View source for Dan O'Neill

{{short description|American cartoonist}}
{{Redirect|Odd Bodkins||Odds bodkins (disambiguation)}}
{{Other people}}
{{BLP sources|date=July 2010}}
{{Infobox comics creator
| image         = Dan ONeill 1982.jpg
| imagesize     = 
| caption       = O'Neill in 1982
| alt           = 
| birth_name    = 
| birth_date    = {{Birth date and age|1942|04|21}}
| birth_place   = 
| death_place   = 
| nationality   = [[People of the United States|American]]
| area          = 
| cartoonist    = y
| write         = y
| art           = 
| pencil        = y
| ink           = 
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| publish       = 
| letter        = 
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| alias         = 
| signature     = <!-- very optional -->
| signature_alt = 
| notable works = ''Odd Bodkins''
| awards        = Yellow Kid Award, Grand Guinigi, 1975
| website       = [http://DanONeillComics.com DanONeillComics.com]
}}
'''Dan O'Neill''' (born April 21, 1942) is an [[People of the United States|American]] underground [[cartoonist]], creator of the syndicated [[comic strip]] ''Odd Bodkins'' and founder of the [[underground comics]] collective the [[Air Pirates]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://lambiek.net/artists/o/oneill_dan.htm|title=Dan O'Neill|website=Lambiek Comiclopedia|access-date=2016-05-03}}</ref>

== Education ==
O'Neill attended the [[University of San Francisco]], making contributions to the ''[[San Francisco Foghorn]]'', the school newspaper.

==''Odd Bodkins''==
{{Redirect|Odd Bodkins||Odds bodkins (disambiguation)}}
''Odd Bodkins'' began its run in 1964 in the ''[[San Francisco Chronicle]]'' when O'Neill was 21 years old.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://comixjoint.com/danoneillscomics.html|title=Dan O'Neill's Comics and Stories|website=Comixjoint.com|access-date=2016-05-03}}</ref> The strip consisted of the adventures of Hugh and Fred Bird. During the course of the strip's run, it increasingly reflected O'Neill's life in and his critique of 1960s [[counterculture]]. Though he considered himself a strong writer, O'Neill said of his artwork, "I had a very weak line. Either that or palsy."{{citation needed|date=October 2016}}

As ''Odd Bodkins'' became increasingly political, O'Neill feared that the ''Chronicle'', which held the strip's [[copyright]], would fire him and hire another artist. The ''Chronicle'' had axed ''Odd Bodkins'' a few times already, but it had been reinstated following reader protests.<ref>Albright, Thomas. [https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/visuals-underground-cartoonist-dan-oneill-165228/ "The creator of ‘Odd Bodkins’ tries to keep his message pure while avoiding the censorship that would erase him,"] ''Rolling Stone'' (SEPTEMBER 3, 1970).</ref> O'Neill decided on an odd tactic to regain control of his strip: he would engage in [[copyright infringement]], which he reasoned would force the paper to surrender the strip's copyright back to him for fear of being sued. O'Neill worked 28 [[Walt Disney]] characters, including [[Mickey Mouse]] and [[Pluto (dog)|Pluto]], into the strip. In late November 1970, the ''Chronicle'' fired O'Neill for the final time but did not continue to run the strip.

In 1972, during O'Neill's legal battles with Disney over ''Air Pirates Funnies'', the ''Chronicle'' finally transferred the copyright of ''Odd Bodkins'' back to O'Neill.

===Air Pirates and Disney lawsuit===
{{main|Air Pirates}}
<!--[[File:Airpirates.jpeg|thumb|left|''Air Pirates Funnies'' #1 (July, 1971-->
O'Neill decided to become an underground comic book mogul and gathered other young artists into a collective called the Air Pirates, whose members included [[Bobby London]], [[Gary Hallgren]], [[Shary Flenniken]] and [[Ted Richards (artist)|Ted Richards]]. Their two-issue series ''Air Pirates Funnies'' included parodies of Mickey Mouse and other copyrighted characters, which led to a famous lawsuit by [[The Walt Disney Company]]. O'Neill took the lead in fighting the suit, promoting it as a free-speech case in his "Mouse Liberation Front" campaign. He and Richards were the last Air Pirates to settle with Disney after a long, highly publicized and expensive legal battle. Although criticized for engaging in a legal conflict that seemed pointless, O'Neill had no regrets taking this stand on principle, saying, "Doing something stupid once is just plain stupid. Doing something stupid twice is a philosophy."<ref>{{cite web |last1=Friendlystranger |title=Disney, The Air Pirates, and The Lion King |url=https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2010/1/14/825195/- |website=Daily Kos |access-date=3 October 2023}}</ref>

==Other work==
In the midst of the Disney lawsuit, O'Neill traveled to [[Ireland]] and later to [[Wounded Knee, South Dakota]], where he pioneered the genre of [[Comics journalism|comic strip journalism]] with ''The Penny-Ante Republican'', a four-page, single-sheet comic which sold for one cent, and which told stories of O'Neill's experiences with the [[Irish Republican Army]] and the [[American Indian Movement]].  For this work, the 11th [[Lucca Comics & Games|international Congress of Cartoonists and Animators]] would present him with the [[Yellow Kid Award]] in 1975.

