Intro: Creative Time versus Period of the Great Depression

The political changes initiated in Poland in 1989 and the transition to a capitalist economy meant that comics became an important source of income in the last decade of the 20th century. On the one hand, businessmen were willing to invest in comics because the most popular domestic series, such as Tytus, Romek i A’Tomek (published from 1957 to 2021) or Kajko i Kokosz (continued from 1972 until 1992), often sold more than million copies of each part between 1970s and 1980s—the period called the Golden Age of Polish Comics. Because of this, publishers considered printing imported comics in Polish to be a good financial strategy (see: Szyłak, Konefał 2023: 60–62). On the other hand, after the collapse of the communist system there was galloping inflation that ate away at publishers’ profits, made various ventures unprofitable, and forced potential buyers of cultural goods to carefully count their pennies. No wonder, then, that the “comic nineties” are viewed very differently in Poland today. For some researchers, comic artists and journalists, they are the most creative period in the history of Polish comics (see also: Stańczyk 2022: 121–124). Szymon Holcman, an indefatigable promoter of comics and one of the founders of the publishing house Kultura Gniewu (The Culture of Anger), gave a positive opinion of the changes taking place in the market:

In December 2010 in Kultura Liberalna, in an article entitled Where from, where to, where to? – Polish comics after two decades of free market economy, one could read that the first decade, covering almost the entire 1990s, was an exceptionally intense life of Polish comics in their third or perhaps second edition, says Szymon Holcman. – While the mass readership was provided with books published by TM-Semic, Polish comic artists created mainly for zines (…) and a handful of magazines (…). They met at the Łódź Comics Festival, which mobilised everyone with a competition for a short comic form. The works submitted there now form the canon of contemporary Polish comics and are great examples of the talent of stars such as Przemek Truściński, Krzysztof Gawronkiewicz, Jacek Frąś, Krzysztof Ostrowski and others. I dare say that this was the most creative and diverse period in the history of Polish comics (Szyłak 2017: 158).

For others, such as Tomasz Pstrągowski, comics journalist, researcher and comics scriptwriter, the first decade after political transformation was a “time of great depression” and market collapse:

The 1990s were not good years for Polish comics. With the fall of communism, the state-subsidised publishing houses that printed albums in very large print runs were closed down, often against the logic of the market. No wonder, then, that with the collapse of the largest publishing houses, interest in illustrated stories also declined in Poland. After all, in the 1990s, a time that Wojciech Orliński [an influential journalist from Gazeta Wyborcza, one of the most widely read newspapers of the time] described as a ‘great sadness’, American comics distributed by TM-Semic and immortal series such as Thorgal or Tytus, Romek and A’Tomek (whose circulation fell from 500,000 copies to 15,000, according to the author himself) were particularly popular (Pstrągowski 2015: 35–36).

The negative assessments of the time stemmed from the fact that smaller, domestic publishers who invested in the publication of comics quickly withdrew because they did not achieve the expected results. With a print run of several hundred thousand copies from the bygone era, publishers expected quick sales and a big income, while albums of local comic stories sold poorly. Part of the blame for this situation can be attributed to the low quality of the published works, which were often poorly translated, selected without proper discernment and printed on cheap paper, DC and Marvel’s American comic book series, published in Poland between 1990 and 2003 by the Polish division of the Swedish company TM-Semic. The new, domestic, inexperienced players did not know how to evaluate comics or what to look for, so they printed local works, mostly focused on the idea of imitating Francophone fantasy and science fiction comics. For example, Jacek Michalski, the author of comics Zagadka Metropolii (The Riddle of the Metropolis) or Roy, both published at the end of 1989, drew his albums in an original way, trying to express his individual style; however, this style did not meet the expectations of recipients craving a Francophone style or superhero stories. However, even the very well-made Polish works sold poorly. This was the fate of, among others, Jerzy Wróblewski, a legend and veteran of Polish comics, who published twelve comics after 1989, but sadly died prematurely in 1991 at the age of 50. Part of the answer to this situation may lie in the fact that at the time there was no research done on the needs of the market, no advertising, and no publishing policy that promoted certain works and authors (Szyłak 2016: 253–254).

Moreover, Polish albums and series were not up to the task, because at the time, comics imported from the West, such as Superman, Batman and Asterix, were difficult to defeat. For them, publicity came from the celebrity that surrounded them, and the knowledge that they had been published for decades, were very popular in the world, and had been adapted into films. Two new foreign major players that entered the market in 1990 knew how to take advantage of this free advertisement. A Polish offshoot of the Swedish TM-Semic specialised in American superhero series and flooded bookstores with cheap editions of the most popular series from the United States, quickly taking the lead and dominating the domestic market. Another international publisher, Egmont (headquartered in Denmark), established its branch in Poland in 1990, focusing more on francophone albums and the most valuable Anglo-Saxon series. Luckily, the foreign publisher has sometimes also tried to support Polish authors, thanks to the efforts of Tomasz Kołodziejczak, who was in charge of the publishing programme there until 2023. Unfortunately, most young debutants and local artists did not find suitable printing venues for their works either in these companies or in local publishing houses, so they decided to publish them in underground zines or self-publish. This strategy included some unique approaches to Polish history, culture and the reality of the rapid economic transformation. However, it also continued the aesthetics and subjects related to American counterculture comixes of the 1960s and 1970s. The works of Robert Crumb and other underground artists, due to the censorship politics of the communist authorities were known only to the narrow part of Polish cartoonists from satirical Szpilki magazine (see also page 7) and the committed readers of this magazine. The subversive spirit of Szpilki quickly became viral/memetic and had influenced successive generations of comic creators.

