Mary Fleener is an alternative comic author, writer and musician from Los Angeles. After quitting art school, she became a rock singer as well as an artist. She started self-publishing her own mini comics in the 1980s, and her first official work was 'Hoodoo', a comic about the Harlem Renaissance writer Zora Neale Hurston. Her semi-autobiographical 'Slutburger Stories' were first published by Rip Off Press, and later by Drawn & Quarterly. Many of Fleener's short stories appeared in anthologies like 'Weirdo' and 'Twisted Sisters' and the all-women Wimmen's Comix, and her illustrations appeared in Entertainment Weekly
The Wisdom of the Canapes (Fleener #2, 1996)
A collection of her autobiographical comic work, called 'Life of the Party', was published by Fantagraphics in 1996. Another collection, 'Freak Magnet', appeared at Reprodukt. She works in a style that she calls "cubismo", drawing inspiration from cubism and other art traditions. She is a member of the rockband The Wigbillies. Mary Fleener lives and works in Encinitas, California. She wrote a personal homage to Robert Crumb in Monte Beauchamp's book 'The Life and Times of R. Crumb. Comments From Contemporaries (St. Martin's Griffin, New York, 1998).
