Gary Dumm

Gary Dumm (born c. 1947) is an American comic book artist best known for his decades-long collaboration with writer Harvey Pekar on the autobiographical series *American Splendor*. Beginning in 1976 and continuing until Pekar’s death in 2010, Dumm served primarily as an inker, embellishing the pencil work of Greg Budgett and Joe Zabel, though he also illustrated stories solo. His straightforward, no-frills style matched the everyday realism of Pekar’s narratives, and Pekar valued Dumm’s reliability and skill at integrating dense text without overwhelming the page. Dumm also illustrated two full-length Pekar books: *Ego & Hubris: The Michael Malice Story* and *Students for a Democratic Society: A Graphic History*.

Beyond *American Splendor*, Dumm worked extensively with Budgett on underground and alternative comics, including *Dr. Wirtham’s Comix & Stories* and the erotic series *Shooty Beagle* and *Woofers & Hooters* for Eros Comix. He contributed to *The Miracle Squad*, *Dennis McGee*, and provided editorial cartoons for Cleveland publications such as *Cleveland Scene* and *The Plain Dealer*. In 2020, he illustrated *Fire on the Water*, a graphic novel about a 1916 Lake Erie tunnel disaster, written by longtime friend Scott McGregor. A retrospective of his work has been exhibited at the Artists Archives of the Western Reserve in Cleveland. Dumm has said he feels “itchy” when not drawing.