Pat Moriarity started out as a punk rock artist in the mid-1980’s music scene of Minneapolis, working for Twin/Tone records, doing things like paste up, poster design and cartoons for acts like CURTISS A, THE REPLACEMENTS, MEKONS, MAGNOLIAS, FAT TUESDAY, SWINGIN’ TEENS and SOUL ASYLUM. He got his start in sequential art in 1987 when Fantagraphics published his first attempt at comics in GRAPHIC STORY MONTHLY, a story called POPCORN PIMPS. In 1988 He won first prize out of 300 entries in the Twin Cities Reader’s First annual cartoon contest. He went on to appear in anthologies like ZERO ZERO, REAL STUFF, PICTOPIA, TOP SHELF, Aleksandar Zograf’s FLOCK OF DREAMERS, DUPLEX PLANET and AESOP’s FABLES before getting his own comic book title, the Harvey Award nominated BIG MOUTH, in 1993. In BIG MOUTH, Pat collaborated with people who wrote stories for him, like Harvey Pekar, Robert Crumb, Mary Fleener, Dennis Eichhorn and Burne Hogarth.
He eventually moved from Minneapolis to Seattle in 1991 and became an art director for Fantagraphics, and later for THE COMICS JOURNAL. In 1996, Pat was honored as ROLLING STONE Magazine’s “hot cartoonist”. This event practically launched his freelance career as a cartoonist and illustrator for clients like Nickelodeon, Crustacean Records, Red Decibel, Subpop, the Stranger, Details, Seattle Weekly and CMJ. In 1997, two of his cover designs received certificates of excellence from PRINT MAGAZINE. Eventually Moriarity got enough nerve to quit his day job at Fantagraphics and try full-time illustration. Moriarity saw his work appear in places like National Geographic Kids, Estrus Records, Columbia Records, Chrysler Magazine, Sasquatch Books, Washington Law & Politics, and THE BEST OF LCD: The art and writing of WFMU. Soon, the Seattle music paper THE ROCKET, asked him to do a weekly comic strip, called LOOP-DE-LOOP, that ran until the paper’s very last issue. Moriarity was featured in the documentary HOOKED ON COMIX.
In 2002 he won the prestigious, merit based GAP fellowship award from the Washington State Arts Commission and the Artist Trust Organization. In 2004, Pat was an Illustration finalist and later a juror, for the SOCIETY OF ILLUSTRATORS of New York City. Pat created three minutes of animation in the award winning 2006 documentary DERAILROADED, that was featured on Robert Redford’s SUNDANCE channel. In 2008 Moriarity was the winner of the coveted GOLDEN TOONIE, making him “cartoonist of the year” for the organization known as CARTOONISTS NORTHWEST. In 2010, Fifteen of his posters were featured on the set of Showtime’s TV show WEEDS, in a scene taking place in Seattle. Since then he’s been a featured guest, speaker and exhibitor at Italy’s CRACK FUMETTI festival, Serbia’s NOVO DOBA, North Carolina’s ZINE MACHINE, Hot Spring’s VALLEY OF THE VAPORS, and most recently Belgrade’s SALON STRIPA in 2015. He currently lives and works from home in Port Orchard, Washington, contributing to MINESHAFT MAGAZINE, and lots of cartoon projects, most recently ay ozy.com. An adjunct Professor, Pat Moriarity occasionally teaches character design, storyboarding and comics at the Art Institute of Seattle. Look for him in the 2015 documentary BEZANGO, WA