Guy Colwell was born in Oakland, California in 1945. He studied two years at the California College of Arts and Crafts and worked as a toy sculptor for Mattel in 1966. In 1968, he was imprisoned for draft resistance and spent two years in jail. He started working on his first comic book in 1972, 'Inner City Romance, in which he depicted tales of political repression, violence and ghetto and prison life.
For Guy Colwell comics happened in two distinct eras: in the political, communal 1970s he worked on underground comix with social consciousness, doing strips and illustrations for the San Francisco Good Times, working on his 'Inner City Romance' comics and being in the middle of a vibrant comic artist community (Last Gasp) that partied and worked closely together. In the more commercial 1980s he moved to Auburn, California where he worked on 'Doll' and other adult comics for Rip Off Press and being isolated from the comic scene he knew before.
Colwell left the comic scene in 1990 to return to his life's work of painting. He completed a 700-square-foot rainforest wall at the Oakland zoo, a large canvas based on Minoan Crete for Café Mediterranean in Berkeley, and is presently working on a series of wildlife murals for the Placer Nature Center in Auburn.
Overview of underground comix
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Guy Colwell fine art