Jay Lynch, key figure in revolution of comics . By Richard Sandomir New
York Times . NEW YORK - Jay Lynch, an artist, writer, and satirist who
was a central figure in the underground comics revolution of the 1960s
and '70s, died March 5 at his home in Candor, N.Y. He was 72. His
cousin Valerie Snowden said the cause was lung cancer. Mr. Lynch, who
had a wry, deadpan sense of humor, held strong views about the
importance of underground comics, which differentiated themselves from
the mainstream through raunchy and grotesque depictions of sex, drugs,
and violence. "Underground comix were the most important art movement
of the 20th century," he wrote, using the "comics" spelling preferred
by underground cartoonists, in the introduction to "Underground
Classics: The Transformation of Comics Into Comix" (2009), by Denis
Kitchen and James Danky. "Copies of many of the early books sell to
collectors for many thousands of dollars," he continued. "It's all
quite ironic: Rebellious cartoonists mocking consumer culture were
inadvertently producing collectible artifacts for the same consumer
culture 40 years down the road. Mr. Lynch played several roles in the
underground comics world. Using a retro style with a tight
crosshatching technique, he created comics like "Nard n' Pat," about a
conservative man who bickers with a hip cat. "It was sweetly rooted in
the past," cartoonist Art Spiegelman said in an interview. "Two
characters who oddly refracted the themes of old comic strips but now
they surrealistically dealt with sex, drugs, and cheap thrills. Mr.
Lynch founded Bijou Funnies with his fellow cartoonist Skip Williamson
to publish his work and that of other artists, and acted as a publicist
for the loosely defined industry. "He put people together," said
Patrick Rosenkranz, who is writing a biography of Mr. Lynch. "He
publicized what was going on. In the back of Bijou, he had small free
ads for other underground comics. He was a crossroads figure. But his
most significant role might have been as an archivist of underground
comics history. He kept nearly everything from his teenage years on:
letters, original art, comics, fan magazines, merchandise, and
publicity campaigns. He donated it all to the Billy Ireland Cartoon
Library and Museum at Ohio State University. "We have letters between
14-year-old Art Spiegelman and 17-year-old Jay talking about their
favorite EC Comics and Mad magazines - and about reading the first
issue of Spider-Man," said Caitlin McGurk, the museum's associate
curator. Mr. Lynch's early life was a bit unconventional. Jay Patrick
Lynch was born in Orange, N.J., in 1945, and grew up in Belmar. His
father, William, and his mother, the former Alice Mangan, divorced when
he was young, and he was raised in his grandmother's house, surrounded
by aunts, uncles, his cousin Snowden, and his grandfather. At 11, he
moved with his family to Miami, where he focused on his artwork,
painting murals for neighbors' homes and stage sets for school
productions. He later moved to Chicago, where he attended the Art
Institute. The education that pointed him to his future in underground
comics was provided by Mad magazine, whose editorial mastermind was
Harvey Kurtzman, and The Realist, a satirical political journal. "After
reading my first issue of The Realist, I was in a daze which almost
bordered on frenzied religious ecstasy," Mr. Lynch was quoted as saying
in Rosenkranz's book "Rebel Visions: The Underground Comix Revolution"
(2008).