PART ONE: Third Circuit of Publishing and some Delayed Trends in Polish (Counter)culture

Of Punks, Censors and Xerox Machines

At this point, it should be noted that Poland had a long tradition of underground press in the 1970s and 1980s. In domestic academic research, three important terms are used to describe the publishing market in the Polish People’s Republic: the first, second, and third circuits of publishing. The first circuit includes the official books and press, which were strictly controlled and censored by the communist government. The second circuit consisted of illegally printed books that presented issues opposed to the propaganda of the political leadership. Comic zines exemplify the third circuit, which was closely associated with the counterculture artists and attacked both the legal and second circuit texts of the culture (Flont 2017: 250–251).

This form of artistic expression was at first hardly noticed in Poland or even openly disregarded as an amateurish and worthless activity. Dominik Szcześniak, a big fan of underground culture, the editor of Ziniol comic zine and an inquisitive researcher, wrote that:

The history of comic zines [in Poland] dates to the appearance of the photocopier, which allowed an inexperienced artist to write on paper, reproduce what he had written, and show it to his friends. The first comic zines were associated with the punk milieu. Researchers unanimously mention three titles here: Zakazany Owoc (The Forbidden Fruit) by Dariusz ‘Pała’ Palinowski (founded in 1989), Prosiacek by Krzysztof ‘Prosiak’ (Piglet) Owedyk (founded in 1990) and Inny Komix (Another Comix), which was created from 1991. Zakazany Owoc, the last eight-page issue of which appeared in 1995, has been reprinted several times (published by Kultura Gniewu), as has Prosiacek. Inny Komix has been somewhat forgotten, but all three titles form the basis of Polish underground comics (Szyłak 2016: 256).

In fact, the history of comic zines begins earlier, as the first editors in Poland were punks and sci-fi/fantasy fans who published their magazines independently in the early 1980s. The first monthly science fiction and fantasy magazine officially approved by the Polish authorities, was called Fantastyka. It was launched in October 1982. The magazine published fragments of Polish and sometimes foreign mainstream comics created by artists who gained popularity in 1970s, such as Grzegorz Rosiński (first issue of Hans series, with a script of André-Paul Duchâteau, was published in Fantastyka in 1986 as Yans), but it was extremely difficult for young Polish artists to get through the editorial selection, especially if they tried to present an underground style and some radical themes.

Moreover, it is significant to indicate that some youth subcultures such as punk or reggae fans (as well as zines) emerged in Poland over a decade later than their Western counterparts. For example, the first wave of punk interests appeared in Poland in the early 1980s, while in the United States and the United Kingdom they appeared in the 1970s (Sabin 1999: 2–5). In her monograph Transnational Punk Communities in Poland, Marta Marciniak indicates some similarities and differences between punk subculture in Anglo-Saxon countries and Poland:

Punk was born in the moonscape of the collapsing great American cities, and perhaps that is why it was so easily and immediately translatable onto English and then Central European ground – because London and Warsaw have gone through their own deaths, destructions, and rebirths. Punk was a response to the failure of consumer capitalism, but it was also an inspiration for those boxed in the stuffy rooms of people’s republics, governed by censorship, propaganda, and central planning. […] It is important to note especially two things: first, the fact that punk predated the formation of Solidarity, the force that became known around the world as the face of political opposition in the People’s Republic of Poland, by roughly three years. The political landscape of the years 1976–1977, at the end of which the first punks appeared on the streets of Poland […] In this way, […] punk in Poland was “allowed” to develop to a much greater extent than in neighbouring “brotherly” countries of the Warsaw Pact because, as the argument goes, the Polish comrades had more pressing problems to attend to than the pursuit of kids in mohawks. The living conditions in Poland in the 1980s looked “catastrophic” not only when compared to Western countries, but also its Soviet bloc neighbours, the GDR and Czechoslovakia. Neither the people nor the government could have any illusions about that. In addition, Poland was affected by a huge wave of emigration. According to data from 1980–1987, more than five hundred thousand people left. […] Because it came from the West, punk was suspected to be secretly connected with the conspiratorial activities of the political opposition, led by Solidarity. But in the majority of investigations of “punk crews all across Poland, the security service and the militia concluded that punks were not engaged in any explicit political activity. What is more, punks in Poland, unlike those in the GDR, were totally useless as informers” (Marciniak 2015: xxvii, 6–7).

Polish comic artists adopted the habit of using nicknames from the punk zines and American underground comix, as well as sometimes semi-autobiographical elements of the plots, which in the domestic version focused on the difficult economic situation in Poland, intolerance and subculture wars. Artists’ favourite music was sometimes referred to in footnotes, panels (with recommendations for specific songs and bands to listen to while reading the comics) or in dialogues. In the comic series by Krzysztof Owedyk from the punk zine Pasażer entitled Blixa i Żorżeta, for example, two main characters travel to the Bieszczady Mountains where they interview some members of a local punk band called Trepanacja (Trepanation). Not only do they wear T-shirts with the logos of real Polish punk groups (Moskwa, KSU) and discuss catchy names for punk bands inspired by the Scottish group Exploited (they suggest that the name should contain many of the letter A, which can be transformed into an anarchy logo), but they also discover that one of the imaginary examples actually performs in the Polish punk scene [See: Figure 1].

Figure 1

Owedyk, K 1999 Blixa i Żorżeta, p. 24. Prosiacek Publishing © Krzysztof Owedyk.

In another comic album by Owedyk entitled Ósma czara, at the end of the story, in a special footnote, there is a soundtrack list. The author mentions that he could not attach the cassette to his album, but he recommends performing some songs by the British band Coil during the lecture, as well as the entire work Peer Gynt by Edward Grieg. Furthermore, this strategy is also continued in strips from magazines not associated with the punk subculture. The grotesque, darkly humorous stories about the little town of Mikropolis by Krzysztof Gawronkiewicz and Dennis Wojda, for example, contain many footnotes to New Wave and Gothic songs by bands such as The Cure, Einstürzende Neubauten or artists such as Nick Cave. In fact, one of the comic stories from this series entitled ‘Krzesło w piekle’ (A chair in hell) even refers in its title to the song Ein Stuhl in der Hölle from 1989 by the German band Einstürzende Neubauten.

