Robert Sikoryak a.k.a. R. Sikoryak, is a comic book artist

Comic Book Artist

Comic Book Artist was an American magazine founded by Jon B. Cooke devoted to anecdotal histories of American comic books, with emphasis on comics published since the 1960s...

 who specializes in making comic adaptations of literature classics, producing a mashup of high and low cultures. Under the series title Masterpiece Comics, these include Crime and Punishment

Crime and Punishment

Crime and Punishment is a novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It was first published in the literary journal The Russian Messenger in twelve monthly installments during 1866. It was later published in a single volume. This is the second of Dostoyevsky's full-length novels following his...

 rendered in Bob Kane

Bob Kane

Bob Kane was an American comic book artist and writer, credited as the creator of the DC Comics superhero Batman...

–era Batman

Batman

Batman is a fictional character created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger. A comic book superhero, Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 , and since then has appeared primarily in publications by DC Comics...

 style, becoming Dostoyevsky Comics, starring Raskol; and Waiting for Godot

Waiting for Godot

Waiting for Godot is an absurdist play by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait endlessly and in vain for someone named Godot to arrive. Godot's absence, as well as numerous other aspects of the play, have led to many different interpretations since the play's...

 mixed with Beavis and Butt-Head

Beavis and Butt-Head

Beavis and Butt-head is an American animated television series created by Mike Judge. The series originated from Frog Baseball, a 1992 short film by Judge. After seeing the short, MTV signed Judge to develop the concept. Beavis and Butt-head originally aired from March 8, 1993 to November 28, 1997...

, becoming Waiting to Go.

Early life

Sikoryak earned his BFA from the Parsons School of Design in 1987, and is currently on staff at the school. Shortly after graduating from Parsons, Sikoryak worked on staff at RAW

RAW (magazine)

RAW was a comics anthology edited by Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly and published by Mouly from 1980 to 1991. It was a flagship publication of the 1980s alternative comics movement, serving as a more intellectual counterpoint to Robert Crumb's visceral Weirdo, which followed squarely in the...

, before embarking on a freelance cartooning career.

Career

His cartoons and illustrations have appeared in The New Yorker

The New Yorker

The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...

, Nickelodeon Magazine, Drawn and Quarterly

Drawn and Quarterly

Drawn and Quarterly is a Canadian comic book publishing company, headed by Chris Oliveros, and based in Montreal, Quebec. Its focus is on graphic novels and underground or alternative comics. Drawn and Quarterly was also the title of the company's flagship quarterly anthology during the 1990s...

, World War 3 Illustrated

World War 3 Illustrated

World War 3 Illustrated is an American comics anthology magazine with a left-wing political focus, founded in 1980 by New York comic book artists Peter Kuper and Seth Tobocman, and painter Christof Kohlhofer, and subsequently produced by a collective with a rotating editorship...

, and RAW

RAW (magazine)

RAW was a comics anthology edited by Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly and published by Mouly from 1980 to 1991. It was a flagship publication of the 1980s alternative comics movement, serving as a more intellectual counterpoint to Robert Crumb's visceral Weirdo, which followed squarely in the...

, among other publications; and on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Sikoryak is also known for his "Carousel" series of multimedia comics slideshows, featuring cartoonists like Lauren Weinstein, Michael Kupperman

Michael Kupperman

Michael Kupperman, also known by the pseudonym P. Revess, is an American cartoonist and illustrator. He created the comic strips Up All Night and Found in the Street, and has written scripts for DC Comics...

, Jason Little

Jason Little (cartoonist)

Jason Palmer Little is an American cartoonist.He grew up in Binghamton, New York, studied photography at Oberlin College, and now lives in Brooklyn with writer Myla Goldberg and their two daughters....

, and himself, which have been presented in various venues in the United States and Canada since 1997.

Sikoryak lives in Manhattan

Manhattan

Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

 with his wife, choreographer Kriota Willberg

Kriota Willberg

Kriota Willberg is a choreographer for commercial, theatrical, and other dance productions. Dance choreography for film includes The Bentfootes, directed by K. Willberg and Todd Alcott, starring James Urbaniak and Nina Hellman with score by Carmen Borgia; Grasshopper, directed by Todd Alcott; and...

.

External links

• The Daily Shows "The Decider — The Origin," featuring Sikoryak's illustrations
• Montero, Patrick. "Comics Meet Literature in the Work of R. Sikoryak," New York Daily News (September 20, 2009).