Last Gasp is a San Francisco based publisher, distributing and publishing the art, writing and photography of the underground for over 50 years.
Last Gasp was founded in 1970 to publish an ecological comic book for the first Earth Day. Their first publication, Slow Death Funnies #1, came out on April 15, 1970. Subsequent comics included the all-women's comic It Ain't Me Babe and Skull Comics. Autobiographical comics and underground themes have been the driving force behind many of Last Gasp's groundbreaking publications. Last Gasp published Justin Green's highly acclaimed confessional Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary in 1972, a book that became an inspiration to many artists now working in the autobiographical style. "Art Spiegelman, who won the only Pulitzer Prize for cartooning, has said he would never have started to do the autobiographical story of his family (in the graphic novel Maus) unless Justin had done it first. And Robert Crumb said the same thing," said Last Gasp founder Ron Turner. In business since 1970, Last Gasp continues to publish graphic novels, manga, pop culture, and punk literature.