Roger Brand

Roger Brand (January 5, 1943 – November 23, 1985) was an American cartoonist who created stories for both mainstream and underground comic books.

Born in New Mexico, Brand grand grew up in El Sobrante, California, where he was friends with cartoonist Joel Beck.

Brand and Beck were classmates at De Anza High School, and they remained lifelong friends.

In 1966, Brand and his wife Michele moved from Oakland, California, to New York City, specifically to break into the comics business.

[4][5] Dan Adkins, who also had been Wally Wood's assistant, remembered working with Brand: I did a story called "The Haunted Sky."

[6]By the late 1960s Roger and Michele were back in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Entering the underground comix field, Brand initially did comics for the tabloid Gothic Blimp Works, and later for such titles as Banzai!, Candid Press, Insect Fear, Tales of the Leather Nun, Yellow Dog, and Young Lust.

Real Pulp became a springboard for cartoonist Bill Griffith's Zippy the Pinhead.

As Griffith recalled, "In San Francisco in 1970, I was asked to contribute a few pages to Real Pulp Comics #1, edited by cartoonist Roger Brand.

"[8] In late 1976, while renting a room in Gary Arlington's house in the Mission District, Brand began working at Robert Beerbohm's comic book store Best of Two Worlds, located at 1709 Haight Street in San Francisco.

Brand died of liver failure at age 42, on November 23, 1985, in San Francisco,[2] at Joel Beck's house, where he had been living for some time.

Tales of Sex and Death #1 (Print Mint, Apr. 1971), with cover art by Brand