Last Gasp is one of the largest and oldest publishers and purveyors of underground comic books in the world, as well as being a distributor of all sorts of weird 'n' wonderful subversive literature, graphic novels, tattoo and art books. If you ever wondered how such an institution first came into existence, Here's the story - once upon a time at a Christmas or New Year's party in the Berkeley hills almost thirty years ago, someone handed a very stoned graduate psychology student a copy of ZAP™ Comix and rekindled a forgotten love of comic books. "I remember reading it and remarking how close it came to the heightened mind-experience one got when stoned," recalls Ron Turner, owner and founder of Last Gasp. "It brought back all my love of comics, but in an adult form that I could appreciate. I went into the back room and started reading the damn thing over and over".

Forty years later Last Gasp is a major force in today's counterculture.