Dir: Susan Stern / USA / 78mins / 2021

Doc NYC – Official Selection

Australian Premiere

Moving, thought-provoking, both personal and political, Bad Attitude: The Art of Spain Rodriguez explores the controversial art and life of the legendary underground cartoonist through the lens of his wife, Emmy-nominated filmmaker Susan Stern.

From the propaganda comics of WWII, to the underground comics breakthrough in 1960s New York and San Francisco, to the graphic novels of today, Bad Attitude is an enthralling history of comics and a rousing call to art and activism.

“Spain…was a cartoonist whose radical politics and hyperbolic macho imagery, all presented with sly humour, were influential elements in the rise of underground comics. (He) was part of a wave of artists — including R. Crumb, S. Clay Wilson and Bill Griffith— who established the irreverent, profane, highly sexed, antiwar, anti-capitalist spirit of underground comics.”

The New York Times

Melbourne Design Week Film Festival curated by Richard Sowada