Visually, there's that and so much more: riffs on the tabloid graphics and movies and TV of several eras, put together in a smooth yet kinetic collage form that provokes its own brainy tingle without distracting from the narrative. Mavrides gives much of the credit for this potent potpourri to his collaborators, notably artist Mimi Heft and Mann.

This film's sly parade of images illustrates the growth of marijuana-phobia in the 20th century, from its roots in Anglo fear of Mexican migrant workers to its installation as part of a nagging Puritan tradition. Frame by frame, "Grass" boasts the genuine eclecticism that has characterized Mavrides' 25-year career. He's done multimedia installations and album covers; punk-meets-Dada sketchbooks and iconoclastic paintings on black velvet; and, perhaps most notorious, straight-faced proselytizing for a phony religion based on the concept of Slack compiled in volumes like "Revelation X" and "The Book of the SubGenius."

When it comes to "signature" or "line," Mavrides is not the kind of underground-comics whiz known for a single identifiable style. Before he began work on "Grass," he waged a five-year war to win comic-book artists in California the same intellectual-property rights as other authors. State investigators told him they thought he had to be a conglomerate, because they didn't think any man could work so skillfully in so many modes.

"Grass" suggests that, next to working on sweeping, sardonic political noir serials like "The Big Dream" in Salon Comics' "The Dark Hotel," designing movies might be the best way for Mavrides to unite his diverse talents. The film is frankly one-sided -- and not without cause. I recently ran across an article called "The Weed" in, of all places, the July 19, 1943, issue of Time. Though it was pegged to the arrest of hot-jazz drummer Gene Krupa, partly for possession of marijuana, it was remarkably fair. The anonymous Time writer stated, "Some of the finest flights of American syncopation, like some of the finest products of the symbolist poets, owe much of their expressiveness to the use of a drug." He went on to note that "some specialized workers find that marijuana stimulates their faculties" and that "because of its non-habit-forming character, doctors have recently been experimenting with the drug as an aid in curing opium addiction."

Unlike circa '43 Time, contemporary media coverage has often been indistinguishable from government agitprop. That official slant makes one forgiving of this movie's funky single-mindedness.

Still, the one area of "Grass" that's multifaceted is its graphics. "Go see the movie!" Mavrides jovially shouted into my tape recorder when I interviewed him last week in his home in San Francisco's Mission District. I say, "See it for Mavrides!"

I don't know whether I should attribute it all to you, but what makes the film work for me is its visual energy. How did the producer-director, Ron Mann, first hook up with you? Was it when he was doing his 1988 documentary, "Comic Book Confidential"?

Yeah, that was my initial contact with him. He did a couple of interviews with me and his sound didn't work out. But then he came up with the idea of me drawing the opening credits in the style of all the various cartoonists that were covered in the movie -- roughly 21 people. Talk about the magic of film: We were having a heat wave. It was 105 degrees in here when the crew showed up, put black canvas over the windows and then flipped on 35 mm lights. So I ended up drawing all that while it was about 120 degrees. They'd shut the camera off every couple of minutes so you wouldn't see the sweat falling on the paper. You actually see me creating the work and wrecking it as soon as it's done.

In the great tradition of Picasso destroying art he created for the film "The Mystery of Picasso"?

[Laughs] No, the wreckage was a special effect. And the crew opted for me having a staged reaction to that disaster rather than my true one: When they inquired what my real reaction would be, I said, "Oh, I'd probably grab your camera and throw it through the picture window and shriek obscenities." So they settled on me just going "Aaiiiieeee!"

I came to "Grass" about three years ago. Ron just called me out of the blue. He said, "I want to hire you to art-direct the new project, a documentary on marijuana prohibition." I expressed flattery at being asked and then warned him that I had no film experience or animation experience directly, aside from watching endless amounts of film and cartoons. But he put his faith in me. He basically said, "Well, you're a smart guy; you can figure out how to produce the footage I need." So I went up to Toronto to work with him. We blocked out the movie with 3-by-5 cards, according to a chronological history of the legal events of this century pertaining to the subject. We just started chopping the film together, and along the way I had to boost my computer equipment, learn programs. It was a strange experience. I don't usually have to turn out finished work while I'm reading the tutorial of the program, but it also made me consider, "Maybe making movies is a lot easier than most people think." The one thing that does make making movies real easy is having a huge budget, which we didn't have.

But compared to underground comics' budgets ...

It's the big time.

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