After the peace & love of Woodstock, the fury and disaster of Altamont… December 1969. Woodstock and the Flower Power wave have swept the East Coast and in response, the West Coast turns up the decibels with a festival of their own on the Altamont racetrack in Northern California. The biggest bands are booked, The Rolling Stones are headlining, and 300,000 people are expected for this peace, love, and rock’n’roll event. Jenny and her friends hop in their Volkswagen van and road trip from Los Angeles, the smell of marijuana trailing behind them, the promise of good music and good times ahead of them. Shortly after their arrival, tensions rise, a fight breaks out in the crowd, and pandemonium ensues. Hired to ensure security and paid in beer, the Hells Angels begin moving the crowd away from the stage with bats and chains, but the poorly organized event quickly spirals out of control and the dream of a ‘Woodstock West’ takes a deadly turn. Altamont follows the story of Jenny and each of her friends as they navigate love, friendship, and their own personal demons all while trying to make it out of the concert alive. It was supposed to be a beautiful, free festival—a celebration of love and sharing. Instead, the Altamont Speedway Free Festival became the symbol of the end of an era. Illustrated by the artist of The Walking Dead in a vintage style borrowed from pop art of the 1960s, Charlie Adlard and Herik Hanna mix fact with fiction as they explore this infamous moment in cultural history by giving us a disenchanted portrait of a free and dreamy youth, marked by the Vietnam War.
