Real Free Press

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The Real Free Press

Amsterdam in the 1970s

The first issue of the Real Free Press was of November 1968 - the business died around 1980. The height of the Underground Press. Hippie time. Run by Olaf Stoop and Martin Beumer, it grew out of the Provo scene and was the only publishing house I know of that ran on dope money. Their shop was affectionately known as boek en dopie among the clientèle. In the start, it was weed, but later this changed to cocaine, which took away all the fun: They never produced much after the Blue Lady really took over. The end really came when Olaf got busted in 1978, just about when we left Holland. After a series of solid quarrels, Martin went to live on Mallorca. Neither lived to see the New Millenium.

The RFP published The Real Free Press magazine, ÉHÉ-CATL, Witzend, original strips and reprints from some of the greatest strips, books, produced recordings, my movie Cosmic Comics, and imported comics, magazines, books, recordings; all definitely not only "underground".
As many artists, especially musicians, had exclusive contracts for Europe with other publishers, at Olaf Stoop's request I established the Real Free Press International Foundation in Curaçao, Netherlands Antilles to publish and distribute those guys.

RFP 1978 list

The Real Free Press magazine was printed in tabloid size. #1 had 5 sheets, # 6 had 6 (20-24 pages). No color. Almost all issues were entirely hand-lettered by Olaf. As far as contents are concerned, it's a strange hodge-podge. Olaf himself was a guy with great sophistication, and at the same time incredibly naive. The RFP carries articles pushing scientology, something Olaf would have been dead against, had he but known. He was a True Believer in Arthur Conan Doyle's notorious tales of Fairies and fell completely for the infamous Alternative 3 and Illuminati hoaxes. On the other hand, that's where I first found Sprague de Camp's wonderfully skeptical books on mysteries.
Martin, an ex-sports instructor, was more together. Both were very nice people to get along with, while it lasted.

Martin Beumer

strips, strips, strips
A lot of the magazine was taken up by strips, the most obvious names being Robert Crumb and Gilbert Shelton. So, gradually, as Milt Gross would say, a sideline developed. Strips were reprinted, first in tabloid magazine format, Witzend (4 issues), which was followed by EHÉ-CATL #1, another tabloid dedicated mainly to Mutt & Jeff but containing many other classic strips. After that, most publications were in color, with a lot of color separation work done by Joost Swarte.

1973, The Incredible Upside-Downs of Gustave Verbeek

Wallace Wood

Joost Swarte

Bringing Up Father - Geo. McManus

The Modern Gulliver by Windsor McCay

Will Eisner

George Herriman

Armadillo III
Jim Franklin

El Gringo

Basil Wolverton

tobacco rolling papers

designed by Joost Swarte and Ramon de Sousa

records

Jerry Samuels, once taken away

Indonesian beasts

movies

Cosmic Comics
produced by Olaf Stoop
director Harrie Verstappen
based on the strip by Victor Moscoso

hoax

The book is not bad at all, but Olaf and Martin (who translated) were shocked and incredulous when I figured it to be a hoax. More on it here. Enjoyable enough, don't get me wrong. Joost Swarte did the artwork, which alone would be worth the price. Nice Work, If You Can Get It.

Well, you can now, after a fashion - I have produced this copy on CD.

Some of all this I have double - those are for sale:
Armadillo III - Powerhouse Pepper - Red Blades of Cathay - WITZEND # 4 (Wood/Eisner/Frazetta)
The Bintangs
rolling papers
Sorry! only empty covers left!
Also in stock: ZAP Comix # 6 (1975)

Prices of strips:
I charge twice the new price, adjusted for inflation plus shipping;
only high-rate Air Mail is possible from here. Pay by PayPal.
Interested?

Olaf Stoop

More that you might want to buy:
paintings by Yayoi Kusama

Rebel Visions

Patrick Rosenkranz
The Underground Comix Revolution
1963-1975

Solid Strips

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