Alternative music was seen in Eastern Europe as a personal and political strategy of resistance to the official culture controlled by communist censorship. At the same time, however, subcultures were tolerated by the authorities thanks to their permanent surveillance, with the assumption that controlled rebellion was better than a complete ban on youth independence movements. The defining event for some of the first Polish zines’ authors was a music festival organised in Jarocin in the 1980s. Even though it was monitored by the communist authorities to surveil the youth subcultures, in many ways it shaped the whole generation of artists. Even today many well-known Polish poets and writers connected with the literary magazine bruLion (published between 1987 and 1999) identify their roots with Jarocin and alternative music influences:

This experience seems to be common to the generation of the Jarocin Festival. Writers and poets who grew up in the shadow of “martial law”, and who were generally not old enough to participate actively and significantly in this political event, compensate for this lack with an alternative. Punk became a reaction to the communist drivel, the media kitsch (…). The perusal of records, cassettes, or playlists gave an idea of the time, but also made it possible to determine one’s identity, musical tastes, and receptivity to certain feelings. Finally, music collections were used to evaluate others. On the other hand, they gave an impression of the material culture of that time. The market at that time was very selective, new products released in the West reached Poland with some delay, others were not released at all, so consumers were forced to look for substitutes in the form of cassettes, mostly pirated (Regiewicz 2020: 73–74).

In contrast to literary magazines, comic zines from this period may be considered as a medium of self-expression and fun, but also contained some satirical content with serious social critique. In these cases, however, it was often a matter of crossing the boundaries of parody as a work aimed at another text of culture, and the emergence of a new quality: the construction of an image of the world subject to certain laws or rules, the creation of non-schematic heroes, the extraction of an additional meaning from the story. Moreover, the aesthetics of many Polish comic zines reminds one of techniques used in avant-garde manifestos and by the underground press such as collage, indicating of material structure of cheap paper, photocopier print and amateur drawing tools, as well as quoting different fragments of philosophical texts or artistic and political pamphlets, especially connected with the popularisation of anarchism. For example, one of the most popular Polish anarcho-punk zines called Chaos w mojej głowie (The Chaos in my Head), published between 1997 and 2019, often used collages and texts as well as different relations to the comic art. In her research on different styles of journalism in this zine, Oliwia Kopcik from the Jagiellonian University in Kraków regards underground magazines on comics as artzines and punk publications as fanzines:

Artzines are magazines that deal with art in the broadest sense. They offer an alternative to the art fashions propagated in the mainstream press. This type is most often reminiscent of the Dadaist magazines of the twentieth century, not least because of the use of techniques such as collage and photomontage by their makers. Comic zines also fall into this group (Kopcik 2019: 23)

Kopcik rightly indicates that comics strips often served a role of artistic links between different essays, concert reports and subcultural polemics, allowing the graphic editors (who were sometimes also comic artists, as spiritus movents of Chaos w mojej głowie Paweł ‘Pablo’ Prystup) to enrich anarcho-punk aesthetics of pages:

Comic zines appear in most issues of the magazine, but they are not linked by a character or a plot. They also differ in graphic style and scope. In issue 17, the comics were a “cross-over” between the reviews in the “What’s the Noise?” section. This was a three-part series, but they were not thematically linked. An interesting approach was taken in issue 14, where the author used full-page graphics instead of the traditional picture sequences. The speech bubbles did not appear there either – instead, the cartoonist added descriptions above or below the graphics (Kopcik 2019: 33).

It is noteworthy that Polish interest in zines and underground aesthetics also seems to lag behind the transnational comic development of the time, especially when we consider the American editorial and creative work of Robert Crumb in “Zap! Comix” magazine. The artworks of this American underground legend were presented in most popular satirical journal called Szpilki thanks to Krzysztof Teodor Toeplitz, the main editor of this journal and a tireless populariser of the art of comics in communist Poland. Toeplitz, the author of first monographs on comics (see: Konefał, Szyłak 2002: 59), was also a politician who wisely used some of Crumb’s strips to indicate the criticism of imperial America in his comixes. Such a strategy allowed him both to avoid censorship and promote beloved art. Certainly, the new generation of punk artists did not care about propaganda usage of underground strips stripes, focusing mainly on their subversive style and sharp, social criticism. They shared with some American comix artists, though, the same critical view of social reality, the anti-aestheticism of the line, a brutal humour that did not shy away from obscenities and was often indecent and touched on taboo subjects. Sometimes this was the result of the zines’ creators’ lack of mastery of drawing techniques, but sometimes it was a deliberate choice of style that ran counter to the poetics of mainstream comics. To divide their underground works from comics inspired by Western sci-fi, fantasy and horror genres they often used the English word comix that even today doesn’t sound Polish.

The Polish Comic Zine Pioneers from the late 1980s and the 1990s

The cultural delay towards transnational comic culture was not always coherent with some artistic inspirations. For example, Gdańsk, the city of the Solidarność (Solidarity) movement, with its famous alternative theatre, jazz tradition and underground culture movements (such as Totart), was the hometown of one of the first artistic zines that might include comic strips. It was called Nietoperz (The Bat):

Founded by sixteen-year-old Gdansk residents, it can be considered the first Polish zine of the third circulation, the first issue of which appeared in November 1978. Janusz ‘Jany’ Waluszko, one of the creators of Nietoperz, recalls: the magazine was “satirical and pictorial, we were big fans of comics and cabarets […] there were 2–3 copies (…). As a result of the intervention of the security service, not a single issue of Nietoperz survived” (Flont 2017: 252).

