Binky Browns publication, Green asked Spiegelman to contribute a three-page strip to the first issue of Funny , which Green edited and was published by Apex Novelties. Spiegelman delivered the three-page "Maus" in which Nazi cats persecute Jewish mice, inspired by his father's experiences in the Auschwitz concentration camp; years later he revisited the theme in the graphic novel of the same name. Comics critic Jared Gardner asserts that, while underground was associated with countercultural iconoclasm, the movement's most enduring legacy was to be autobiography. Binky Brown went out of print for two decades after selling its initial print runs, during which time enthusiasts traded copies or photocopies. Green made his living painting signs, and contributed occasional cartoon strips to various publications. Green used the Binky Brown persona over the years in short strips and prose pieces that appeared in underground periodicals such as Arcade and Weirdo. "Sweet Void of Youth" in 1976 follows Binky from high school to age thirty-one, torn between cartooning and more respected forms of art. Aside from occasional one-off strips, his more regular cartooning appeared in the ongoing strips The Sign Game, in Signs of the Times magazine, and Musical Legends in America, in Pulse! Such later work has attracted far less attention than Binky Brown. Though autobiographical elements had appeared earlier in the work of underground cartoonists such as Crumb, Spain, and Kim Deitch, Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary has gained credit as the first important work of autobiographical comics in English. To Charles Hatfield Binky Brown is "the ur-example of confessional literature in comics"; for Paul Gravett Green was "the first neurotic visionary to unburden his uncensored psychological troubles"; Douglas Wolk declared Green and his work "ahead of the memoirist curve"; Art Spiegelman declared: "What the Brontë sisters did for Gothic romance, what Tolkien did for sword-and-sorcery, Justin Green did for confessionary, autobiographical "; and Publishers Weekly called the work the "Rosetta Stone of autobiographical comics". Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary has appealed mostly to comics fans and cartoonists, and has gained little recognition from mainstream audiences and arts critics. Spiegelman has speculated this neglect comes from the nature of the comics medium; in contrast to explicit works such as Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint, the penises in Green's work are visual. According to underground historian Patrick Rosenkranz, Green represents a break with past convention by being "the first to