JFKLN
**For all photo galleries below, just click to enlarge! Then, to scroll through the images, just use the left and right arrow keys!
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Jim paints murals as well as illustrates concert posters, handbills, special event posters and music album artwork (including a swimming pool!).
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See the videos below from “A Poem is a Naked Person” and you’ll see what I mean. Jim always has an opinion about everything.
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Jim was the official Master of Ceremonies at the Armadillo World Headquarters (see photo to the left).
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Jim co-owned the Ritz Theatre on 6th Street for 18 months.
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Jim regularly contributed to The Rag and other underground zines and comics throughout his career.
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Jim was the lead in his retro-fifties rock band, Ramon Ramon and the Four Daddyo’s!
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Jim has single-handedly made the Armadillo the symbol for the Austin counterculture.
Poster artist, painter, Master of Ceremonies, Armadillo aficionado, philosopher, club manager and pumpkin stomper, Jim Franklin (80 years young on Dec. 30th, 2023), has become almost as much of a local icon as the nine-banded creature he has done so much to popularize throughout his life’s artworks.
Per a “chance” meeting with a few beatnik guys from Austin, who promised a creative community and plenty of LSD, Franklin was lured to the capital city in ’65, helping open and operate Austin’s original psychedelic rock club, the Vulcan Gas Company.
Jim Franklin (along with Gilbert Shelton), helped pioneer a new visual style and vocabulary for the underground scene through music posters and handbills, continuing this tradition with a larger group of artists known as the Armadillo Art Squad at the famous Armadillo World Headquarters music and arts venue from 1970-80, displaying his surrealistic specialties in numerous modes.
Doubling as the official Master of Ceremonies for the venue, Jim wore an Armadillo helmet, antlers and black cape as he gave performances between music sets - described as a “lecture-scream-screetch-slip-slide stage routine. Although Jim has “Kept Austin Weird” for over 50 years, he continues to make it look natural…
Enjoy our online exhibit of this National Treasure, as we celebrate the continued art of JFKLN!
Jim’s Album Cover artwork:
Jim’s Comics:
Jim’s Poster Art and comics:
(and misc.)
SOURCES:
Online Article: Spin: The Man Who Made Austin Weird
Online article: Austin Monthly: How Jim Franklin Turned the Armadillo Into Texas' Counterculture Mascot
Youtube Video: The South Austin Show with Artly Snuff featuring Jim Franklin
Youtube Video: Armadillo Rising: Austin’s Music Scene in the 1970’s
Documentary: A Poem is a Naked Person by Les Blank
Book: Armadillo World Headquarters by Eddie Wilson
Book: Austin Originals; Chats with Colorful Characters by Robyn Turner
Book: The Improbable Rise of Redneck Rock by Jan Reid
Book: Celebrating the Rag; Austin’s Iconic Underground Newspaper, edited by Thorne Dreyer, Alice Embree and Richard Croxdale
Instagram page (by yours truly, David Keller): KeepAustinATX
And with help from the AUSPOP community and Leea Mechling of course…