Griffin biographer Tim Stephenson notes: While attending Nathaniel Narbonne High School in the Harbor City area of Los Angeles, he produced numerous surfer drawings, which led to his surfing comic strip, "Murphy" for Surfer magazine in 1961, with Griffin's character featured on the front cover the following year.

In 1964, he left Surfer and briefly attended Chouinard Art Institute (now CalArts), where he met his future wife, artist Ida Pfefferle as well as the Jook Savages, a group of artist-musicians with whom he took part in Ken Kesey's Watts Acid Tests on February 12, 1966.

[4] Griffin was intrigued by the psychedelic rock posters being designed by Stanley Mouse and Alton Kelley so after taking time out for a Mexican surfing trip, Rick and Ida headed to San Francisco to check out the scene.

In 1967, Griffin, Kelley, Mouse, Victor Moscoso and Wes Wilson teamed with photographer Bob Seidemann as the founders of Berkeley Bonaparte, a company that created and marketed psychedelic posters.

His most significant 1970s project was the creation of hundreds of paintings and drawings for The Gospel of John, published by the Christian record label Maranatha!