.
When Farmer’s “International Politically Incorrect Fetish Issue” of Wimmen’s [issue #10] came out in 1985, I went up to visit her. She asked me, “Did you know I co-created a comic called Tits & Clits?” I was like, “That is the greatest title I’ve ever heard!” I thought, “How did you get away with this, something crazier than Felch or Big Ass Comics?” While she showed me her series, she told me about how she and Lyn were harassed. I said, “You’ve got to do another issue.” She responded, “I’m tired; I don’t want to do the work anymore. Also, Lyn’s not into it.” I rejoined, “You have to,” and she said, “You want to help me co-edit it?” And I stated, “Yeah!” jumping at the chance.
I didn’t have to talk her into releasing issue #7. She foolishly asked, “You want to do this?” And I announced, “You bet! Of course!” At Comic-Con, which I first attended in '86 and then again in '87, I met several Last Gasp girls, including Leslie Sternbergh, Dori Seda and Krystine Kryttre. We immediately bonded, wanting to be “bad girls” and create comics like Robert Crumb’s. We felt no need to do superheroes or funny animals. My friend group would rather craft X-rated stuff. I told Joyce I knew at least four people who could submit something, and we divided up who we wanted to invite to the issue. Joyce had her list of artists whom she had published before, and I had the new creators. That's how it came together.
What was co-editing issue #7 like? In An Oral History of Wimmen's Comix, you note that the "Lofty Goal" of Wimmen's was that "everyone got a chance." Did issue #7 have a similar aim, or did you want to control who and what got in more thoroughly?
I was stern. I knew that I wanted issue #7 to be outrageous and underground-ish. But many people weren’t as raunchy as I wished them to be. I had to write one rejection letter, which was hard. Instead of just three paragraphs, it ended up being three pages. I didn’t want to alienate this person. But she was understanding. She is a writer. She hooked up with an artist, and, when I saw the artwork, I thought, “No, no. This person is not good enough.” I was hard-nosed.
Joyce was a little more relaxed. You have to remember that Nanny Goat Productions were self-publishers. She and Lyn put up the money. They were DIY. I was impressed by their un-corporate work. I don’t think anyone was self-publishing during the underground comix revolution. Most people went through Kitchen Sink or Last Gasp. Fantagraphics was merely embryonic.
In Slutburger #2 (Rip Off Press, 1991), you include a lengthy epilogue in your Weird Harold story discussing how society lost many prolific artists because of the AIDS epidemic. In Tits & Clits #7 (1987), there is not much discussion of the disease. Is there a reason that Tits & Clits did not analyze the illness more? Both comics were released relatively close to one another.
We started hearing about people getting sick about '81-'82. Many of the gay men whom I knew went to the baths. Anything could happen, and that was the point. I used to ask my friends, “Aren’t you afraid of getting athlete’s foot or something?”
A lot of my gay pals thought that AIDS was a rumor, something to keep them out of the baths and to create fear. So they pooh-poohed it, saying, “Don’t believe everything you read. It’s not the gay cancer. The media is blowing this out of proportion.” 1991 was rough. I lost my closest companion and seven other acquaintances.
Tits & Clits #7 was released in '87. Joyce said that soon after was when the people of Laguna Beach were starting to get sick….
Certainly, if Joyce had done two or three more issues, then AIDS would have been a topic that we would have discussed. Everyone only thought that men were getting the disease in 1987, which is not true at all.
Why did the final, 1987 issue of Tits & Clits not discuss AIDS much?
JOYCE FARMER: In 1987, AIDS had been known for around five or six years, but it was not as dominant in women's lives as it was in gay men's. It took time for AIDS to gain cultural influence and develop into a "regular" topic.
For Tits & Clits issue #7, Mary Fleener served as editor, so I did not have much involvement with the content. However, I did offer guidance since it was her first time editing a comic.
Laguna Beach had a high proportion of gay men, so when AIDS emerged, the town suffered significant losses. Despite this, I did not include the issue of AIDS in the comic. The rest of the country did not experience the same level of devastation as we did in our community.
