Jay Patrick Lynch was an American cartoonist who played a key role in the underground comix movement with his Bijou Funnies and other titles. He is best known for his comic stripNard n' Pat and the running gagUm tut sut. His work is sometimes signed Jayzey Lynch. Lynch was the main writer for Bazooka Joe comics from 1967 to 1990; he contributed to Mad, and in the 2000s expanded into the children's book field.
Lynch's first published cartoons were for the Roosevelt University humor magazine, the Aardvark; he also contributed to a wide range of college humor publications. Lynch soon graduated to professional humor magazines like Sick, Cracked, and The Realist; and when the underground press movement started in the mid-1960s he became a regular contributor to papers like the Chicago Seed, and the Berkeley Barb, the East Village Other, Fifth Estate, and others. Beginning in 1967, Lynch became the lead writer for the Bazooka Joe comics, a gig he kept until 1990. In 1967, Lynch teamed up with fellow Chicago transplant Skip Williamson to publish the underground newspaper The Chicago Mirror, which in 1968 after three issues was renamed and reformatted into the underground comix anthology Bijou Funnies. As Ben Schwartz writes, Bijou Funnies "... would become Chicago's answer to Robert Crumb's Zap Comix,... with early work by Lynch, Spiegelman, Gilbert Shelton and Skip Williamson." Bijou Funnies was heavily influenced by Mad magazine, and, along with Zap, is considered one of the titles to launch the underground comix movement. Bijou Funnies lasted 8 issues ; a selection of stories from Bijou Funnies were collected in 1975 in the book The Best of Bijou Funnies. Lynch's best known comic book stories involve the human-cat duo Nard n' Pat, recurring characters in Bijou Funnies. Nard is a bald middle-aged man of conservative tendencies, and Patrick is his more "hip" talking cat. Nard n' Pat were featured in two issues of their own comic, the first one published by Cartoonists Co-Op Press in 1974, and the second issue published by Kitchen Sink Press in 1981. The weekly comic strip Phoebe and the Pigeon People, by Lynch and illustrator Gary Whitney, ran in the Chicago Reader for 17 years in the late 1970s and 1980s; Kitchen Sink Press published 3 issues of a Phoebe & the Pigeon Peoplecomic book collecting material from the strip in 1979–1981. Up until his death, Lynch had scans of more than 500 editions of the strip ready for any publisher who saw the potential of a Phoebe and the Pigeon People book.
Trading cards
Beginning in 1968, Lynch became a major contributor to Topps' Wacky Packages and Garbage Pail Kids, plus other Topps humor products. In 2002, he recalled his creative working methods and procedures with Len Brown and others at the Topps' Product Development Department:
During the 1990s, he began writing for Mad, and he also devised products for Mad merchandising. Lynch and his wife Carol collaborated in the early 2000s on a series of fine art paintings, selling them under the joint pseudonym "Kringo." Lynch wrote two children's books for Toon Books in 2008–2009: Otto's Orange Day, illustrated by Frank Cammuso, and Mo and Jo Fighting Together Forever, illustrated by Dean Haspiel. #114 Jay Lynch was a regular contributor to Mineshaft magazine from 2006 to 2018 with his work appearing in issues 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 30, 31, 32, 33, and Mineshaft'' #35, with front cover art by Robert Crumb, which was the "Jay Lynch Memorial Issue".
Lynch's first wife Jane Lynch was an occasional contributor to comics in the early 1970s, including pieces she wrote for Arcade #3 and Skywald Publications's Psycho #17. Lynch and his second wife, Carol, were married for twenty years. Lynch died from complications of lung cancer on March 5, 2017, in Candor, New York. A memorial for Lynch was held on March 31, 2017 at the School of Visual Arts Amphitheater in New York City. The event was organized and moderated by Art Spiegelman.
Awards
In June 2009, Jay Lynch was nominated for a Harvey Award in the category of "Best Cover Artist" for his Mineshaft #23 cover.
