God Nose (Snot Reel), Jack Jackson, 1964

Jack Jackson, who signed his work Jaxon, made God Nose in Austin, Texas, and ran it off after hours at the Texas State Capitol print shop. Its 1964 date is why so many histories open with it as the first underground comic book, though Frank Stack's photocopied Adventures of Jesus has a rival claim. The photo shows a later Rip Off Press printing. The joke is all in the cover: a crowned, sneakered God dribbling the Earth like a basketball toward a hoop, about as far from a 1964 newsstand comic as anything could get.