Reagan was passing anti-porn legislation and attempted to stop “distributors of obscenity” during his tenure as president. Did you feel uncomfortable with the release of Tits & Clits #7 after the '80s rise of conservatism? Did you want to censor the comic?
RON TURNER: Like the right wing today, many conservatives at the time complained about a lot of things, but, in their personal lives, they partake of everything that they chide.
Last Gasp’s lifeblood in the '70s and early '80s were head shops. And, in these stores, they sold pipes and screens and other things for smoking marijuana and little grinders for cocaine and weed. Then, in the '80s, anti-paraphernalia laws were passed. These were insidious and sometimes loose enough to attack glassware or anything used to smoke with. So headshops began taking fewer risks with what they offered. Last Gasp worried that the government might start calling comic books “paraphernalia” because works like Dopin' Dan, Zap Comix and Dr. Atomic often discussed drug use.
But I was never afraid of Reagan. He was a complete dumbbell.
How Tits & Clits Compared to Wimmen’s Comix
Tits & Clits (1972-1987) was published for roughly the same period as Wimmen’s Comix (1972-1992); both series had almost exclusively female artists, and both openly discussed matters of sexuality. Thus, many would view the series as similar. Ron Turner does. However, Mary Fleener and Joyce Farmer argue that Tits & Clits was not as much of a politically feminist anthology, embracing sexuality in a way that Wimmen’s Comix did not.
Do you think that Tits & Clits deserves the same recognition that Wimmen’s Comix has been getting since its omnibus collection came out in 2016?
MARY FLEENER: Of course, it does. Firstly, the comic is the product of two women self-publishers. Secondly, the artwork of the series was as good as what Wimmen’s offered. The title alone is so outrageous. How could you not acknowledge it?
I was looking over the collected Wimmen’s Comix, and everyone appeared to be playing it safe. What I like about Tits & Clits is how Joyce and Lyn wanted to insult the masses, and this philosophy appeals to me because people need to be offended. Everybody takes the easy way out. You have to shake things up! Art is supposed to do that. Wimmen’s Comix is important historically because of the length of time that it was published and the number of women artists who first appeared there. But Tits & Clits was a whole other animal. Furthermore, Lyn and Joyce aimed to outdo Zap Comix, whose creators explored sexual fantasies and other crazy stuff. Lyn and Joyce declared, “Yeah, but we can do it better!”
What was the difference between the political/moral ideology of Wimmen’s Comix and Tits & Clits, which many consider a sister series?
JOYCE FARMER: The Wimmen’s Comix people generally lived in San Francisco…. The difference between us and Wimmen’s is that the [Wimmen's] collective tended to be politically correct. Nanny Goat Productions was not concerned with that; we did not pay as much attention to the external ideological landscape.
How did the content of Tits & Clits compare to that in It Aint Me Babe or Wimmen’s Comix?
RON TURNER: This question has too many variables to give it a fair answer.
Did you find Tits & Clits to be blunter and more open than Wimmen’s with regard to how the former treated women’s sexuality?
If a comic comes from somebody, it has to be honest. You might be the one trying to find an exaggerated difference.
What Tits & Clits Means to Modern Audiences
With Roe v. Wade overturned and books getting banned nationwide, several stories in the Tits & Clits collection remain radical. The creators behind the comic have, thus, seen a nation become less liberal than they would have hoped. In an email to me, Joyce Farmer expressed anger at how little the work she put into the comic seems to have positively impacted society.
How do you think Abortion Eve and Tits & Clits will be received today?
JOYCE FARMER: It's weird to think that our blatant sexual references and drawings of the '70s are now OK, but that an informational booklet on abortion might fire up unexpected mass anger. I follow the news—Los Angeles Times, New York Times, etc.—and it seems to me that there is a lot of anger in the guise of religion out there, and it's looking for someone to attack. And the target is women: their reproduction, their jobs, their race.... And the unquestioning popularity of guns really scares me. This is not off-topic of Tits & Clits and Abortion Eve. Lyn and I were all about women getting more control over their lives and what we worked for back in the day - it's all imploding.
* * *
Edward Dorey would like to thank Matthew Noe for his help in preparing these questions. An interview with Sam Meier, editor of the new Tits & Clits collection, can be read here.
