Harvey Pekar was born in 1939 Cleveland, Ohio, which has been his home all his life. After completing high school he went through a series of flunky jobs, tried the Navy and college—all to no avail. Finally in 1965 he landed a job with the federal government, as a file clerk for a Veterans Administration Hospital, which he held until his retirement in 2001. Pekar began his writing career as a jazz critic for The Jazz Review in 1959. He began writing comic book stories in 1972, encouraged by his friend Robert Crumb, who has illustrated a number of his pieces. The first collected edition of Pekar’s comic American Splendor won the American Book Award in 1987. In 1994, the graphic novel, Our Cancer Year (co-written with his wife, Joyce Brabner) won the Harvey Award. A movie version of American Splendor was released in 2003 and garnered awards at the Sundance and Cannes film festivals.

Tara Seibel earned a BFA from Edinboro University. The Cleveland native worked in Chicago as a designer and illustrator before returning home to work with publisher/designer Mark Murphy. Afterwards, Tara became a line designer for The American Greetings Company where she worked on Target. Now Tara creates comics and editorial cartoons, which reflect her experiences living in the Midwest. Tara has had her work published in The Funny Times, Cleveland Free Times, US Catholic, HEEB, Mineshaft, and SMITH Magazine. She’s previously illustrated Harvey Pekar stories for Chicago Newcity Magazine and on her blog, Rock City Comix, and she created “Vestibule,” the closing story to SMITH’s Next-Door Neighbor webcomics anthology. She is currently working on a graphic novel on Woodstock. Tara lives in Cleveland with her husband Aaron and three children.

Joseph Remnant is an artist/illustrator/cartoonist living in Los Angeles. He currently contributes comics to Arthur Magazine and does a weekly cartoon for LA.cityzine.com. Expect a collection of his short comics to be published sometime next year.

Rick Parker is best known as the artist of MTV’s Beavis and Butt-Head comics from Marvel. Rick was on staff at Marvel Comics in the ’70s and ’80s doing lettering and production work. He currently draws the intro pages featuring the Old Witch, The Vault Keeper and the Crypt Keeper for the new Tales From the Crypt comics. Parker is currently working on an upcoming graphic novel Tales From The Crypt: The Diary of A Stinky Dead Kid and his own ongoing webcomics, Parker’s Comics & Stories. Parker recently drew a Next-Door Neighbor story for SMITH, “Night of the Black Chrysanthemum.”

Sean Pryor is a cartoonist/illustrator and a recent School of Visual Arts grad residing in New Jersey. Pryor has contributed numerous illustrations to both Revolver and Royal Flush magazine.

Jeff Newelt AKA JahFurry is SMITH Magazine’s comics editor, as well as comics editor for HEEB Magazine and Minister of Hype for the webcomix collective ACT-I-VATE. Newelt is a social media/PR consultant for Paul Pope, Doug Rushkoff, DJ Spooky, The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, Rick Veitch, Larry Marder, David Lloyd, Bryan Talbot, NBM Publishing, Easy Star Records + other comics/cultural/media superheroes. JahFurry also regularly performs freestyle dancehall reggae dittinanigans with various NYC dub, jazz, klezmer, and blues ensembles.

SMITH Magazine, launched in January 2006 by Larry Smith and Tim Barkow, is a home for storytelling of all forms and kinds, with a focus on personal narrative. Its first book of six-word memoirs, Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs By Writers Famous & Obscure (Harper Perennial), is a New York Times bestseller, and first in a four-book series. SMITH is the publisher of the webcomic sensation Shooting War, which was expanded into a hardcover graphic novel from Grand Central Publishing. SMITH conceived and produced the serialized, nonfiction webcomic, A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge, written and illustrated by Josh Neufeld, which has now been published as a full-length book from Pantheon.