Early life Born in
Ross, California, Beck grew up in
El Sobrante, California, as an ill and bedridden child, who battled a combination of
tuberculosis and
spinal meningitis. In
Richmond, California, while attending
De Anza High School, he began a lifelong friendship with the cartoonist
Roger Brand. Visiting
UC Berkeley, he started submitting cartoons to the campus humor magazine,
The Pelican, slipping them under the door to editors who believed he was a college student. Soon he dropped out of high school and never graduated. In the early 1960s, he drew
studio cards for
Box Cards. He lived for several months in Manhattan in 1962 before returning to the West Coast.
Underground comix In the early 1960s, Beck moved into a converted closet in a housing unit near the campus of U.C. Berkeley, known as Haste House, and he continued to do cartoons for
The Pelican. During that time he published three underground comic books,
Lenny of Laredo,
Marching Marvin, and
The Profit. The
San Francisco Chronicle commented: In 1965, his first full-length comic book,
Lenny of Laredo, was published. It was a satire loosely based on the career of embattled comedian
Lenny Bruce. Mr. Beck's protagonist, a child named Lenny, achieves fame and fortune by uttering "obscenities" such as "pee-pee thing", only to find his career in the dumps when the public becomes satiated with his naughtiness. Two other books,
Marching Marvin and
The Profit, followed. All are
collector's items today. In 1965, humor magazine editors voted to choose the nation's top college cartoonist and gave the honor to Beck. In January 1966,
The Pelican reprinted much of his previous work and labeled him "Man of the Decade". His cartoons also appeared in the
Berkeley Barb, and he penned a number of handbills and posters for the Jabberwock coffeehouse on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley.
Fine art Beck was also a traditional artist, working with
acrylic,
watercolour and
oil painting.
Death Beck died on September 21, 1999, from complications from alcoholism in
Point Richmond, California. == Tributes ==