HOT SPRINGS NATIONAL PARK, Arkansas — Pat Moriarity, a nationally known artist with credits that include MAD Magazine, has created a new poster promoting the First Ever 19th Annual World’s Shortest St. Patrick’s Day Parade® that will be held March 17 in downtown Hot Springs.
“Pat Moriarity was a guest artist at our 2019 Spa-Con comics convention in Hot Springs, and was glad to create this unique poster for our upcoming parade,” said Bill Solleder, marketing director for Visit Hot Springs and one of the founders of Spa-Con.
“He was a friend and collaborator with such internationally acclaimed comics artists such as Robert Crumb, whose Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers influence is evident in the leprechaun that is the central focus of our 2022 parade poster,” Solleder said. “He also has collaborated with such comics legends as Harvey Pekar and Henry Rollins. We are so gratified to use Pat’s work to promote our parade. It fits right in with the comic atmosphere that led to the creation of the parade and which continues right up to the present.”
Moriarity’s cartoon work started showing up on punk rock flyers in mid 1980s in Minneapolis, and his comics work in anthologies like Graphic Story Monthly and Pictopia. In the 1990s he became a regular contributor to Real Stuff and Duplex Planet Illustrated.
He next began his own comic series Big Mouth, collaborating with Pekar, Crumb and Rollins. He’s had stints as art director at Fantagraphics Books and the Comics Journal. Moriarity eventually contributed comics to the anthology Zero Zero, and kids’ mags like Nickelodeon, National Geographic Kids and Highlights.
Moriarity currently designs record covers for a variety of labels and is assistant art director to Mineshaft Magazine and is also now one of the “usual gang of idiots” drawing cartoons for MAD Magazine.
The First Ever 19th Annual World’s Shortest St. Patrick’s Day Parade® to be held March 17 on 98-foot Bridge Street, is resuming its full-blown scope this year after two severely abbreviated versions in 2020 and 2021.
“We had two abbreviated parades because of the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, and we hope to get back to the giant celebration that Hot Springs and the world are accustomed to seeing in downtown Hot Springs” said Steve Arrison, CEO of Visit Hot Springs and one of the parade’s founders. “We’ve lined up Cheech
Marin as our celebrity grand marshal, and actor Danny Trejo has officially confirmed that he will be the official starter.
“Arkansas Razorbacks Coach Sam Pittman and his wife, Jamie, have agreed to serve and the King and Queen of the 2022 Parade, and we’ll have some extra surprises to announce soon.”
The parade, which began in 2003, annually attracts upwards of 30,000 people to the city’s historic downtown district. The parade is immensely popular, with its insanely zany collection of marchers, strutters, dancers, waddlers and floats that cover the 98-foot length of Bridge Street, the World’s Shortest Street in Everyday Use, according to Ripley’s Believe It or Not.
For more information call Steve Arrison at 501-321-2027.