Amusing wall calendar for “Life in Hell 1989 Fun Calendar,” 12 x 12, signed on the front cover in black felt tip, “Your pal, Matt Groening, 8/6/88,” who draws a sketch of Binky the rabbit in the lower left corner with a speech bubble inscription, “To Leslie.” In fine condition, with a couple of corner creases. This sketch of Binky, the main character in Groening's celebrated Life in Hell comic strip, was drawn a little over a year after the Simpsons family premiered on The Tracey Ullman Show. Springfield’s finest debuted on the Fox network on December 17, 1989.
The recipient, Leslie Sternbergh, was an American alternative/underground cartoonist (1960-2019) who studied life drawing at the New York Academy of Art and whose work appeared in publications like The Comics Journal, ‘Twisted Sisters,’ and ‘Wimmen’s Comix.’ She also took on more mainstream work: she was part of the DC New Talent Workshop, inking a story in 1989’s ‘Wonder Woman Annual’ #2, and some of her comics were published in MAD magazine. Sternbergh also did comic book illustrations for the 1989 B-movie Alien Space Avenger, and she appeared as herself in the 1994 Robert Crumb documentary, Crumb. She was a member of the non-profit group Friends of Lulu, which promoted women’s readership of comics until it was dissolved in 2011.
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