Joseph M. Shea Comix and Small Press Collection, 1962-2010

This collection consists of small press literature and comic books collected by underground writer and illustrator Joseph M. Shea. It includes holdings of unique and rare comics and homemade zines, along with popular underground comics spanning four decades in the small press/underground genre. Much of the subject matter is controversial, and contains violent and/or sexual themes. The Shea Collection, along with the much larger Willis Collection (SC 3.4) and similar sized Dissmeyer Collection (SC 3.5) offers a viewpoint into artistic expressions within the American underground and counterculture in the 1960s through 2000s, and many of the materials coincide with the birth of the underground comix scene (referred to by many cartoonists as "Newave").

The collection consists of several hundred items, including 121 unique titles, with sequential issues of many comix, newsletters, and zines. Standard and digest size comix make up about 40 percent of the collection, and many are popular cult underground comix with professional production, drawn/illustrated by many now-famous names in the industry. Notably, the standard comix include Blazing Combat, Eerie, and Vampirella. Minicomix are approximately 10 percent of the collection.

Approximately 50 percent of the collection is non-comix related, consisting of advertising and promotional materials, catalogs, newsletters, and zines (a term derived from "magazine," and self-published via photocopier). Of these, zines are the majority (about 20 percent of the collection), with extensive representation of the American music underground, counterculture, horror and fantasy writing, and several works by Joseph M. Shea.

Series 1: Advertising, Promotional Material, and Bibliographic Correspondence and Documentation, 1999-2010. This series contains materials related to the advertising and promoting of comix, zines, comic books, comix-related events, as well as collection documentation (donation lists by Joseph M. Shea).

Series 2: Books and Catalogs, 1981-2003. This series contains published collections of comix or comix-related material with ISBN numbers, and catalogs for comix, comic books, anime, art supplies, and other related materials.

Series 3: Comics/Comix, 1965-2007. This series is consists of comix organized by format in two subseries: Subseries 3.1: Standard and Digest Comics, and Subseries 3.2: Minicomix.

Series 4: Magazines, 1962-2004. This series contains professional-quality published material in magazine format.

Series 5: Newsletters, 1998-1999 and undated. This series consists of newsletters of small press, library, and environmental groups and organizations.

Series 6: Comix Related Materials and Reference Materials, 1997 and undated. This series contains a variety of materials relating to comix and comix creators.

Series 7: Zines, 1987-2009. This series consists of small press zines written by one or multiple authors.

Series 8: Oversize Materials, 1982-1999. This series consists of large items stored separately. Separation sheets are filed for these materials in their respective series.