"It's 1967, the Summer of Love. Roy Looby, a gifted young cartoonist, throws off the stifling embrace of his mentor, the legendary strip man Ed Biggs, and heads west to join the dropouts and musicians in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury. In the reckless spirit of the times, Looby creates the Imp Eugene, an angry, libidinous comic-book character who is a far cry from Biggs's signature figure, Derby Dugan - the cheerful icon of a more innocent and optimistic generation. Just like his real-life counterpart, the hippie cartoonist R. Crumb, Looby is soon celebrated and vilified for his creation. And then he disappears, rumored to have lost his mind during the drug-fueled creation of a comic-strip masterpiece."--BOOK JACKET.