Gary David Leib (October 29, 1955 – March 19, 2021) was an American

underground Underground most commonly refers to: * Subterranea (geography), the regions beneath the surface of the Earth Underground may also refer to: Places * The Underground (Boston), a music club in the Allston neighborhood of Boston * The Underground (S ...

cartoonist A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comic book illustrators in that they produce both the literary and ...

animator An animator is an artist who creates multiple images, known as frames, which give an illusion of movement called animation when displayed in rapid sequence. Animators can work in a variety of fields including film, television, and video gam ...

, and

musician A musician is a person who composes, conducts, or performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general term used to designate one who follows music as a profession. Musicians include songwriters who wri ...

. Best known for the

comic book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...

'' Idiotland'' (a two-man anthology produced with Leib's long-time collaborator, Doug Allen), Leib's work also appeared in ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'', ''The New York Times'', ''Musician Magazine'', ''

The New York Observer ''The New York Observer'' was a weekly newspaper printed from 1987 to 2016, when it ceased print publication and became the online-only newspaper ''Observer''. The media site focuses on culture, real estate, media, politics and the entertainmen ...

'', ''

RAW Raw is an adjective usually describing: * Raw materials, basic materials from which products are manufactured or made * Raw food, uncooked food Raw or RAW may also refer to: Computing and electronics * .RAW, a proprietary mass spectrometry dat ...

'', ''

BLAB! ''Blab!'' was an anthology edited by Monte Beauchamp that featured a mixture of alternative comics and illustrated features focused predominantly on illustration, graphic design, and lowbrow art. The first two issues (1986–87) were published b ...

'' and as weekly features in ''

New York Press ''New York Press'' was a free alternative weekly in New York City, which was published from 1988 to 2011. The ''Press'' strove to create a rivalry with the ''Village Voice''. ''Press'' editors claimed to have tried to hire away writer Nat Hento ...

'' for many years. His animation work was featured in films like ''

American Ultra ''American Ultra'' is a 2015 American action comedy film directed by Nima Nourizadeh and written by Max Landis. The film stars Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Topher Grace, Connie Britton, Walton Goggins, John Leguizamo, Bill Pullman, and To ...

'', ''

American Splendor ''American Splendor'' is a series of autobiographical comic books written by Harvey Pekar and drawn by a variety of artists. The first issue was published in 1976 and the last one in September 2008, with publication occurring at irregular interva ...

'', and ''

Happiness Happiness, in the context of Mental health, mental or emotional states, is positive or Pleasure, pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. Other forms include life satisfaction, well-being, subjective well-being, flourishin ...

''.Dean, Michael
"Gary Leib: 1955 – 2021,"
''The Comics Journal'' (March 23, 2021). Leib was a founding member of the

Grammy Award The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pres ...

-nominated band

Rubber Rodeo Rubber Rodeo was an American, Rhode Island-based band active in the 1980s. The band fused Roxy Music-influenced new wave music with country and western influences, and dressed in 1950's-vintage country & western clothing. Their 1984 release "Any ...

, which recorded two

album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

s for

Mercury Records Mercury Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group. It had significant success as an independent operation in the 1940s and 1950s. Smash Records and Fontana Records were sub labels of Mercury. In the United States, it is ...

. He created original music for independent and feature films, including the critically acclaimed '' Ironweed''.

Biography

Leib was born in

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, the eldest of four children, and grew up in Lincolnwood."Gary David Leib, October 29, 1955 - March 19, 2021,"
Farewelling. Retrieved March 28, 2021. His influences growing up included

EC Comics Entertaining Comics, more commonly known as EC Comics, was an American publisher of comic books, which specialized in horror fiction, crime fiction, satire, military fiction, dark fantasy, and science fiction from the 1940s through the mid-195 ...

, '' MAD'', and ''

Zap Comix ''Zap Comix'' is an underground comix series which was originally part of the youth counterculture of the late 1960s. While a few small-circulation self-published satirical comic books had been printed prior to this, ''Zap'' became the model for ...

''. He went to

Niles North High School Niles North High School, officially Niles Township High School North, is a public four-year high school located in Skokie, Illinois, a North Shore (Chicago), North Shore suburb of Chicago, Illinois in the United States. It is part of Niles Townshi ...

and the

Rhode Island School of Design The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase the ...

