Born in 1940, Gilbert Shelton's unlikely first venture into the world of comics was doing strips for Boy Scout publications when he was still at school. At university in Austin, Texas, he became editor of the official student magazine, The Texas Ranger for $100 an issue. This was to prove Shelton's last 'real job', for in 1968, after contributing to various underground Comix with his earliest character Wonder Wart-Hog, and designing posters for rock concerts, he created The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. Soon after, with some friends he set up Rip Off Press in San Francisco, from where Freak Brothers strips were soon syndicated, borrowed (or stolen) by a host of underground newspapers and magazines. The first actual Freak Brothers comic was published in 1971. Fat Freddy's Cat, the feline world's number one cat, started out as a footnote strip to the Freak Brothers but since 1975 has led an independent and very successful life of his own.