It’s impossible to categorize Gary Panter as any “type” of artist, as evidenced by his eclectic accolades. Panter is credited as defining the late-’70s Californian punk aesthetic with his flyer and album art for bands like the Germs and the Screamers. In 1986, Panter won three Emmys for designing the sets on the kids’ television show Pee-wee’s Playhouse. As a cartoonist, Panter was included in the 2005 traveling exhibition Masters of American Comics, alongside Jack Kirby and Robert Crumb. In 2008, PictureBox collected Panter’s fine-artwork into a behemoth two-volume retrospective of his acrylic paintings and sketchbooks.

Panter’s very particular obsessions are the common thread in his work: aliens from 1960s Japanese television, antique candy-wrapper designs, dinosaurs, kangaroos, breasts, crappy Mexican figurines, cherry-nosed potato dwarfs in fedoras. Tiny Tim and Bruce Lee cameo in his comics, with pages reserved for Panter to review his favorite records, doodling each cover. Panter is exceptionally well versed in fine-art theory, but hasn’t lost the natural inspiration of playing in a sandbox.