I don’t recall the first time I saw the moniker “The Mad Peck” on a comic, but I became an avid fan of John Peck’s strips and faux advertisements when I was a late teen. He was among the first comics artists I saw in the late 1960s who was copping an old-school ’50s-era style, not just for nostalgic reasons alone but because he was a conservator of passé pop culture that he interwove as a narrative conceit.
The Mad Peck died on March 22 after a “sudden illness.”
After graduating Brown University, Peck became known in the 1960s and 1970s for concert posters he designed for acts like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Cream. (His Cream poster is perhaps the most famous, still selling on the auction block to rare poster collectors.) Peck was part of an underground comic collective that gained a national cult following, and many of his pieces were anthologized in the Mad Peck Studios book. A regular contributor to the music magazine Creem, his work also appeared in various underground papers.
In addition to comics, Peck, who further used the nom de plume I.C. Lotz, went by “Dr. Oldie” as the popular host of a record-collecting show on Brown University’s radio station WBRU. Together with Jeff Heiser, Peck also co-hosted “The Giant Jukebox,” an oldies show that played rare discs until it ended in 1983.
As noted after his passing on the WPRI website, “The radio show and record convention were just one of Peck’s many contributions to modern art and culture that extended beyond Rhode Island,” which include a 1987 NPR “Fresh Air” interview.
The post The Daily Heller: The Mad Peck is Mad No Longer appeared first on PRINT Magazine.