Jay Lynch

Jay Lynch
Lynch at the 2014 New York Comic Con
Born	(1945-01-07) January 7, 1945 (age 72) Orange, New Jersey
Nationality	American
Area(s)	Cartoonist, Writer, Editor
Pseudonym(s)	Jayzee Lynch Ray Finch
Notable works	Bijou Funnies Phoebe and the Pigeon People Nard n' Pat Bazooka Joe
http://www.mindspring.com/~jaylynch

Jay Lynch (born January 7, 1945) is an American cartoonist who played a key role in the underground comix movement with his Bijou Funnies and other titles. His work is sometimes signed Jayzey Lynch. Lynch was the main writer for Bazooka Joe comics from 1967 to 1990; he has contributed to Mad, and in the 2000s has expanded into the children's book field.

Jay Lynch was born in Orange, New Jersey. (Other sources state has was born in Belmar, New Jersey.)

Ben Schwartz, writing in the alternative weekly The Chicago Reader, traced Lynch's formative years:

In 1963, at age 17, Lynch had moved to Chicago from Florida, where he grew up. Working a string of odd jobs to support himself, he wound up manning the service bar at Second City one summer. This was between the theater's skinny-tie Alan Arkin days and the Belushi hippie years. "At that time it seemed like Second City was over," Lynch says. "They had been on Jack Paar, and all the Hyde Park Compass Players were gone... The Realist would come out, and you'd see them taking their improvs from there." Lynch moved into Del Close's old apartment on Hudson. Close had left it in such a mess that the landlord let him live there for free on the condition that he fix the place up.

Schwartz continues:

He drew cartoons for Roosevelt University's humor magazine, the Aardvark, which got tossed off campus by college administrators after the first issue. Then in 1967 Lynch with help from Skip Williamson put out The Chicago Mirror, which lasted three issues and would become Chicago's answer to Robert Crumb's Zap Comix: Bijou Funnies, with early work by Lynch, Spiegelman, Gilbert Shelton and Skip Williamson.