Gerhard (comics artist)

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Gerhard
Gerhard at the "Ye Bookes of Cerebus" show on Oct 1, 2005.
Born	Canada
Nationality	Canadian
Area(s)	backgrounds
Notable works	Cerebus

Gerhard is the professional name of a Canadian artist known for the elaborately detailed background illustrations in the comics series Cerebus the Aardvark. He does not reveal his full name.

[edit] Biography

He was born on April 14, 1959, and started his association with Dave Sim's Cerebus with issue #65 (August 1984), and continued through its conclusion with #300 in March, 2004. The series was written by Dave Sim, who also drew the foreground figures, and had worked on the self-published series largely solo for the first 64 issues. Gerhard jokingly described his job saying that he "draws tables and chairs behind an aardvark".^{[citation needed]} He is also fond of photography (some later issues of the comic book have covers based on his scenic photos) and sailing.^{[citation needed]}

Effective December 31, 2006, approximately three years after finishing his work on Cerebus, Gerhard sold his share of Aardvark-Vanaheim to Sim, who thereby became the sole owner of the publishing company.^[1]

Although most associatiated with Cerebus, Gerhard has produced works for other publications, although mostly with Sim. In September 1994, however, he worked with Stephen R. Bissette on the cover to Bissette's Tyrant #1, and also colored Oni Press' August 1998-published Free Speeches #1, featuring the artwork of Art Adams, Mike Allred, Steven Hughes, Jim Mahfood and Kevin McCarthy to words by Sim, Neil Gaiman, Nadine Strossen and Frank Miller.^[2]