Harry Driggs


Harry Driggs was an American artist, graphic designer, political activist and underground cartoonist who designed the leafy graphic logo for California's Green Party. In June 1967 the San Francisco Diggers published a small edition of his pioneering 28-page underground comic The Life and Loves of Cleopatra, an obscene travesty inspired by the Elizabeth Taylor film Cleopatra, which they gave away free in the Diggers' Free Store at the corner of Cole and Carl in Haight-Ashbury. This small first edition was issued anonymously without the knowledge or permission of Driggs, who left for New York City where he joined the staff of the radical newspaper The National Guardian. When he returned to San Francisco in 1969 he authorized Don Donahue to bring out a new, redrawn edition under the pseudonym "R. Diggs". A third edition was self-published by Driggs in 1977 and Rip Off Press put out a reformatted fourth edition with new comix by Driggs in 1991.
He was a longtime resident of San Francisco, where he worked in advertising as a graphic designer and art director. He served as art director for the underground newspaper Good Times where he recruited Trina Robbins to draw for the paper. In the 1980s he joined the newly-formed Green Party, for which he designed posters, newsletters, and other materials, and did design work for local non-profits. He also contributed to Rip Off Comix and Last Gasp's Anarchy Comics. Two volumes of his political cartoons were published by Rip Off Press in 1977 and 1979, under the title Great Diggs.