Gdańsk and Gdynia were the birthplaces of one of the first underground comics. It was called Wampiurs Wars and it was created by a student at the University of Gdansk, Jan Plata-Przechlewski in 1981. His comics gained greater popularity a few years later when they appeared in larger editions in various zines published by the Gdański Klub Fantastyki (Gdańsk Sci Fi, Fantasy and Horror Fanclub) and were later brought together in the collectible magazine Czerwony Karzeł (Red Dwarf). The first volume contained 20 pages and was titled Na tropie wampiurów (In the Footsteps of the Vampiurus). It was published in 1985. The size of 20 pages (including the cover) resulted from censorship restrictions. Paradoxically, the independent press was not taken seriously by the censors if it did not exceed 16 pages (Szyłak 2016: 257).

Plata-Przechlewski’s works are about schematism and the use of unprofessional tools (the first part was drawn with a ballpoint pen). The author’s memoirs vividly demonstrate that his early way of drawing was not only a matter of artistic choice, but also a sad reality of Polish artists:

Perła (The Pearl) ink was a lumpy slime, and the technical block was no longer a relatively smooth Bristol plate, but (another “advance” of real socialism!) had a rough surface and behaved more like a paper ink dryer (it soaked up the ink and smeared it). (Plata-Przechlewski 2023: 6)

A few years later, when the author began to work on the construction of the never-completed nuclear power plant żarnowiec, his tools became more professional, and his artistic style was also evaluated:

One day, the engineer in charge of our department persuaded the management (foreign exchange purchase!) to buy a box of three Rotring rapidographs (0.5 0.3 0.2) together with a supply of branded ink. I had the worst opinion about Polish rapidographs. However, when I picked up the branded devices, I was shocked: they drew like a pen, and the effect was wonderful! If you look closely, you’ll notice a slight change in the lines somewhere in the first half of Attack of Horror: the lines become even, uniform, with certain thicknesses (Plata-Przechlewski 2023: 6).

The pages of Wampiurs Wars usually contain three to nine panels with speech bubbles; however, they often also have a large text section referring to satirical monologues of the main characters and the political situation in Poland, as well as including visual and textual quotations from transnational iconic science fiction, fantasy and horror films, novels and comics. These comics definitely have the character of a parody, but the storytelling crosses its borders, adding the layers of pastiche and social criticism, which Adam Rusek, the author of Encyclopaedia of Polish Heroes and Comic Series rightly indicates:

The world presented in this “psychopathic tale” is carelessly drawn deliberately, bristling with dwarfism and ugliness, and the indeterminate country in which the action takes place is somewhat reminiscent of the People’s Republic of Poland. Numerous literary allusions (…) and a vocabulary brimming with obscenity complete the picture of the work, which is probably the first truly underground national work of this genre. At the same time, it is a well-told story. The whole series (…) is a perverse game with the reader. Gossipy heroes, equipped with a large number of bottles and Polish national characteristics, break all the rules of comics. References to George Lucas’ Star Wars epic film, John R.R. Tolkien’s trilogy or mockingly quoted formulas of popular literature are mixed here with clear allusions to Polish reality (Rusek 2010: 246).

For example, one of the Plata’s strips begins with clear visual references to the Star Wars series (which can be seen in a logo in Figure 2), (a lone spaceship and a cosmic void) and both music and conspiracy theories (the rocket will land on the dark side of the moon). The dialogues presented in speech bubbles, though, ironically deconstruct the epic style of these cultural texts, using vulgar language and absurd names (Yogguth), as well as an intertitle in the bottom left corner of the page Epopeja Idiocia, which can be translated as The Idiot Epos. All these bizarre contrasts only make sense in the following pages, when we see how the main character struggles with life on the alien planet, which clearly resembles the chaotic life during the first decade of democratic transformation in Poland.

Figure 2

The parody of Star Wars logo and intertextual quotes to the landing on the Dark Side of the Moon in: Plata-Przechlewski, J 2021 Wampiurs Wars, p. 43. Koluszki: Wydawnictwo Kurc.

All these attributes quickly made Plata-Przechlewski’s work become popular among Polish fandoms. Wampiurs Wars (published in 2021 in the integral edition by Kurc) ironically made use of a fantasy and horror genre, which can be attributed to the boom of fan culture in the late 1980s and 1990s in Poland (see: Pindel 2019). It was the time in Poland when the first stories from Andrzej Sapkowski’s The Witcher appeared in Fantastyka magazine (which set the trend for both domestic literature and comics), VHS movies and pirated music tapes had a belated second life, and computers entered homes and schools (Sitarski, Garda, Jajko 2020: 31–32, 131–134). All these socio-cultural phenomena contributed significantly to the activation of a new generation of comic artists, often coming from punk circles, but also highly interested in the sci-fi, fantasy and horror genres, who at the end of 20^th century will create and publish the second generation of comic zines and magazines (see: second part of this research). The first decade of democratic Poland, though, was dominated by the comic zines artist who focused their interest mainly on punk aesthetics and themes.

One of them is Dariusz Palinowski, who has achieved cult status in the Polish underground comics fan community. Palinowski, better known as ‘Pała’ (a nickname that can be loosely translated as the Jerk, the Dork or the Chump), is another creator from the hardcore and punk underground. He is an activist who was associated with the Anarchist International in the 1980s. His best-known comics are called Zakazany Owoc [The Forbidden Fruit] and are based on a series of short stories from zines that their author published independently. Palinowski’s drawings are drawn in a simple, childlike style with thin lines, often with empty backgrounds and many grotesque elements. The faces of the Kowalski brothers from the series Niezwykłe Przygody Braci Kowalskich (The Amazing Adventures of the Kowalski Brothers), for example, which are round but cut off in the middle, are reminiscent of some of the antiheroes from the animated series South Park, but they were created before Trey Parker and Matt Stone started their popular series. Most of his stories reveal the influences of American underground press comics. They have large, eye-catching titles, commentary quotes related to the zine’s price and the size of its circulation. Their mini plots are often organised on one page, sometimes omitting the textual narrative, but mostly using it to destabilise the visual harmony of the panels and denote subversive messages and vulgar dialogues.

