Rip Off Press facts for kids
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| Founded | 1969 |
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| Founders | Fred Todd, Dave Moriaty, Gilbert Shelton, Jack Jackson |
| Headquarters location | San Francisco (1969–1987) Auburn, California (1987–present) |
| Publication types | Comics |
| Fiction genres | Underground comix |
| Imprints | Iguana Comics (changed to Magnecom in 1993) |
Rip Off Press Inc. is a comic book mail order retailer and distributor, better known as the former publisher of many seminal publications from the underground comix era. Founded in 1969 in San Francisco by four friends from Austin, Texas — cartoonists Gilbert Shelton and Jack Jackson, and Fred Todd and Dave Moriaty — Rip Off Press is now run in Auburn, California, by Todd.
Rip Off Press is notable for being the first company to publish the fourth edition of the Principia Discordia, a Discordian religious text written by Gregory Hill and Kerry Thornley.
In January 17, 1969, the company was founded in San Francisco by four Texans: Fred Todd, Dave Moriaty, and cartoonists Gilbert Shelton and Jack Jackson. The initial plan was to print rock band promotional posters on an old press and do comics on the side — in some ways the company was formed as a sort of cartoonists' cooperative, as an alternative publishing venue to other Bay Area publishers like Apex Novelties, Print Mint, and Company & Sons. The four men purchased a used Davidson 233 offset printing press and set up shop in the same space as Apex Novelties, located on the third-floor ballroom of the former Mowry's Opera House, at 633 Laguna Street in Hayes Valley.
After a fire almost destroyed the opera house in late 1969, Rip Off moved to the decaying former headquarters of the Family Dog psychedelic rock music promotion collective (which Jaxon had been a member of starting in 1966). Rip Off Press was located at 1250 17th Street in San Francisco from 1970 until 1985.
By 1972, the poster printing business had faded away and the company had become a publishing house.
After bouncing back and forth between Europe and the Bay Area in the late 1970s and early 1980s (thanks to the money he received from Universal), co-founder Shelton and his wife permanently relocated to France in 1984.
In mid-1985, the company moved from 17th Street to a smaller space on San Jose Avenue near the city's southern border, with warehouse space across town at the Bayview Industrial Park. This three-story, block-square building, which housed over a hundred other businesses, burned to the ground on April 6, 1986, following an explosion in an illegal fireworks factory in the basement.
Freed of a 17-year accumulation of comics and other paraphernalia, Fred Todd (at this point the only original partner still working in the business) decided to relocate Rip Off Press to Auburn, California (part of the Sacramento metropolitan area), where he and Kathe continued to run the company while raising their two small children. The move was made in June 1987.
After the collapse of the direct market in the early 1990s (fueled by Marvel Comics' withdrawal of its 40% market share from the distribution system), Rip Off Press began cutting costs and gradually retreated from publishing.
By 1997, it had shifted its business to selling backlist comics in its store and to mail-order customers, plus to the fans finding them online. The Todds moved the business to much smaller quarters adjoining their home in 1999, where they continue to sell comics, mostly through the company website.
The website was disabled for a time in 2011–2012, during which time it was completely redesigned and a large number of collectors' items (including historic ad pieces, rare press sheets, publisher's overlay proofs from the company's publishing history, and more) were added to its offerings.
