Bad Attitude: The Art of Spain Rodriguez is director Susan Stern's tribute to her late husband, underground cartoonist Spain Rodriguez. Rodriguez was a joy-riding, fist-fighting, juvenile delinquent who grew up to be a socially conscious bad ass cartoonist who stayed in touch with his biker roots. He contributed to underground papers, High Times, and various anthologies through the '60s and '70s and is probably most widely known for his work in the Zap comix anthology alongside Crumb and S. Clay Wilson. He produced graphic novels including a biography of Che Guevara and an autobiographical collection called Cruising with the Hound.
Some of his recurring characters included Trashman, a defender of the working class in a dystopian America, and Big Bitch, an oversexed gumshoe who also hates The Man. Some contemporary viewers might be unable to reconcile his social justice and class struggle stories with a couple of his other stories that contain sexist and homophobic violence, but it's all here for the viewer to think through in context and come to their own conclusions.
You can watch Bad Attitude, as well as the entire 2021 Slamdance slate of films, through February 25th with a $10 festival pass.