On the cover of the first issue of Forbidden Fruit, which can be seen in Figure 3, you may recognise direct references to American underground comics in the graphic motif hidden in the upper right corner under the title, which combines shapes and letters that can be deciphered as a noun comix. The counterculture’s disregard for the value of money is expressed in the top right-hand corner of the cover, where Palinowski has added the handwritten English text “pay no more than 100 000 zł”, indicating an absurd price equivalent to five months’ salary in 1989, the year the zine was published. The difficult economic situation and rapid cultural changes following the transition to capitalism can also be found in two parodies of newspaper advertisements. The first, at the bottom left, plays with the meaning of the Polish adjective ciężki, which can mean both the English words hard and heavy, and represents the equivalent of skinheads’ Doc Martens boots, which weigh ten kilos. The second joke, which uses both linguistic and visual allusions, is placed below the price and shows the head of a “real punk who should have a belt on his head”, making fun of the Polish slang, where the noun pasek could be translated with the English terms stripe and belt. The title page also contains a vulgar introduction in which Palinowski threatens readers not to give his zine to the local scout formation called harcerze (spelled here with an ironic misspelling at the beginning of the term).

Figure 3

The first issue of Zakazany Owoc by Dariusz Palinowski.

Palinowski, D 2010 Zakazany Owoc i Bracia Kowalscy w jednym. Warszawa: Kultura Gniewu © Dariusz Palinowski and Kultura Gniewu.

The grotesque drawings with gel pen, which can be seen in Figure 3, are based on strong black and white contrasts and conceal some subcultural symbols such as the anarchy A symbol or names of well-known punk bands: D.O.A. and Ear Damage. Due to their disharmonious arrangement, the comic panels appear to be parts of a collage from another issue, which is a further reference to the aesthetics of zines. The comic panels also focus on Forbidden Fruit’s subversive and ironic advertising. The upper three panels depict a punk concert and a dialogue where one speaker claims not regretting to omit “the gig” because they had read Palinowski’s comics. Down on the left you see a shocking scene of skinhead strangling an African man who is supposed to be hiding the issue of Pała’s comics, and a punk asking his mother where his favourite zine is (the mother replies that it could be eaten by her husband, which is another linguistic joke, this time referring to the title of the zine). Another shocking statement comes from a comic panel with a television screen where a woman claims in a speech bubble to have been raped by a skinhead with a swastika tattooed on his forehead.

Palinowski comments in a brutal and grotesque way on some of the weaknesses of Polish society, such as intolerance towards the Other and the bigotry of the Catholic church. For example, his characters shock the jury and the participants of the Miss Polonia competition with the punky transgender candidacy of one of the Kowalski brothers. Palinowski also criticises the fascination with the American colonisation of culture when his anti-heroes plant a bomb in a McDonald’s restaurant; the corporation appeared in Poland in the 1990s and was treated by punk subculture as one of the symbols of evil Western capitalism. Today, Pała’s short stories can be seen both as a living archive of the counter-cultural wars between punks, skinheads and militias, as well as a quasi-documentary description of many hardships during the period of Poland’s political and economic transformation.

Sadly, despite his legendary status, Dariusz Palinowski is not as well known among younger comic fans as other authors who started their careers in underground zines, such as Ryszard Dąbrowski or Michał śledziński. The lack of wider recognition of Palinowski’s works may have to do with the fact that he stayed true to punk ideals and did not create any mainstream albums. Despite this lack of recognition, he became the main character of the documentary film Zakazany owoc nr 6 (The Forbidden Fruit nr 6, 2011), directed by Piotr Buratyński, Michał Kowalski, and Dawid śmigielski, known also as Le Kolektiff Negatif. Nowadays, his original strips can be bought on the websites of Polish auction houses, which suggests that he has in some way joined the domestic mainstream of comic art and is making money from his legacy. Palinowski, though, has lately refused to talk to journalists or academics and does not contact the publishers of his anthologies, which could be a sign of his final departure from zines, comics and the punk subculture.

Faith, Subcultures and Ideologies: The Comics of Krzysztof Owedyk and Ryszard Dąbrowski

Another comic artist closely associated with the punk movement is Krzysztof Owedyk, who used the nickname ‘Prosiak’ (The Piglet) in the 1990s. In the same manner as Palinowski, in his zines Owedyk attacked not only the opponents of punks, but also the Catholic Church, strictly cooperating with new government. Strangely, these black and white stories were full of deep reflections on religion and faith, which was not a very popular narrative strategy in either Polish comics or punk underground zines of the 1980s and 1990s. One of The Piglet’s popular strip series is called Blixa and Żorżeta. It is a comic story that is mainly about two characters—22-year-old Blixa (who is a punk) and his girlfriend Żorżeta, a student at the university (neither name is common in Poland, and they sound more like nicknames). Like most of Palinowski’s works, Owedyk’s stories mostly focus on short (sometimes as short as three frames) plots about the everyday life of punks and their friends. Here, too, the graphic design corresponds to the satirical comics of the underground press, but they are more orderly with clear white (or sometimes black) backgrounds, classic speech bubbles and onomatopoeia. Nevertheless, the underground style is still clearly recognisable in some artistic approaches such as the addition of some ironic comments in typewriter font or an indication of signs and logos associated with subcultures, like the anarchy A sign or skinhead’s Celtic cross. Many panels also include presentations of concerts, band posters and T-shirts with punk groups names. At the end of his comic zine, you may also find the parody of advertisements promoting punk T-shirts and Owedyk’s comics, which can be seen in Figure 4.

Figure 4

Owedyk, K 1999 Blixa i Żorżeta, p. 31. Prosiacek Publishing © Krzysztof Owedyk.

