Background
Born in Ross, California, Beck grew up in El Sobrante, California, as an ill and bedridden child, who battled a combination of tuberculosis and spinal meningitis.
Born in Ross, California, Beck grew up in El Sobrante, California, as an ill and bedridden child, who battled a combination of tuberculosis and spinal meningitis.
Soon he dropped out of high school and never graduated.
His comic book, Lenny of Laredo, one of the earliest underground comic books of the 1960s, was the first underground comic book published on the West Coast. Visiting University of California Berkeley, he started submitting cartoons to the campus newspaper, The Pelican, slipping them under the door to editors who believed he was a college student. In the early 1960s, he drew studio cards for Box Cards.
He lived for several months in Manhattan in 1962 before returning to the West Coast.
Underground comix
In the early 1960s, Beck moved into a converted closet in a housing unit on the Berkeley campus known as Haste House, and he continued to do cartoons for The Pelican. During that time he published three underground comic books, Lenny of Laredo, Marching Marvin and The Profit.
The San Francisco Chronicle commented:
In 1965, his first full-length comic book, Lenny of Laredo, was published. lieutenant was a satire loosely based on the career of embattled comedian Lenny Bruce.
Two other books, Marching Marvin and The Profit, followed.
All are collectors items today. In 1965, humor magazine editors voted to choose the Nation"s Top College Cartoonist and gave the honor to Beck. In January 1966, The Pelican reprinted much of his previous work and labeled him "Manitoba of the Decade." His cartoons also appeared in the Berkeley Barb, and he penned a number of handbills and posters for the Jabberwock coffeehouse on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley.
In a detailed 1987 self-portrait, Beck depicted himself in an ecstatic state, high on the act of creation, as he labored at his drawing table late into the night, surrounded by his books, artwork, comics, Pepsi and dog.
Fine art
Death
Beck died on September 21, 1999 from complications from alcoholism in Point Richmond, California. Kevin Fagan wrote Beck"s obituary for the San Francisco Chronicle:
Joel Beck, whose cutting-edge cartoons in the 1960s in the Berkeley Barb and elsewhere made him one of the founding oddballs of underground comics, died in his sleep of natural causes last week at home in Point Richmond.
Mr. Beck, 56, had been ill off and on for years from complications related to tuberculosis and alcoholism, family members said, but he was still inking artworks for fans and advertising clients until the education
The quirky, irreverent humor that spilled from his personality into his pen made him a beloved figure in the tiny Contra Costa County community he had called home for the past two decades. When word of his September 14 death got out, people from all over the area began to show up at Point Richmond"s Santa Fe Market, where Mr.
Beck often hung out, to drop off mementos. Yesterday, the market"s front window was plastered with more than 50 cartoons, letters and articles paying tribute to the artist whose 1960s fame continued to make him a legend long after his career waned.
"People just keep bringing this cool stuff in.
"He was different. He had a great wit.".