It is quite likely that most of the creators of this comic were heavily stoned on one or more drugs when they produced their stories for
Hee Hee Comics, because much of the book is either stupid or just plain incomprehensible. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with drug-influenced cartooning. Plenty of great comic stories and even entire comic books have been produced by people who regularly consumed. But perhaps these contributors didn't know where to draw the line; "Okay, I'm pretty stoned now... but am I high enough to work on Hee Hee?" Then again, maybe that was the whole point of the book (see below).
In any case, Larry Rippee contributed a fine front cover and a pretty good lead story for
Hee Hee Comics. At this point, the comic could have gone either way, but it heads slowly downhill from there. D. Angstead's "The Necker Cube" is a mediocre confrontation between Jesus and Satan; Tom and Rick Veitch provide what is probably their weakest effort ever (in three one-pagers scattered through the book); Leonard Rifas and Hector Tellez hit personal lows; and then most of the rest of the book is taken over by people I have never heard of before or since
Hee Hee.
The indicia indicates the book was published by The Company & Sons and produced "in conjunction with The San Francisco Comic Book Co., Gary E. Arlington, prop." That little note tells you all you need to know about the origins of
Hee Hee Comics. Arlington's comic book shop, opened in 1968 on 23rd Street in the Mission District, was the
epicenter of the early underground movement. Various underground creators congregated there every day, sometimes jamming on comics, getting stoned and/or dropping acid after hours in the shop.
Hee Hee Comics was most likely produced under very similar circumstances.
So, although it's a pretty shitty comic book, I can hold
Hee Hee Comics in higher regard than other shitty undergrounds because of the nature of its production. Shitty or not, any book so closely associated with the daily activities of Gary Arlington's San Francisco Comic Book Company can be considered a treasured artifact of underground comic book history.
HISTORICAL FOOTNOTES:
It is currently unknown how many copies of this comic book were printed. It has not been reprinted.
