Joyce Brabner

Tribute
Joyce Brabner, as illustrated by Josh in a 1995 comics story
Joyce, as I drew her in a 1995 comics story.

I was very sad to learn of the passing of Joyce Brabner today. 

I was first exposed to her comics writing in the pages of Real War Stories and of course the classic “flip book” one-shot Brought to Light, done in collaboration with Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz. It was only later that I learned she was Harvey Pekar’s wife and sometimes collaborator.

Joyce’s comics writing was always in the service of a greater cause: antiwar activism, animal rights, AIDS activism. It – along with Harvey’s American Splendor and Spiegelman’s Maus — showed me that comics could be about so much more than superheroes and funny animals.

Later, when I started my own comics career (like with Dean Haspiel on Keyhole, etc.), I reached out to Harvey Pekar and offered my services as an illustrator on American Splendor. Harvey was kind enough to call me up to “interview” me for the gig, and before I knew it, he put Joyce on the phone too! They were coming in to Chicago (where I was living at the time) to promote Our Cancer Year, which had just come out, and there was some discussion of them staying with me and Sari at our apartment. In the end, I think they found more suitable accommodations, but by then I was part of the “Pekar-and-Brabner-verse.”

While it took awhile for Harvey to give me work, Joyce and I collaborated extensively in those first few years – first in a 12-page “follow-up” to Our Cancer Year (“Be Careful Not to Pull too Hard on Loose Ends”) that was published in American Splendor, and a four-page comic about Typhoid Mary that was originally part of the program for a play Joyce was involved with (and later was published as well). I remember Joyce as being very easy to work with — she was very patient with my youthful foibles: the only pushback I got from her with my thumbnails/layouts was that she didn’t want me adding my own emphasis (bolds) to her narration and dialogue. Totally fair request!

I never collaborated directly with Joyce after that, but I was always happy to connect with her on the phone (when I’d call Harvey to discuss a new story) or at various conventions. And of course I got to draw her in subsequent Pekar stories I illustrated, since she was the “co-star” of American Splendor! Some described Joyce as argumentative or humorless, but I always found her to be engaging, opinionated (in a good way), and a hilarious foil for Harvey at public events. (I remember her knitting onstage during one panel at the Big Apple Comic Con). Go back and watch the great American Splendor film and appreciate how wry and biting she is in that movie. And I hear that years later she actually performed standup comedy in Cleveland and other locales, so take that, haters!

And of course she was the force behind Harvey and Joyce’s decision to take on the nine-year-old Danielle Batone as their foster daughter. From what I understand, Danielle is now a working artist in San Diego.

After Harvey’s death in 2010, Joyce was a tireless advocate on his behalf, making sure that two books he had been working on were published posthumously, and that a Cleveland memorial and park were named in his honor.

I had fallen out of touch with Joyce lately, but my pals Dean Haspiel and Jeff Newelt tell me that she had been battling cancer herself, but that she was actually doing better recently. She was still active and ambitious, with new projects in the works. (For instance, she was deeply involved with the planning of the “American Splendor: Celebrating Harvey Pekar at 85” panel recently held at San Diego Comic-Con.) The most recent book she published was The Courage Party: Helping Our Resilient Children Understand and Survive Sexual Assault (an “American Splendor Family” book), illustrated by Gerta Oparaku Egy and published in 2020. A perfect addition to Joyce’s legacy.

Farewell, Joyce, the world is lesser for your passing.

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