Interview with Ron Turner

Ron Turner founded Last Gasp in 1970, publishing such underground comix titles as Slow Death Funnies (a series satirically tackling ecological issues, and coinciding with the first Earth Day); It Ain’t Me, Babe and Wimmen’s Comix (both feminist themed); Armageddon; Anarchy Comics; Weirdo; Zap Comix, and many, many more. More recently, Last Gasp is the publisher of Beat, Christopher Felver’s collection of Beat Generation photography; Who Killed Hunter S. Thompson? a tribute to the late Gonzo journalist, edited by Warren Hinckle; and The Book of Weirdo by Jon B. Cooke, the definitive examination of the legendary Robert Crumb’s underground comix.

We sat down with Turner to talk about his storied career as a standard-bearer of the San Francisco counterculture, the Beat Generation, and their numerous intersections.