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The Perry Bible Fellowship

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The Perry Bible Fellowship
Author(s)Nicholas Gurewitch
Websitepbfcomics.com
Current status/scheduleRunning
Launch date2001
(23 years ago) (2001)
Genre(s)Surreal humor, dark humor

The Perry Bible Fellowship (PBF) is a newspaper comic strip and webcomic by Nicholas Gurewitch. It originated in the Syracuse University newspaper The Daily Orange. The comics are usually three or four panels long, and are generally characterized by the juxtaposition of whimsical childlike imagery or fantasy with morbid, sudden or unexpected surreal humor. Common subjects include irony, religion, sexuality, war, science fiction, suicide, violence, and death.[citation needed]

The comic received its title, taken from the name of a church in Perry, Maine, in its Daily Orange incarnation.[1]

Art

The art in The Perry Bible Fellowship varies from strip to strip. While some comics feature simplistic human figures with little more than a mouth and eyes for a face, other strips are extensively colored and meticulously detailed. Sometimes, the artistic style changes within the strip itself. A recurring feature of the strip is simplistically-drawn human figures exhibiting little detail or realism, and heads reminiscent of smiley faces. Some strips emulate the styles of famous illustrators such as Shel Silverstein, Edward Gorey, and Robert Crumb, made evident by marginal notes such as "(Apologies, R. Crumb)".[2][3] Gurewitch is also known for including Easter eggs in various strips.[4]

Awards

Gurewitch has received multiple major awards for The Perry Bible Fellowship, such as the Ignatz Award for Outstanding Online Comic in 2005[5] and 2006.[6] The Perry Bible Fellowship has also won the Web Cartoonist's Choice Award for outstanding comic in 2006 and 2007. In total, PBF has received eight Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards in various categories.[7] Most recently, Gurewitch won the 2007 Harvey Award for "Best Online Comics Work". In July 2008, Perry Bible Fellowship: The Trial of Colonel Sweeto and Other Stories won an Eisner Award.[8]

Publishing

The comic first appeared in 2002 in The Daily Orange of Syracuse, New York, while Gurewitch was art director at Syracuse University, and by 2007 was also being printed in Maxim, The Guardian, the Boston Weekly Dig, The Baltimore City Paper, and The Chicago Reader.[9] According to the official website, the comic also appeared in several other publications, including the New York Press.[10] On August 1, 2006, after several months on a temporary site managed by Cheston Gasik, the comic moved to its permanent web site at pbfcomics.com.[citation needed]

On February 18, 2008, Nicholas Gurewitch announced he was cutting back on the production of the comic strip, saying "I feel I owe it to myself and the Perry Bible Fellowship not to turn a joyful diversion into a long career."[11] Previously a weekly strip, it is now infrequently updated.[10]

Author

Nicholas Gurewitch was born March 9, 1982, in Canandaigua, New York,[12] and is currently based in Rochester, New York. He attended Syracuse University, where he studied film and where his comic strip was first published in The Daily Orange. Besides PBF, he worked on developing a program called Daisy Garden Story Time with Comedy Central, though the program was not produced.[13] Nicholas is the cousin of former CollegeHumor writer and comedian Dan Gurewitch.[citation needed]

Books

Perry Bible Fellowship comics and an interview with Gurewitch were included in Ted Rall's Attitude 3: The New Subversive Online Cartoonists in July 2005.[citation needed]

In 2007, a book collection, The Trial of Colonel Sweeto and Other Stories, was published. Even before its release, preorders alone made the book one of the fastest-selling graphic novels on Amazon.com, causing publisher Dark Horse Comics to increase its first print run to 36,000, and print the book domestically to hasten distribution; it has since gone into three printings.[14] Dark Horse Comics also noted the comic's popularity in the UK, as Diamond UK put in the largest order Dark Horse has ever seen from them.[15]

The second book, The Perry Bible Fellowship Almanack, a 256-page hardcover compilation, features more comics (including the ones from the previous book) and previously unreleased material including unused strips, an interview with David Malki and a foreword by Diablo Cody.[16] The book was released on February 18, 2009,[17] again from Dark Horse Comics.[citation needed] A tenth anniversary edition of the Almanack was published on February 11, 2020.[18]

References

  1. ^ "Interview: Nicholas Gurewitch Pt. 1 (of 2) Archived 22 October 2008 at the Wayback Machine" Daily Crosshatch, February 27, 2007.
  2. ^ Reynolds, Whitney (February 2, 2016). "10 Wicked Awesome Webcomics". PC Magazine. p. 8.
  3. ^ "Keep on Truckin'". Perry Bible Fellowship. Archived from the original on June 23, 2008. Retrieved February 11, 2013.
  4. ^ "Secrets of the Perry Bible Fellowship". 10 Zen Monkeys. September 4, 2007. Retrieved February 11, 2013.
  5. ^ "2005 Ignatz Award Recipients". Small Press Expo. Retrieved October 22, 2012.
  6. ^ "2006 Ignatz Award Recipients". Small Press Expo. Retrieved October 22, 2012.
  7. ^ "Web Cartoonist Choice Awards". Ccawards.com. February 8, 2008. Retrieved February 11, 2013.
  8. ^ 2008 Eisner Award Winners Archived August 10, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  9. ^ Reiser, Evan (March 7, 2010). "Q&A with Nicholas Gurewitch". The Daily Orange. Syracuse, New York. Archived from the original on August 7, 2011. Retrieved April 6, 2017.
  10. ^ a b "About". The Perry Bible Fellowship. Nicholas Gurewitch. Retrieved April 6, 2017.
  11. ^ Cassel, David (February 19, 2008). "Gurewitch announces semi-retirement". Blorgable. Wollstonecraft, New South Wales: Total Image Publishing. Archived from the original on February 10, 2012. Retrieved April 6, 2016.
  12. ^ http://pbfcomics.com/ Nick will be at The Inn on the Lake in Canandaigua, NY (town of birth!) on Sunday, October 18, 2009, 11am-5pm. For Canandiagua-Con.
  13. ^ Heater, Brian; “Interview: Nicholas Gurewitch Pt. 1 (of 2)”, Archived October 22, 2008, at the Wayback Machine Daily Crosshatch, February 27, 2007.
  14. ^ "Records broken by the Perry Bible Fellowship". Retrieved February 20, 2008.
  15. ^ MacDonald, Heidi (October 9, 2007). "Perry Bible Fellowship Collection a Pre-order Hit". Publishers Weekly. Archived from the original on October 11, 2007.
  16. ^ The Perry Bible Fellowship Almanack on the PBF Website Archived January 16, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
  17. ^ "The Perry Bible Fellowship Almanack on". Betterworld.com. November 8, 2012. Retrieved February 11, 2013.
  18. ^ Lee, Dami (February 14, 2020). "Perry Bible Fellowship's Nicholas Gurewitch on making comics for the internet's golden age". The Verge. Retrieved February 14, 2020.
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