Gary Panter is well deservedly a much revered artist for his scratchy line and his many very influential works scattered across various media in a long career. Whether by accident or chance or plan, many of these works – as well as some obvious examples by his peer cohorts Matt Groening and Lynda Barry — function as actions guided by the Rozz Tox Manifesto. For followers of the Gars Rozztox manifestations, there are some obscure grails and xeroxes of such purity that they can only have been personally blessed by the hand of Chester Carlson himself — birthed under the influence of ether fumes, with pens clenched in each fist and a hank of mom’s beef jerky clenched between your teeth whilst you look up to heaven with eyes rolled back in the throes of an Oki Dog haze. To jack up your fix, just join the Gary Panter Fans group on the facebooks. In just the last few days, seemingly thousands of behind the scenes merchandising materials sketches from the golden era of the Pee Wee Herman Continuum have been posted to the group as well as possibly a billion or at least four low resolution glimpses at the extremely low print run, limited distribution, possibly apocryphal Pixie Meat volume of etched tablets issued in an edition of less than 12 by Panter and occasional collaborator (The) Charles Burns, have.
The original Pee Wee’s Playhouse exterior model. New York. Late 80s. Photo © Marc Arsenault.
