In early 1968, Robert Crumb and Don Donahue got together with Charles Plymell,
who had a hand-fed printing press upon which they printed upwards of a few thousand copies
of what later has proved to be one of those key seminal comic book in American history
such as Action Comics #1, or Amazing Fantasy #15.
The covers and guts of the books were hand-collated & hand-bound
in Crumb's San Francicso Mission District apartment.
A percentage of the print run was destroyed in a loft fire soon thereafter.
According to my own personal interviews with Don Donahue, Robert Crumb,
Moe Moskowitz, as well as others who were "there" in the beginning of the myths,
in-depth information which will be in my forthcoming comic book business history book,
asking about aspects of the "origin" of Zap Comics's origins being printed in Feb 1968,
Crumb and Donahue spent maybe two hours trying to hawk these "Plymell" Zaps
from a baby carriage at the corner of Haight & Ashbury to the wandering masses plying the street.
They sold just a few for 25 cents each, realizing they were not going to get rich quick this way.
They then walked across the street to Moe Moskowitz's Haight store,
being the same Moe world-famous for his Moe's Books in Berkeley,
asking Moe if he would be interested in maybe selling this brand new comix book.
Moe then walked the two to the back of the store where Martin McClain,
then Moe's distribution man for Moe's Third Eye Distribution,
servicing some 200 head shops and college book stores ringing San Francisco Bay
distributing Berkeley Barb, East Village Other and Rolling Stone,
was getting ready to run the weekly route.
Moe asked Martin what he thought .
Martin said let's try 1000 copies on consignment,
placing five copies in each of their outlets.
This became their 4th item product.
When Martin came back thru the next week,
all copies were sold out every where.
They ordered another thousand, and those sold out,
and very soon the Plymell edition was completely sold out.
The second printing ZAP COMICS #1 "Donahue" edition exists because Moe ordered 5000 copies,
with Don printing up some extras to see to others who were asking.
Around the same time Donahue and Crumb brought all the pieces
for what was supposed to be ZAP COMIX #1
which became what we have here, ZAP COMICS #0
In April 1968 Moe Moskowitz invited Robert Crumb, Don Donahue, S Clay Wilson,
then-famous Fillmore/Avalon poster artists Rick Griffin & Victor Moscoso,
Peggy Rita and his long-time friend from Greenwich Village days, Don Shenker,
the latter two being two of four owners of Print Mint, over to his Berkeley house.
There they struck a deal to take Zap Comix "national" with ZAP COMIX #2.
with art by Crumb and invited creators Rick Griffin, Victor Moscoso, S. Clay Wilson,
with Moe loaning Print Mint $10,000 and an initial print run of 20,000 copies.
Print Mint also took over making new reprints of ZAP #1 and #0,
printing 20,000 of each of those as well.
Print Mint soon thereafter became a magnet for many cartoonists submitting more UG comix.
Since 1968 there have been innumerable printings of ZAP COMICS #1, now with over a million copies sold.
If you see the CRUMB! documentary Terry Zwigoff made and released thru Sony in 1995,
in the scenes in a comic book store, just for the record, it was my own Haight Ashbury store,
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