Paul Mavrides (born 1945) is an American artist, best known for his critique-laden comics, cartoons, paintings, graphics, performances and writings that encompass a disturbing yet humorous catalog of the social ills and shortcomings of human civilization.
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Mavrides came to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1975, and was soon working with SF-based comics creator Jay Kinney on a weekly panel cartoon for the Rip Off Press, titled "Cover-Up Lowdown." This strip satirized political coverups of the day as well as those of recent history such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Mavrides was the co-creator and illustrator of the underground comic book The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers with Gilbert Shelton. He is a founding member of the Church of the SubGenius, having been a member of the organization since its earliest days. He is a co-author of Revelation X : The 'Bob'Apocryphon: Hidden Teachings and Deuterocanonical Texts of J.R. "Bob" Dobbs. [1] Mavrides was also credited as art director for Grass, a 1999 documentary on marijuana.
In 1978, Mavrides joined Gilbert Shelton to co-produce Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers comic stories and was soon joined by Dave Sheridan on the team. Together, with Shelton and Mavrides writing and Mavrides, Sheridan and Shelton producing the artwork, the three of them produced the comix that were later collected into Freak Brothers issues numbers 6 and 7.
Following Dave Sheridan's death from complications of cancer in 1982[2], Mavrides once again became Gilbert's steady partner in all further Freak Brothers material. The two of them embarked on an ambitious project (begun in 1982 and serialized in issues 11 and 12 of the Rip Off Comix series, but not published in the Freak Brothers Comix series until 1984): a full color, three-volume story arc entitled "The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers in The Idiots Abroad." In 1985 Shelton, who had spent parts of 1979 and 1980 in Europe, moved back to Europe for good and the Freak Brothers collaboration became a trans-Atlantic affair. The last full issue of new Freak Brothers material came out in 1992.
In 1991, Mavrides protested against a resolution by the State of California to levy a sales tax on comic strips and comic books. He challenged the law in court, with assistance from the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, arguing that the comic strip is a communications medium that should be classed with books, magazines, and newspapers (which are not subject to sales taxes due to First Amendment provisions).[3] In 1997, a ruling in Mavrides' favor was handed down by the California State Board of Equalization.[4]