Gary Panter (born December 1, 1950) is an American cartoonist, illustrator, painter, designer and part-time musician. Panter's work is representative of the post-underground, new wave comics movement that began with the end ofArcade: The Comics Revue and the initiation ofRAW, one of the main instigators of Americanalternative comics.The Comics Journal has called Panter the "Greatest Living Cartoonist".^[3]

Panter has published his work in various magazines and newspapers, includingTime andRolling Stone, and in notable comics anthologies such asRaw,BLAB!,Zero Zero,Anarchy Comics,Weirdo,Kramers Ergot, andYoung Lust. He has exhibited widely, and won twoDaytime Emmy Awards for his set designs forPee-wee's Playhouse.^[4] His most notable works includeJimbo: Adventures in Paradise,Jimbo's Inferno, andFacetasm, the latter of which was created together withCharles Burns (and which won aFirecracker Alternative Book Award).^[5]

Panter was born inDurant, Oklahoma, and grew up inBrownsville, Texas, andSulphur Springs, Texas.^[6] He attendedEast Texas State University, where he studied underJack Unruh and Lee Baxter Davis, and became part of the group of artists known as "The Lizard Cult."^[7]

As an early participant in the Los Angelespunk scene in the 1970s, Panter defined the grungy style of the era with his drawings for the punkfanzineSlash and numerous record covers.

Panter createdJimbo, his punkeveryman, in 1974.^[8] Jimbo embodies elements ofJack Kirby andPicasso.^[8] The character was a regular feature inSlash,Raw, and has been featured in his own comic book series and several graphic novels.

Panter's good friendMatt Groening^[9] said of Jimbo, "He and his friends are always up against systems of control... Jimbo is a wild combo-platter of brilliant drawing and stuff you didn't know could be done with mere pen and ink."^[8] Groening has also stated that Jimbo's spiky hair inspired the design ofBart Simpson.^[10]

Jimbo in Purgatory (Fantagraphics, 2004) andJimbo's Inferno (Fantagraphics, 2006) are graphic novels combining classical literature, particularlyDante'sDivine Comedy, with pop and punk culture sensibilities.Jimbo's Inferno received anAmerican Book Award in 2007.^[11]

In 1979,^[12] Panter'sRozz Tox Manifesto was published in theRalph Records catalog, advocating for artists to engage the capitalist system.^[13] He also collaborated with Jay Cotton onPee-Dog: The Shit Generation for theChurch of the SubGenius.

Panter continued to publish alternative comics and graphic novels, includingCola Madnes and contributions to the avant-garde magazineRAW.

In the 1980s, Panter became the set designer for the children's television showPee-wee's Playhouse. His visual approach diverged sharply from prevailing trends in children's media, eschewing simplified, pastel visuals for densely layered, chaotic sets. He won twoDaytime Emmy Awards for his work on the show.

While designing for television, he remained active in comics and illustration.

Panter created the online seriesPink Donkey forCartoon Network.^[14]

In 2008,PictureBox publishedGary Panter, a two-volume, 700-page retrospective including sketches and previously unpublished material.

In 2010, the French publisher United Dead Artists released two volumes of his work:The Wrong Box^[15] andThe Land Unknown.^[16]

In 2025,Desert Island’s Eisner-nominated comics and art tabloid Smoke Signal published a solo issue of original work entitled “Flycatcher”. It was the first time in the publication’s 44-issue history than an artist drew an entire issue cover-to-cover.^[17]

Warner Bros. Records commissioned Panter to paint the album covers for the unauthorized releases ofFrank Zappa's albumsStudio Tan (1978),Sleep Dirt andOrchestral Favorites (1979).

In 2006, one of Panter's paintings was used as the cover art forYo La Tengo's albumI Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass.

