The One and Only Wayno

Wayno appears, at first, as self-portrait. The Pittsburgh artist and illustrator’s sharpened features seem born of the same era as the iconic characters he draws: His “mild-mannered reporter’s” slicked-back hair, and diabolical Jack Nicholson eyebrows. It raises questions of nature and nurture, chickens and eggs – is it possible that Wayno (one name only, please) was predestined at birth to draw and paint these characters? That, rather than a twisting double-helix, his DNA is a 2-D animation cell?

But, despite an apparent single-mindedness, at 51, Mt. Lebanon resident Wayno has managed to live more than his allotted hep-cat’s nine artistic lives. From homemade zines and “mini-comics” in the early 1980s, the Pittsburgh artist found success both in underground comic books and as an illustrator whose client list ranges from pop-music reissue giants Rhino Records to the illustrator’s deb ball – the New Yorker.

Link: www.popcitymedia.com/features/wayno0312.aspx

Link 2: www.wayno.com