"So I Called It 'Life in Hell'"

"In addition to being cartoonist-in-residence, Groening's duties also included paste-up, writing a music column and delivering the paper on Thursdays.
"'One of the most gratifying things about doing a comic strip,' he says, 'was that Gary Panter and I used to walk down the street and were thrilled if we saw a newspaper in the gutter and our strips were in the drain water. We'd say, "Oh, my God, we're part of the landscape!"'"

Ben Schwartz in the Los Angeles Times recalls the 1980s heyday of underground comics in Southern California.