Owedyk draws much more efficiently than Jan Plata-Przechlewski and Palinowski, paying more attention to handling chiaroscuro and filling the background with details. It is important to point out that in all these cases analysed, the underground style is largely a matter of deliberate choice and not a lack of skill. For example, a trained eye will recognise various borrowings in the Piglet’s latest cartoons not only from Polish and foreign comics, but also from the history of art and literature, for example, The Bible, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet or classical slapstick comedies. In his stories, there is a clear distortion and subordination of the plot to ideological considerations. Owedyk showcased his artistic talents in his magnum opus of the 1990s—the iconic underground comic album Ósma czara (The Eighth Chalice), released in 1994. He not only wrote the script and drew the pictures, but also self-published the album. The original story revolved around the main character’s post-apocalyptic search for his girlfriend, who was damned by God and sent to hell.

Prosiak eloquently combined biblical themes with science fiction in this album, making an interesting contribution to postmodern discussions about the role of religion in life and the erosion of Christian symbolism in pop culture, which can also be found in Anglo-Saxon mainstream comic series such as Hellboy or Hellblazer. The absence of the punk nickname Prosiak on the cover of the book and the more realistic style and thoughtful themes might suggest that the author planned to join the mainstream. Nonetheless, some of his later characters, like Ratboy, were still associated with music subcultures. Today, the original edition of Owedyk’s 1994 album is a coveted purchase for collectors.

In 2016, Owedyk once again focuses on counterculture and music with the graphic novel Będziesz smażyć się w Piekle (You Will Burn in Hell, 2016), loosely inspired by the phenomenon of the international careers of Polish bands Vader and Behemoth. This album received many comic awards in Poland. It is important to indicate that Owedyk’s two ‘post-punk’ graphic novels exhibit a completely different style. Ósma czara is drawn with densely dotted, realistic black-and-white images that are somewhat reminiscent of Francophone science fiction comics and the works of Grzegorz Rosiński, a Polish artist who emigrated to Belgium and created the Thorgal series there. The drawings in You Will Burn in Hell are more cartoonish, a bit like other modern foreign graphic novels about music such as Die Band by Mawil (Markus Witzel, 2004) or The Garage Band by Gipi (Gianni Pacinotti, 2005), linking influences of manga aesthetics and Francophone style. In addition, all these comics focus on the friendship between the musicians at the beginning of their careers and operate with a quirky sense of humour. In 2017 the rights to the movie adaptation of Owedyk’s latest album were sold to Polish film producers. The unique status of Prosiak’s artwork was also honoured by the fact that the publisher Kultura Gniewu printed some of his most interesting stories from 1990 to 2020 in an omnibus album in 2020. Unfortunately, Owedyk still is not widely known among younger Polish comic fans often called the generation of TM-Semic, a term indicating their interest mainly on American superhero culture.

Probably the most politically radical artist of Polish underground comic zine culture is Ryszard Dąbrowski. In Poland, he is known for his satirical cartoons for magazines and the controversial newspaper NIE (NOT), which shocked Polish society in the 1990s under the leadership of former communist propaganda expert Jerzy Urban. Dąbrowski is an art school graduate who began his career with images for punk zines in the late 1980s and Lagazeta writings of the Lublin Anarchists, later known as LAGA – Lublin Autonomous Group of Anarchists. Likwidator was his comic book debut. It was first published in 1995 as a 16-page zine issue under the aegis of Lagart. His character is a fanatical eco-anarchist fighter who kills all “enemies of the environment”. Such an attitude concerns not only skinheads, militiamen and priests (from the early stories), but also well-known Polish politicians and celebrities. Sometimes Likwidator travels through time to help anarchists in important historical events. For example, he joins the Makhnovshchina (also known as the “Makhno movement”) in Ukraine, where he joins the Ukrainian peasantry in 1920 and fights to establish anarchist communism in the country. In another album he travels to Spain in 1973, where again in the name of anarchy he kills and opposes the fascist forces of General Franco. Dąbrowski’s graphic style develops entirely in line with the themes he deals with in his strips and full comic albums. Starting from local subculture wars, his character gradually gets involved more into the fight with the world of Polish politics and some global issues connected with ecology. The first short stories from the 1990s resemble the awkward black-and-white drawings by Palinowski (his protagonist even meets the Kowalski brothers from Pała’s comics in one of the early strips, which can be seen in Figure 5). They are drawn without sophisticated backgrounds and with the heavily satirical faces of the Likwidator antagonists emphasising human ugliness. Newer artwork is more carefully designed. Likwidator wears black punk boots, a black uniform and a black motor helmet with a huge painted smile recalling the mask known from Spider Man’s Venom. The particularly colourful covers of all the albums remind the reader that their author is an experienced cartoonist who has been publishing his works about politicians in the press for many years. Despite these mainstream press connotations, the visual organisation of panels in the Likwidator stories is often disturbed by the large amount of text since their antihero loves long monologues linked to ecocriticism, the history of anarchism and counterculture (quoting Marx and Marcuse but avoiding Mao). Dąbrowski uses pure black and white contrasts to highlight the unyielding character of his antihero. He also likes vulgar eroticism drawn in a style resembling Robert Crumb’s artwork. The male characters are often skinny and small (especially when they represent domestic politicians), while women are sometimes presented from a misogynistic perspective, which can be seen in Figure 5.

Figure 5

Likwidator meets Kowalski brothers.

Dąbrowski, R 2001 Likwidator: Trylogia, p.57 Warszawa: Kultura Gniewu © Ryszard Dąbrowski and Kultura Gniewu.

His works not only continue to shock readers, journalists and critics, but also once divided Polish scholars. Dariusz Czubaj finds similarities in the ultra-violent stories about Likwidator to the works of Quentin Tarantino (Czubaj 2007: 118–119). The Polish researcher also draws attention to this character’s countercultural inspirations from 1960s American comix and motorcycle subcultures. This may, however, be an overinterpretation, because apart from riding a motorcycle and wearing a leather jacket and helmet he follows quite different ideological aims than, for example, American Hell’s Angels, focusing on activities connected mainly with ecoterrorism. Other academics mainly accuse his comics of unjustified vulgarity and kitschy violence (Kochanowski, Stasiewicz 2013: 71).