From 1978 to 1986, Panter was married to writer Nicole Panter, who was the manager of Los Angeles punk rock band theGerms. He later married art director Helene Silverman.^[6]

Panter was influenced by, among others,Frank Zappa's art directorCal Schenkel.^[18] His comics are fast and hard and are drawn in an expressionistic manner. His works balance the worlds of painting, commercial art, illustration, cartoons, alternative comix, and music.^[19]

WithWinsor McCay,Lyonel Feininger,George Herriman,Elzie Segar,Frank King,Chester Gould,Milton Caniff,Charles Schulz,Will Eisner,Jack Kirby,Harvey Kurtzman,Robert Crumb,Art Spiegelman andChris Ware, Panter was among the artists honored in the exhibition "Masters of American Comics" at theJewish Museum in New York City, from September 16, 2006, to January 28, 2007.^[20][21]

An exhibition of originals of Gary Panter's drawings and paintings was shown at thePhoenix Art Museum from April 21 through August 19, 2007. An exhibition of paintings was at the Dunn and Brown Contemporary Gallery in Dallas in October 2007.^[22]

Panter was the recipient of the 2012Klein Award, which was given by theMuseum of Comic and Cartoon Art at their annualMoCCA Art Festival in New York.

• Hup. Los Angeles: self-published. 1977.OCLC 1333461698.
• The Asshole: A Parable. self-published. 1979, minicomic.
• Okupant X. Providence, R.I.: Diana's Bimonthly Press. 1979.OCLC 6646685.
• Dal Tokyo. Seattle:Fantagraphics Books. 1983.
• Invasion of the Elvis Zombies. New York:Raw Books. 1984.ISBN 978-0-915043-01-9.
• Facetasm: H Simulated and Real. Richmond, VA: Gates of Heck. 1992.OCLC 27892532, withCharles Burns.
• Cola Madnes. Funny Garbage. 2000.ISBN 978-0-9701626-0-1.
• 100.1: Drawings by Gary Panter. Brooklyn: Plywood Press. 2004.ISBN 978-0-9763102-0-4.
• Satiro-Plastic: The Sketchbook of Gary Panter. Montreal: Drawn and Quarterly. 2005.ISBN 978-1-896597-86-7.
• Hey Dork!: The Sketchbook of Gary Panter. Montreal: Drawn and Quarterly. 2007.ISBN 978-1-894937-88-7.
• McMullen, Brian (2008).Gary Panter. Brooklyn: PictureBox.ISBN 978-0-9794153-1-9.^[23]
• The Land Unknown. Galerie Martel. 2009.
• Songy of Paradise. Seattle: Fantagraphics. 2017.ISBN 978-1-68396-028-7.^[8]
• Crashpad. Seattle: Fantagraphics. 2021.ISBN 978-1-68396-416-2.

• Raw One-Shot Edition No. 1: Jimbo.Raw Books. 1982.
• Jimbo: Adventures in Paradise. New York:Pantheon Books. 1988.ISBN 978-0-394-75639-4.^[6] mostly a collection of strips that originally appeared inSlash, theLos Angeles Reader, andRaw; reissued byNew York Review Books in 2021.^[10]
• Jimbo (issues #1–7).Zongo Comics. 1995–1997.
• Jimbo in Purgatory. Seattle: Fantagraphics. 2004.ISBN 978-1-56097-572-4.
• Jimbo's Inferno. Seattle: Fantagraphics. 2006.ISBN 978-1-56097-691-2.

• "Pink Donkey". Archived fromthe original(Flash) on April 28, 2003.Incomplete archive of flash components
• "Gary Panter – Jimbo in Purgatory".Interview.Suicide Girls. February 1, 2005.
• Heer, Jeet (September 4, 2004)."Gary Panter's Jimbo in Purgatory".Review. Archived from the original on April 10, 2006.
• Clark, Joe (1993)."Mmm! Panter-y!".Overview.

• American comics artists
• 1950 births
• Living people
• People from Durant, Oklahoma
• American graphic designers
• American graphic novelists
• American surrealist artists
• 20th-century American illustrators
• 21st-century American illustrators
• 20th-century American painters
• 21st-century American painters
• American essayists
• American SubGenii
• Alternative cartoonists
• American album-cover and concert-poster artists
• Artists from Oklahoma
• American Book Award winners
• Underground cartoonists
• Inkpot Award winners
• East Texas A&M University alumni
• Counterculture of the 1970s
• Counterculture of the 1980s

• CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use mdy dates from January 2015
• Comics infobox without image
• Comics creator pop
• Comics creator BLP pop
• Track variant DoB
• Track variant DoD
• CS1: unfit URL