AIGA has a nice bio on the professional life of underground comic book publisher Denis Kitchen.
Kitchen also endured his share of hardships. In 1976 his local printer, who had no previous qualms about running Bizarre Sex and Dope Comix on his presses, decided to draw the line with Wet Satin: Women's Erotic Fantasies, edited by Trina Robbins. A willing printer was procured in San Francisco where, notes Robbins, "they'll print anything."In the mid-1980s Michael Correa, manager of Friendly Frank's, a suburban Chicago comics shop, was convicted of possession and sale of obscene materials. Among the titles was KSP's Bizarre Sex and Omaha, the Cat Dancer, written by Kate Worley and illustrated by Reed Waller (Fig. 16). As a publisher, Kitchen felt a responsibility to fight the verdict. He organized a fund-raiser, which garnered more than $20, 000, and was able to hire expert First Amendment litigator Burton Joseph. Consequently, an appellate court acquitted Correa. After Kitchen had paid the legal costs, he decided to use his few thousand in surplus to establish a permanent nonprofit group to help oppose similar injustices in the future. He established the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund in 1986 and served as its president for its first 18 years.