The strange case of Dąbrowski’s anti-hero worried some representatives of the Polish government. This is probably why Likwidator was included in the special report for the Polish Ministry of Justice dealing with prejudice and discrimination against Christians where Dąbrowski’s comics are portrayed as a threat to Polish culture, together with the anticlerical characters from Krzysztof Prosiak Owedyk’s comics and Frank Miller’s Sin City series (Lisiecka 2021: 12–14). The influence of Dąbrowski’s antihero for domestic comic culture was awarded by a two-volume tribute anthology called Likwidator Alternative, published in black and white by Zin Zin Press and in colour by Timof i Cisi Wspólnicy in 2007, where most known Polish artist presented their stories about this beloved Polish underground comic character. Drawn in different styles domestic anti-hero fights here not only politicians but also space invaders, yuppies and other surreal characters.

The works of Dąbrowski and Owedyk were also published in another popular magazine AQQ, headed by Witold Tkaczyk. In the early 1990s, it was the only magazine that informed about what was happening in the world of Polish comics. It was published from 1993, officially distributed from 1995 and ceased publication in 2004. More details on influences of AQQ and Traczyk on the Polish independent comics market will be presented in the second part of this essay.

Other photocopied publications had a shorter lifespan but were the places where many important authors from the beginning of the 21st century made their debuts. For example, Michał śledziński started to present his artworks in the fanzine Azbest (The Asbestos), Tomasz Leśniak and Rafał Skarżycki cooperated with Mięso (Meat), Mateusz Skutnik co-created Vormkfasa, Dominik Szcześniak edited Ziniol, Rafał Szłapa published in Lekarstwo (Medicine), many works of Marek Turek appeared in various fanzines etc. Mateusz Zapała in his research on the domestic comic market indicates that:

The share of the “underground” in the Polish comics market in the 1990s was huge. According to calculations […] based on the bibliography of zines and Anthology of Zines between 1989 and 2001 by Dariusz Ciosmak, in the last decade of the 20th century, about 20 percent of zines published in Poland (over 200 known titles) published comics. Some of them focused only on picture stories (Zapała 2013: 213).

However, from all these zines only one played a special role in the transformation of the Polish comic underground to mainstream in the first decade of 21st century. It was called Produkt.

PART TWO: From Produkt to Comic Anthologies and Transnational Comic Culture

The Phenomenon of Produkt Magazine

One of the most important changes in Polish comics after 1989 took place at the end of 1999. At that time, Produkt appeared with the comic Osiedle Swoboda (Liberty Estate) by Michał śledziński, who still uses the nickname ‘śledziu’ (The Herring) and was the editor-in-chief of the magazine. This publication is also significant because of the way it was produced. It was run off in a professional print shop on high-quality paper, given a colourful cover (but black and white comics inside) and could be bought in some bookstores. Due to these factors, Produkt can be seen as a bridge between the underground zines and the commercial comic magazines that appeared in Poland in the new millennium, such as Kaczor Donald (Donald Duck) or świat Komiksu (The World of Comics), both published by Egmont. At the same time, it has also retained some aspects of the underground character associated with subcultural verbal skirmishes, parodies of commercials (as well as vulgar erotic announcements) and many footnote comments that can only be understood by a limited fandom audience. Like Palinowski’s and Owedyk’s zines, there are jokes about the skinhead subculture (the very first issue features a fake cover picture of a gay skinhead band called Nazijungs on the first page). The strategy of making fun of the mainstream press also appears in the first issue through the grotesque allusions to the teen magazine Bravo (here called Klawo, a Polish slang equivalent of English adjective cool), which can be seen in Figure 6. However, due to the vulgar language, subversive themes, and shocking drawings, as well as the rather low profit policy (editors and artists did not receive any money for their work), Produkt cannot be considered a full-fledged comic magazine.

Figure 6

The subversive parody of the teenage Bravo magazine in first issue of Produkt magazine.

Śledziński, M 1999 Produkt #1 p.1, Dec. Bydgoszcz: Independent Press © Michał śledziński.

Tomasz Pstrągowski, in his essay on autobiographical themes in contemporary Polish comics, points out that the magazine, despite its zine character at the beginning, finally broke out of the “underground ghetto” and reached a larger group of comics fans:

Śledziński managed to gather around him the most talented comic artists and scriptwriters of his generation and create a magazine that appeals to young readers in their own language. The impressive print run of 20,000 copies of the first issue of Produkt was possible because Marcin Przasnycki – co-founder of the legendary video game magazine Secret Service, which previously published śledziński’s illustrations – was involved in the project (Pstrągowski, 2015: 36).

The most obvious personalities associated with the magazine (besides śledziński) were Bartosz and Tomasz Minkiewicz, the authors of the mockery story about the superhero from Opole—Wilq. Vulgar language, absurd villains, and surreal adventures became the hallmarks of Wilq strips, as well as parodic references to American comics and transnational pop culture. Not only quotes from classical Superman albums may be found here, but Lovecraftian imaginary and gangster TV dramas as well. Certainly, the creators of Wilq play with the underground style, but their thematic interests are closer to street culture than to (post)punk sensibility. All these features helped stories about Wilq to quickly gain popularity. Nowadays they are sold in colour omnibus editions but are still published by the independent publishing house developed by one of the Polish post-superhero creators. On top of that, the stories about Wilq were even adopted for an animated series in 2019 (co-produced by the Polish private television station Polsat) and a theatre play (directed in 2019 by Remigiusz Brzyk in Teatr śląski im. Stanisława Wyspiańskiego in Katowice).

