Joyce Brabner

Joyce Brabner (1952 – August 2, 2024) was a writer, activist, and advocate whose comics work was inseparable from her political commitments. Best known as the wife and creative partner of Harvey Pekar, she became a central character in the American Splendor universe and co-wrote the landmark graphic memoir Our Cancer Year (1994) with Pekar, documenting the year he was diagnosed with lymphoma against the backdrop of the Gulf War. It remains one of the most profound and unsentimental works in the medium's history. Her earlier Brought to Light (1988), co-written with Alan Moore and illustrated by Bill Sienkiewicz and Joyce Brabner herself, was a graphic investigation into CIA covert operations. She was a vocal advocate for creator rights, nuclear disarmament, and healthcare equity throughout her life. She documented her own final months with cancer in a series of Facebook posts she called 'Joyce vs. Cancer,' characteristically refusing to make her dying anything other than fully itself. She passed away on August 2, 2024.