Mary Fleener (born September 14, 1951) is an American
alternative comics
Alternative comics cover a range of American comics that have appeared since the 1980s, following the underground comix movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Alternative comics present an alternative to mainstream superhero comics which ...
artist
An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, th ...
, writer and musician from Los Angeles. Fleener's drawing style, which she calls ''cubismo'', derives from the cubist aesthetic and other artistic traditions. Her first publication was a work about
Zora Neale Hurston
Zora Neale Hurston (January 7, 1891 – January 28, 1960) was an American author, anthropologist, and filmmaker. She portrayed racial struggles in the early-1900s American South and published research on hoodoo. The most popular of her four n ...
, called ''Hoodoo'' (1988), followed by the
semi-autobiographical
An autobiographical novel is a form of novel using autofiction techniques, or the merging of autobiographical and fictive elements. The literary technique is distinguished from an autobiography or memoir by the stipulation of being fiction. B ...
comics series ''Slutburger'', and the anthology ''Life of the Party'' (1996). She is a member of the
rock band
A rock band or pop band is a small musical ensemble that performs rock music, pop music, or a related genre. A four-piece band is the most common configuration in rock and pop music. In the early years, the configuration was typically two gui ...
called The Wigbillies.
Among Fleener's influences are
ancient Egyptian art
Ancient Egyptian art refers to art produced in ancient Egypt between the 6th millennium BC and the 4th century AD, spanning from Prehistoric Egypt until the Christianization of Roman Egypt. It includes paintings, sculpture ...
and the works of
Chester Gould
Chester Gould (; November 20, 1900 – May 11, 1985) was an American cartoonist, best known as the creator of the '' Dick Tracy'' comic strip, which he wrote and drew from 1931 to 1977, incorporating numerous colorful and monstrous villains.
Ea ...
(''
Dick Tracy
''Dick Tracy'' is an American comic strip featuring Dick Tracy (character), Dick Tracy (originally Plainclothes Tracy), a tough and intelligent police detective created by Chester Gould. It made its debut on Sunday, October 4, 1931, in the ''De ...
The Little King
''The Little King'' is a 1930-1975 American gag-a-day comic strip created by Otto Soglow, telling its stories in a style using images and very few words, as in pantomime.
Publication history
Soglow's character first appeared on June 7, 1930, i ...
'') and
Al Capp
Alfred Gerald Caplin (September 28, 1909 – November 5, 1979), better known as Al Capp, was an American cartoonist and humorist best known for the satirical comic strip ''Li'l Abner'', which he created in 1934 and continued writing and (wi ...
(''
Li'l Abner
''Li'l Abner'' is a satirical American comic strip that appeared in many newspapers in the United States, Canada and Europe. It featured a fictional clan of hillbillies in the impoverished mountain village of Dogpatch, USA. Written and drawn b ...
''). Robert Crumb and Robert Armstrong (creator of Mickey Rat) encouraged her to create her own comics.
Her works have been exhibited at La Luz de Jesus Gallery, Track 16, David Zapt Gallery, Laguna Beach Art Museum Annex, LACE (Los Angeles), COCA (Seattle), Southwestern College, Patricia Correia Gallery, Sushi Gallery. In 2020 her work was included in the exhibit ''Women in Comics: Looking Forward, Looking Back'' at the Society of Illustrators in New York City.
She lives and works in Encinitas, California.
Early life and education
Mary Fleener was born in 1951. Her mother had worked for
Disney
The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...
from 1941 to 1943. Fleener attended
Cal State Long Beach
California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) is a public research university in Long Beach, California. The 322-acre campus is the second largest of the 23-school California State University system (CSU) and one of the largest universities i ...
for 4 years where she focused on printmaking, but she disliked the art program's focus on abstract works and dropped out in 1976. In 1984, she read an article "new comix," by Matt Groening in the LA WEEKLY that inspired her to create her first comic works. She developed her aesthetic on her own, and considers herself self-taught.
Early works
She started drawing minicomics in 1984 and published her first full work, ''Hoodoo'', four years later. Her semi-autobiographical ''Slutburger Stories'' were first published by Rip Off Press, and later by Drawn & Quarterly. Many of Fleener's short stories appeared in anthologies like '' Weirdo'' and '' Twisted Sisters'' and the all-women ''
Wimmen's Comix
''Wimmen's Comix'', later titled ''Wimmin's Comix'', is an influential all-female underground comics anthology published from 1972 to 1992. Though it covered a wide range of genres and subject matters, ''Wimmen's Comix'' focused more than other an ...
;'' and her illustrations appeared in ''
Entertainment Weekly
''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular ...
''. Fleener went on to create more semi-autobiographical strips that were released in 1996 in the anthology ''Life of the Party'', published by Fantagraphics. These comix depicted the artist and a colorful cast of characters playing in rock bands, surfing, going to college, and gleefully partaking of drugs and casual sex, among other things. Fleener's art style complements her stories, which are narrated in matter-of-fact but bemused first-person dialogue.
Fantagraphics Books
Fantagraphics (previously Fantagraphics Books) is an American publisher of alternative comics, classic comic strip anthologies, manga, magazines, graphic novels, and the erotic Eros Comix imprint.
History
Founding
Fantagraphics was found ...
, 1996. , a collection of an autobiographical series (as translated in German and Spanish)
Contributed to
* The comic anthology Weird Tales of the Ramones in 2005, which accompanies the DVD/CD box set of the same name (compiled by
Johnny Ramone
John William Cummings (October 8, 1948 – September 15, 2004), better known by his stage name Johnny Ramone, was an American musician who was the guitarist and a founding member of the Ramones, a band that helped pioneer the punk movement. ...
).
* A variant cover of IDW Books, "
Popeye
Popeye the Sailor Man is a fictional cartoon character created by Elzie Crisler Segar.Bud Sagendorf).
* Mary Fleener has been a regular contributor to '' Mineshaft'' magazine from 2007 to the present with her work appearing in issues 19, 20, 21, 22, 24 (front cover art), 27, 29, 30, 32, 33 (front cover art), 34, and 35.