The most important comic run that appeared in Produkt was Osiedle Swoboda. śledziński’s artworks vividly differed from the strips of Polish punk artists of the late 1980s. The psychological portraits of his characters were more sophisticated, and he paid great attention to details and backgrounds. He also liked to change styles, sometimes using the aesthetics regarded by him as “music video montage” (without speech bubbles and text, but, again, with recommended music) or moving to a childish cartoon aesthetic in some strips. More often, śledziu mixed his images, collages and graffiti inspirations with various written narrative forms such as footnotes, biographies and often vulgar inside jokes. In contrast to the previous generation of zine authors, he can be described as the artist of the late 1990s, fully aware of the new street culture but still more devoted to the alternative music of the 1990s (with band names often appearing in the background of graffiti walls, T-shirts, posters, and some footnotes commentaries, which can be seen in Figure 7) than to hip-hop. Polish researchers point out that śledziu played just as important an editorial and PR role with Produkt as Robert Crumb did with Zap! Comix in the 1960s (Pstrągowski 2018: 112). Thanks to Osiedle Swoboda and characters such as Wilq, Produkt quickly gained great admiration among comic fandom, which was reflected not only in an increase in the popularity of the authors associated with it, but also in the growing interest of other publishers. It is not surprising that Produkt and Osiedle Swoboda were, despite their guerrilla anti-profit policy, also a significant success for their creator. Regrettably, the publication of the magazine ceased in 2004 with a total of 23 issues. Mateusz Zapała points out in an article on the Polish comics market that the magazine:

gained recognition among lovers of the graphic medium and led to a strengthening of demand for Polish comics, especially satirical and socially engaged ones. Paradoxically, it was the increasing popularity of Polish comics that contributed to the bankruptcy of Produkt. Lovers of picture stories preferred to buy “full-length” albums by “producers” instead of magazines. They were published at their own expense (e.g. Wilq by the Minkiewicz brothers) or by larger publishers (e.g. Egmont). Poznan’s magazine [published by Independent Press] was also affected by rising production costs (Zapała 2013: 219).

Figure 7

The atmosphere at the independent ‘gig’ with graffiti and T-shirts of śledziński’s famous bands and the author’s personal footnote commentary.

Śledziński, M 1999 Osiedle Swoboda, p. 7 Produkt #1 Dec. 1999 Bydgoszcz: Independent Press © Michał Śledziński.

From 2004, when Osiedle Swoboda began to appear in separate albums (published by śledziński’s imprint called Independent Press) śledziński switched from black and white to colour images. The omnibus edition of his opus magnum, which Kultura Gniewu compiled for the first time in two volumes in 2017, also contains modified footnote narratives. This time, they mainly contain autobiographical memoirs by śledziu, who describes his career as a comic maker, his life in 1990s and the beginnings of Produkt.

In addition to Osiedle Swoboda and his magazine, śledziński worked on many different projects such as Filo i Mel (Filo and Mel), a mainstream comic series that appeared in various magazines and was also published separately by Egmont in 2001, or Wartości Rodzinne (Family Values), published by Kultura Gniewu. In 2014, he presented the first part of the post-apocalyptic comic series entitled Strange Years: Jesień (Strange Years: The Autumn, with the script by Artur Kurasiński) online. An English version of this story was also prepared to encourage some foreign readers and publishers. Nowadays śledziński is widely recognised in Poland.

He appears in documentaries on domestic comic books and works on several animated series and films (often based on Polish comics), mainly developed by the studio Human Ark.

Conclusions: The Legacy of Punk Comic Zines and Produkt

While the first generation of punk comic zines neither received great popularity in Poland, nor gained transnational success, they are still fascinating and creative documents of the struggle for freedom of expression, which came to a happy end with the abolition of censorship in April 1990. Polish society no longer suffers from institutional censorship, but extravagant artists can still be accused of offending religious feelings, for example, and face prosecution.

The domestic independent and underground press were also a great help for younger cartoonists who debuted in magazines such as Produkt in the 1990s or at the beginning of the 21st century and developed their unique style thanks to the inspiration of the subversive anaesthetics of the “punks”. Artists such as Clarence Weatherspoon (the nickname of Janusz Pawlak), Robert Adler or Jakub Rebelka (both known from AQQ zines and later taken by Kultura Gniewu) are slowly but effectively working on their international careers. Pawlak published the adventures of his steam-punk samurai Toshiro in the U.S., which debuted in 2004 in Produkt (Dark Horse, 2014). Robert Adler drew the images for the prequel to the award-winning adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep called Dust to Dust (BOOM! Studios 2010, with a script by Chris Roberson). The most promising Polish transnational artist seems to be Jakub Rebelka, who started his career in AQQ and Czerwony Karzeł zines, is one of the creators of Jim Henson’s The Storyteller: Sirens (2019, Archaia), the illustrator of the post-apo dystopia Origins (published from 2021 by Boom! Studios, with the script of Clay Chapman), as well as The Judas mini-series (2018, Boom! Studios, Jeff Loveness’ script) and many other foreign projects.

The memory of the underground heritage in Poland is celebrated at the most important comic festivals, where special zines are distributed for free every year to promote some debuts. In a way, it can be said that this form of comic expression is now also part of official culture, as many cultural and educational institutions (such as the Comics Library at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań) publish their zines thanks to digital printing technology.

However, there are still artists for whom the independence and contestation inscribed in the formula of the fanzine are very important elements. Even if they no longer publish by photocopying, these authors publish zine-like issues and call them zines. There is a gender swap as well, as these new publications are often the place of creativity for female artists. Among them are authors like Anna Krztoń and Edyta Bystroń, who use their work to challenge the excessive masculinity of Polish comics while creating a model of relationship between the creator and the recipient based on direct contact. Their zines are sold at events where meetings, lectures and workshops are also held. Many of them still have a countercultural flavour, deal with uncomfortable and uneasy topics (like LGBT governmental persecutions in Poland) and use underground styles. In a way, the spirit of punk comic press is now continued in Polish webcomics too. After the parliamentary elections on October 15, 2023, the new government’s cultural policy seems to be less conservative, but it is difficult to predict how this situation will affect the domestic comic culture.

Acknowledgements

The authors thank to The Comics Grid reviewers and editors for feedback which made the research more comprehensible for non-Polish readers.

Competing Interests

The authors have no competing interests to declare.