Ode To Underground Cartoonist Vaughn Bode
Comic Book Superstar, Animation Inspiration, Godfather of Graffiti Art.
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Scores of graffiti art’s greatest masterpieces, many of which now exist only in the frames of documentary films like Style Wars and on the pages of pictorials like the book Subway Art, feature distinctive-looking characters created by the late underground cartoonist Vaughn Bode. (Rumor has it that a controversial animated film does, too.)
Presented here, in observance of Bode’s 78th birthday and the 44th anniversary of his passing is a brief biography on one of the most influential but little-known artists in American pop culture.
The Birth of Cheech Wizard
Vaughn Frederic Bode was born in Utica, NY on July 22, 1941. From a very early age, the young Bode displayed an uncanny tenacity for drawing and for combining words with pictures. It was an extraordinary gift that helped to lay the foundation for a fantastic world of cartoon characters that would set the imaginations of millions ablaze.
And so it was, sometime in the year of our Lord 1957, at the age of sixteen, that Vaughn Bode first penciled the cartoon sorcerer of dubious magical powers draped in an…
