Joe Zabel

Joe Zabel was born on July 7, 1953, and grew up in Chesterland, Ohio, later attending Youngstown State University. He is best known as a writer and artist, most notably for his long collaboration with Harvey Pekar on *American Splendor*, which he began illustrating in 1985. Zabel’s work on that series, frequently inked by Gary Dumm, became a defining visual counterpart to Pekar’s slice-of-life stories, and he contributed regularly until 1997, also providing many covers. His own mystery comic series, *The Trespassers*, was published under his imprints Known Associates Press and Amazing Montage Press. Zabel’s art also appeared in anthologies such as *Duplex Planet Illustrated*, *Negative Burn*, and *Real Stuff*. In the 2000s, he shifted to digital comics, creating the horror webcomic *Fear Mongers*, which was cited in Scott McCloud’s *Making Comics* as an example of the web’s expanding range of genres. Beyond creating comics, Zabel worked as a critic, writing for *The Comics Journal* and serving as editor-in-chief of *The Webcomics Examiner*. His credits in our catalog span 23 issues from 1981 to 1999, including *Plan 9 from Outer Space: Thirty Years Later* and *Dancing with Your Eyes Closed*.