from comixjoint:A couple years after dropping out of college, an aspiring artist named Jim Pinkoski began working at Comics and Comix, a Berkeley comic-book retailer and distributor run by Bud Plant, Bob Beerbohm and John Barrett. Surrounded by comic-book creators and publishers, Pinkoski demonstrated his exceptional illustration skills with contributions to Spaced Out and Lair of Madness in 1972. The following year, Comics and Comix hosted the first-ever underground comix convention in Berkeley and acquired 4,000 Golden Age comic books that helped finance future company business, including the publication of Pinkoski's solo comic-book series, Spaced. Spaced was one of the first publishing ventures Comics and Comix pursued in 1974, along with Jack Katz's The First Kingdom. Pinkoski began working on the series when he was only 23 years old, but he was already a gifted illustrator with a solid command of anatomy and a flair for unusual layouts and compositions. The series ran for three issues and all featured sci-fi/fantasy stories with occasional spiritual overtones, sort of in the mold of Heavy Metal, which wouldn't debut in the states until after Spaced had completed its eye-catching little run. Every issue featured some hard-core scenes of sex and nudity, which Pinkoski would come to regret. Well, he more than regretted them, he burned them in a funeral pyre. Pinkoski had been raised Presbyterian, but his family wasn't very observant during his childhood. But in the San Francisco area, after more than 15 years living it up as a hippie artist and wicked sinner, Pinkoski became a reborn Christian at the end of 1984. His turnabout was so complete that he burned all copies of underground comics in his possession, including his own, and renounced everything he had done as an underground creator. In the three decades since, Pinkoski has used his professional energies to proselytize the salvation offered by Jesus, putting out more than a dozen books and magazines and writing many articles (some can be seen on his website). Pinkoski is a Seventh-day Adventist, a devoted disciple of Ron Wyatt, and believes in the imminent second coming of Jesus Christ. I'm not quick to disparage religious individuals (churches are another matter), but by more than one account Pinkoski has established himself near the lunatic fringe of Christianity. Even his own church has dismissed many of the beliefs that Pinkoski doggedly espouses. Which makes it all the more amusing to view Pinkoski's detailed drawings of naked little girls, spread eagle sorceresses, and throbbing cocks slipping in and out of dripping cunts. Pinkoski won't even acknowledge the existence of these comics today, but we all know what you did last summer, Jim.