 richard alden "rick" griffin (june 18, 1944&nbsp;â august 18, 1991) was an american artist and one of the leading designers of psychedelic posters in the 1960s. as a contributor to the underground comix movement, his work appeared regularly in zap comix. griffin was closely identified with the grateful dead, designing some of their best-known posters and album covers such as aoxomoxoa. his work within the surfing subculture included both film posters and his comic strip, murphy. ==surf's up== griffin was born near palos verdes amidst the surfing culture of southern california. griffin biographer tim stephenson notes: :his father was an engineer and amateur archaeologist and as a boy rick accompanied him on digs in the southwest. it was during this time that rick was exposed to the native american and ghost town artifacts that were to influence his later work. rick was taught to surf by randy nauert at the age of 14 at torrance beach. the pair had met at alexander flemming jr. high, and were to become lifelong friends, rick producing much of the artwork for randy's future band, the challengers. while attending nathaniel narbonne high school in the harbor city area of los angeles, he produced numerous surfer drawings, which led to his surfing comic strip, "murphy" for surfer magazine in 1961, with griffin's character featured on the front cover the following year. in 1964, he left surfer and briefly attended chouinard art institute (now [[california institute of the arts|cal
1944_births 1991_deaths Album-cover_and_concert-poster_artists American_comic_strip_cartoonists American_comics_artists History_of_San_Francisco,_California Motorcycle_accident_victims Poster_artists Psychedelic_artists Road_accident_deaths_in_California Underground_cartoonists