Manuel “Spain” Rodriguez, born 1940 in Buffalo, NY, first gained fame as one of the founders of the underground comix movement of the 1960s. After drawing comics in New York for the East Village Other, he moved to San Francisco where he joined Robert Crumb and other artists on Zap Comix. Spain’s early years with the Road Vultures Motorcycle Club, and his coverage of the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago as a reporter for EVO are chronicled in his collection, My True Story (1994, Fantagraphics Books). Along with autobiographical stories and politically-oriented fiction featuring his best-known character, Trashman, Spain has produced a number of historical comics. His story of Poe’s astonishing choice for a posthumous literary agent, The Inheritance of Rufus Griswold, originally appeared in Arcade in 1976 and was reprinted in Graphic Classics: Edgar Allan Poe. New illustrations by Spain are in Graphic Classics: Jack London and Graphic Classics: Bram Stoker. Spain’s current work can be seen in the online comic The Dark Hotel at www.salon.com. He recently illustrated a book of Sherlock Holmes stories, available from Word•Play, Inc., www.word-play.com.