[7] Created after Bodē's stint in the U.S. Army, Das Kampf has been called "a war-themed spoof on Charles Schulz's 1962 book Happiness Is a Warm Puppy.

"[6] With money borrowed from his brother Vincent, Bodē photocopied about 100 copies of the 52-page book and (mostly unsuccessfully) attempted to sell it around the Utica area.

After an initial run in The Sword of Damocles, the strip continued for a few more years in The Daily Orange, the student-written newspaper at Syracuse University.

In 1968, Bodē illustrated the cover & interior art for R. A. Lafferty's science fiction novel Space Chantey, published by Ace Double.

Discovered by fellow cartoonist Trina Robbins, Bodē moved to Manhattan in 1969 and joined the staff of the underground newspaper the East Village Other.

[8] At the East Village Other, he helped found Gothic Blimp Works, an underground comics supplement to the magazine, which ran for eight issues, the first two edited by Bodē.

Bodē's post-apocalyptic science fiction action series Cobalt 60 featured an antihero wandering a devastated post-nuclear land, seeking to avenge the murder of his parents.

(Cobalt-60 was later "completed" in the early 1980s by Bodē's son Mark Bodé, with stories by Larry Todd, who was Vaughn's friend and collaborator in the 1960s on projects for Eerie, Creepy, and Vampirella magazines.)

Beginning in 1972, Bodē toured with a show called the "Cartoon Concert", that featured him vocalizing his characters while their depictions were presented on a screen behind him via a slide projector[8] (in a performance similar to a chalk talk).

He next did the Concert at Bowling Green State University,[3] and eventually performed it at several comic book conventions, including the November 1972 Creation Con in New York City.

"[8] Thirty-three years old at the time of his death, Bodē's ashes were dropped from a Cessna airplane over the waters off the coast of Point Reyes.

[3] His son Mark Bodé is also an artist, producing works similar to the elder Bodē's style, and further cementing his father's legacy.