(RISD), graduating in 1977. Leib was a founding member of

in 1980 with RISD friends Doug Allen, Bob Holmes, Barc Holmes, and Trish Milliken. Leib played keyboards. Leib and Allen's ''Idiotland'', which ran for seven issues in 1993–1994, was nominated for a 1994

Harvey Award The Harvey Awards are given for achievement in comic books. Named for writer-artist Harvey Kurtzman, the Harvey Awards were founded by Gary Groth in 1988, president of the publisher Fantagraphics, to be the successor to the Kirby Awards that were ...

for Best New Series. In addition to ''Idiotland'', Leib and Allen collaborated on a number of stories in the fund-raising anthology comic ''

Legal Action Comics ''Legal Action Comics'' is a series of comics anthologies edited by illustrator Danny Hellman which features work from many alternative comics artists. The first volume in the series was published in 2001,Hellman, Danny, editor. (2001). ''Legal Ac ...

'' volume 1, published in 2001. Leib also contributed to

David Greenberger David Greenberger (born June 26, 1954, in Pennsylvania) is an American artist, writer and radio commentator best known for his ''Duplex Planet'' series of zines, comic books, CDs, and spoken word performances and radio plays. From 1996 to 2009, he ...

's ''

Duplex Planet Illustrated ''The Duplex Planet'' is a zine edited and published by David Greenberger since 1979. It contains transcriptions of his interviews with elderly residents of senior centers and "meal sites" in the Massachusetts area. For many years, the zine focuse ...

'' and the 1995 award-winning

comic jam A comic jam is a creative process where one or more comics artists collaborates on drawing or painting one single comic. Often the process is that one artist creates the first page, and then another artist creates the second, and a third does the ...

, ''

The Narrative Corpse ''The Narrative Corpse'' is a chain story, or comic jam, by 69 all-star cartoonists based on ''Le Cadavre Exquis'' (see Exquisite corpse), a popular game played by André Breton and his surrealist friends to break free from the constraints of ra ...

''. Leib created his animation studio Twinkle in 1993;Rettig, James
"Gary Leib Dead At 65,"
''Stereogum'' (March 22, 2021). Twinkle has produced animation and titles for film, TV series, music videos, and websites.
New York Times website. From 1993 until his death, Leib created a series of short animations, accompanied by

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

, about

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, which were hosted on the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' website, a network ID for

MTV MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...

, and a documentary for

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

. He created the animated sequences in the film ''

'',De Wit, Alex Dudok
"RIP Gary Leib, New York Filmmaker, Animator, And Cartoonist, 65,"
''Cartoon Brew'' (April 21, 2021). often working in collaboration with his old partner Doug Allen. (''American Splendor'' won the Grand Jury Prize for Dramatic Film at the

2003 Sundance Film Festival The 2003 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 16 to January 26, 2003. ''American Splendor'', a biopic of comic-book author Harvey Pekar, won the grand-jury prize. Steve Zahn and Maggie Gyllenhaal presented the awards in a ceremony tele ...

.) Leib made the animated end closing credits for the film ''

''. Leib also designed a popular line of promotional toys for

The Hershey Company The Hershey Company, commonly known as Hershey's, is an American multinational company and one of the largest chocolate manufacturers in the world. It also manufactures baked products, such as cookies and cakes, and sells beverages like milksh ...

. Leib taught in the graduate computer animation program at the

School of Visual Arts The School of Visual Arts New York City (SVA NYC) is a private for-profit art school in New York City. It was founded in 1947 and is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design. History This school was started by ...

and the

Parsons School of Design Parsons School of Design, known colloquially as Parsons, is a private art and design college located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Founded in 1896 after a group of progressive artists broke away from established Manhatt ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

. He was the 2016–2017 artist-in-residence at

Fairmont State University Fairmont State University is a public university in Fairmont, West Virginia. History Fairmont State University’s roots reach back to the formation of public education in the state of West Virginia. The first private normal school in West Vir ...

. Former Rubber Rodeo bandmates Leib and Bob Holmes performed in a new music project named SUSS, which has been referred to as "ambient country" music. SUSS released three albums, the most recent in December 2020. Leib died of a

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which may tr ...

on March 19, 2021, aged 65. He was survived by his wife, the painter Judy Glantzman, their daughter Lila, and his three siblings Beth, Alan, and Joel.

Bibliography

* ''The Art of Cartooning with FLASH'' (with Daniel Gray and John Kuramoto) (Sybex, 2001)

References

External links

GaryLeib.com archived on the Wayback Machine

— ''Concrete Jumble'' episode #1
Gary Leib's animations on Vimeo

Gary Leib podcast interview (2019)

Tribute to Leib by Peter Catapano, ''Los Angeles Review of Books''Tributes on Fairwelling.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Leib, Gary 1955 births 2021 deaths People from Chicago American animators American cartoonists American country keyboardists American rock keyboardists Underground cartoonists Rhode Island School of Design alumni Parsons School of Design faculty Rhode Island School of Design alumni in music