Peter "P.C." Vey passed away on September 17th. Peter was diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer two months ago, his wife, Tina, wrote on social media. He was seventy years old.
Michael Maslin:
"Peter was a long-time New Yorker contributor. He told The Cartoon Bank Blog back in 2009: 'I submitted my first cartoon to The New Yorker in 1978, during my senior year at the School of Visual Arts. I sold some ideas to them for a while, but my first cartoon was accepted in 1993.'"
Peter was a prolific creator whose work was seen in National Lampoon, Mad Magazine, The New York Times, Playboy, The Wall Street Journal and many others.
"MM: Is there a typical day of work for you? Do you tend to follow a – I hate using this word – routine?"PV: After getting up and making coffee I walk four feet to the computer to check the emails. When I’m sure I don’t have any I walk a different four feet to the work table where I drink more coffee. I put a lot of graphite on a lot of paper getting no place. So I get more coffee."After a while I have a bunch of half done drawings of people in various situations so I start having conversations with them or they have conversations with each other, I’m never sure which. Sometimes I’ll start adding objects or people that don’t seem to belong like a caveman or a toaster. When somebody says something funny I think I have a gag."
I met Peter a couple of times. I remember him coming down the street and saying hi to a gaggle of us cartoonists all gathered in front of a small theatre on the lower east side. We were all early and the theatre hadn't opened uo yet. I think it was Sam Gross who introduced us. Sam knew everyone. Peter was very gracious, and we chatted there on the sidewalk for maybe ten minutes. I told him I loved his work, and thought to myself that if I never see him again, at least I got to tell this guy how funny and wonderful his cartoons are. His cartoons are like walking into a Vey-world, that's unique to him.
Anyway, we were all waiting to be let in to the theatre. And. once inside, all of us sat down in the audience, except Sam. The reason I say "except Sam" was because he was to be onstage, interviewed live by fellow New Yorker cartoonist David Sipress. It turned out to be a wonderful interview and many laughs and cartoony insights from Sam.
P.C. Vey's cartoons were always dependably funny and well drawn. I just marveled at the writing. I always thought in general that creating gag cartoons was like poetry. It was a learnable craft, but there were certain people who had a wonderfully gifted ability to "turn it up to eleven." Peter Vey was one of those rare talents and he will be missed. I'm sorry that I only got a chance to chat with him a few times. He leaves us with so many great cartoons.
Posts