O'Neill later drew a short-lived, full color strip for the ''[[National Lampoon (magazine)|National Lampoon]]'' about the adventures of the Bat-winged Hamburger Snatcher, and returned to the ''Chronicle'' with a weekly strip, titled simply ''O'Neill'', which ran from 1980 to 1985. The final year of ''O'Neill'' was reprinted in ''[[Comics Revue]]''.

Dan O'Neill was one of twenty-two artists and writers featured in the documentary ''Comic Book Confidential''. He was interviewed while playing pool next to two scantily clad women. He describes his career as "if you're going down in flames you might as well hit something big."

In 2008, he appeared in the documentary film ''[[RiP!: A Remix Manifesto]]'', which discussed the negative effects of [[copyright law]]s. O'Neill stated that he made fun of Disney in large part because they were the worst at using lawsuits to stifle parodies, spoofs, and other [[fair use]] commentaries.

== Awards ==
* 1975 Yellow Kid Award<ref name=WhosWho>[http://www.bailsprojects.com/bio.aspx?Name=O%27NEILL%2c+DAN O'Neill entry], ''Who's Who of American Comic Books, 1928-1999''. Accessed Oct. 8, 2016.</ref>
* 1975 Grand Guinigi: Best Foreign Artist<ref name=WhosWho />
* 1979 [[Inkpot Award]]<ref>[https://www.comic-con.org/awards/inkpot Inkpot Award]</ref>

==Personal life==
O'Neill currently lives in [[Nevada City, California]], where he continues to draw ''Odd Bodkins'' and is a director in the Original Sixteen to One gold mine.<ref>{{cite web
| url = https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/74925/000007492518000002/tenkseventeena.txt
| publisher = Securities and Exchange Commission
| title = Form 10-K/A Original Sixteen to One Mine, Inc.
| date = 2018-05-02
| access-date = 2018-12-26
}}</ref><ref>{{cite web
| url = http://www.origsix.com/potential.asp
| publisher = The Original Sixteen to One Mine
| title = The Company
| access-date = 2018-12-26
| archive-date = 2010-09-14
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100914143130/http://www.origsix.com/potential.asp
| url-status = dead
}}</ref>

==Bibliography==

===Comic books===
*''Dan O'Neill's Comics and Stories'' Vol. 1, #1–3 ([[Company & Sons]], 1971)
*''Dan O'Neill's Comics and Stories'' Vol. 2, #1–2 ([[Comics and Comix]], 1975)
*''Air Pirates Funnies'' Vol. 1, #1–2 (Last Gasp, July–August 1971)
*''The Tortoise and the Hare'' #1 (Last Gasp, October 1971)
*''The Three Little Pigs'' (1971) — one-shot, part of the Air Pirates campaign{{citation needed|date=October 2016}}
*''Air Pirates Funnies'' tabloid (Air Pirates Collective, July 1972)
* ''Penny-Ante Republican'' (self-published, 1972–1973)
<!-- * ''Disney Rapes the First Amendment'' (c. 1974) -->
* ''Hoksila and his Friends'' (1975)
*''COG'' (1998) — smaller than "[[digest size]]" comic with single story{{citation needed|date=October 2016}}
*''Odd Bodkins'', National Lampoon, Jan 1977
天啊，我已经好几英里没见过任何动物了......

===Collections===
*''Buy This Odd Bodkins Book'' (Decorative Design Pub., 1965)
*''Hear the Sound of My Feet Walking... Drown the Sound of My Voice Talking: An Odd Bodkins Book'' (Glide Urban Center Publications, 1969)
*''[[The Collective Unconscience of Odd Bodkins]]'' (Glide, 1973)
*''The Log of the Irish Navy'' (Hugh O'Neill and Associates, 1983)
*''Farewell to the Gipper'' ([[Eclipse Books]], 1988)

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
*{{official website|http://Danoneillcomics.com}}
*[https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8h999sq/ Dan O'Neill Comic Art Archive]
*[http://origsix.com Original Sixteen to One Mine, Inc.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050224091111/http://www.origsix.com/ |date=2005-02-24 }}
*[http://films.nfb.ca/rip-a-remix-manifesto/?film=7 RiP! A Remix Manifesto (Chapter 8)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110717233056/http://films.nfb.ca/rip-a-remix-manifesto/?film=7 |date=2011-07-17 }} O'Neill talks about Air Pirates in the Brett Gaylor's documentary
{{Inkpot Award 1970s}}
{{Underground comix cartoonists|state=collapsed}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Oneill, Dan}}
[[Category:American comic strip cartoonists]]
[[Category:Underground cartoonists]]
[[Category:American people of Irish descent]]
[[Category:American satirists]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:1942 births]]
[[Category:Artists from San Francisco]]
[[Category:Comedians from San Francisco]]
[[Category:Inkpot Award winners]]