The Last Times

Summary

The Last Times was a tabloid underground newspaper published in San Francisco in 1967 by beatnik poet and printer Charles Plymell. It lasted only two issues, but included work by William Burroughs, Claude Pelieu, Allen Ginsberg, and Charles Bukowski.

The Last Times
TypeNewspaper
FormatTabloid/Alternative newspaper
Founder(s)Charles Plymell
PublisherCharles Plymell
Founded1967; 57 years ago (1967) in San Francisco
Ceased publication1967; 57 years ago (1967)
HeadquartersSan Francisco, California, U.S.

The Last Times featured William Burroughs' text Day the Records Went Up,[a] Claude Pelieu's Do It Yourself & Dig It, Allen Ginsberg's poem "Television Was A Baby Crawling Toward that Deathchamber",[b] and a Charles Bukowski column.[c]

The Last Times #1 and 2 also contained articles by French avant-gardist Jean-Jacques Lebel and Man Suicided by Society by Antonin Artaud, translated by Mary Beach, Plymell's mother-in-law.[2] Issue #1 also contains the first Plymell printed work of R. Crumb that Plymell had "lifted" from the second issue of Yarrowstalks (a Philadelphia-based underground newspaper).

Plymell subsequently earned a bit of immortality in the underground press by publishing only the first printing of Robert Crumb's Zap Comix #1,[3] which Don Donahue took over from Plymell when he purchased his Multilith 1250 printing press soon after.[4]

Notes edit

  1. ^ A version of which later appeared in Evergreen Review, November 1968.
  2. ^ Also published in Ginsberg's book T.V. Baby Poems, London: Cape Goliart Press, 1967.
  3. ^ Collected in his Notes of a Dirty Old Man, reprinted from the Los Angeles-based underground journal Open City.[1]

References edit

  1. ^ Open City vol. 2, #20 (Sept. 14–21, 1967).
  2. ^ Bookseller's description (with photo)
  3. ^ Zap Comix entry at the Grand Comics Database. Accessed October 27, 2009.
  4. ^ Crumb, R. "Minds Are Made to be Blown," The Complete Crumb Comics - Volume 4 (Fantagraphics, 1988). Archived on Crumb on Crumb (official R. Crumb website).

External links edit

  • Charles Plymell and ‘Now‘, Reality Studio blog
  • Charley Plymell: Zap and S. Clay Wilson