Comic Artist Reference Library: Gary Panter

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the Comic Artist Reference Library. I originally created this as a place to store artist's images that inspire me when doing my own comic book work. Hopefully it will be useful to you as well. The nature of this site is not to include every comic book artist ever known, and there are dozens if not hundreds of tremendously talented artists whose work will not be featured here, but my goal in being so selective is to help others to discover artists and images that will help unlock their own creativity and introduce them to work they were perhaps unfamiliar with before. This type of thing is always a "work in progress", so please feel free to e-mail me suggestions, pictures, or anything that might help it to be more useful. Thanks. -Eric

When Gary Panter first gained recognition in the late 70s/ early 80s, he was immediately aligned with the hip social movement of the time, which was punk rock, and this label more or less fit his early offerings. But as his art developed and his themes became more complex, this label seemed limited in scope. While there is a certain haphazard punk aesthetic that runs through Gary's body of work, but his commentaries on the confusion of consumerism and post apocalyptic themes are much more complex than simple nihilism. In retrospect, to me Gary seems somehow hinged to post modernism with a truly experimental edge, yet leaving the pretensions behind. His narrative in "Jimbo Adventures In Paradise" moves between being humorous and linear on one page, to chaotic and tragic on the next. Gary's work won't allow us to merely pass it off under any easily prescribed definition.

Buy or Die compilation album cover

Jimbo trying to diffuse a nuclear bomb. "Jimbo Adventures In Paradise", circa 1989.
Perhaps one of the most intense sequences I've ever read in comics.