CLEVELAND, Ohio – Singer-songwriter-guitarist Peter Laughner only lived for 24 years, but his legend as a central figure in the Cleveland protopunk, art and left-of-center-rock scene has only grown since his death in 1977. While there are plenty of folks still around who remember the man, Laughner’s musical memory has been repeatedly collected and preserved over the years, packaged and marketed for folks who remember the talented guitarist and sometime writer for Creem magazine and for curious younger generations and other music lovers who weren’t around in the scene’s relative heyday.

Laughner was a member of several bands, including Cinderella Backstreet, Cinderella’s Revenge and Friction. But he is best known for his contributions to the “avant-garage” band Rocket From The Tombs and for co-founding the RFTT off-shoot Pere Ubu with David Thomas, who still leads the latter band.

Unfortunately, Laughner didn’t spend much quality time in studios and was only heard on a few of Pere Ubu’s original single recordings during his brief lifetime. But as his legend has grown, so has his discography and influence. Laughner was named checked by Cleveland band The New Lou Reeds in a song simply titled “Peter Laughner” on their album “Screwed,” and The Mountain Goats recorded “Arguing with the Ghost of Peter Laughner About his Coney Island Baby Review” on the album 2021 album “Dark In Here.”

There have also been a few archival musical releases featuring his work, including the live album, “The Day the Earth Met The… Rocket From The Tombs,” as well the currently out-of-print “Take The Guitar Player For a Ride” collection from 1995. More recently, Smog Veil Records released a five-CD box set, also simply titled “Peter Laughner,” corraling solo home recordings, radio broadcasts from WMMS’s “Coffee Break” concert series and live recordings with RFTT and his earlier bands. That 2019 release received a feature in the New York Times.

Cleveland legend Peter Laughner: the rock star you never knew (photos, videos)

The latest chapter in Laughner’s story isn’t a musical release at all. It’s the graphic novel/biography, “Ain’t it Fun,” written and illustrated by Cleveland native Aaron Lange, out on his Stone Church Press. The book doesn’t just cover Laughner’s life. It deftly incorporates and connects the history of Northeast Ohio and Cleveland from its founding to its major events (burning river, the torso killer) and major players (the Rockefellers, Ghoulardi) and leads readers through a variety of comic styles and threads to tie it all into the roots of the aesthetic, sound and attitude of the 1970s Cleveland alternative music scene. Lange went to art school in Columbus and lived in Philadelphia for a decade before moving his family back to Cleveland about six years ago. Stone Church Press was co-founded by Lange and artist/DJ Jake Kelly in 2022 and features both their work and other artists and writers.

On Sunday, December 17, at The Beachland Tavern, Lange and his co-publisher and Kelly will celebrate the book’s release with an interview session that will include guests Jim Ellis of CLE Magazine and Harvey Gold, a former member of Pere Ubu contemporaries Tin Huey. Kelly will also DJ throughout the evening. Cleveland.com talked with Lange about the book, Laughner’s continued relevance and his legend.

Cleveland.com: So, how did you come to this? Why is Peter Laughner interesting to you?

Aaron Lange: Well, I discovered Pere Ubu as a teenager in high school and thought they were really cool. But I didn’t know Peter’s name. I just thought this was an interesting band. Then a couple of years later, in the early 2000s, Rocket From The Tombs reformed. And there was a nice official release of the recordings they made. And when that happened, Peter’s name started kind of coming up in conversation like at parties or just here and there and he was always kind of talked about in hushed tones almost. I started hearing about the Electric Eels and Mirrors and some of these other bands.

I was living in Columbus at the time and I was like, man, there was some interesting stuff going on in Cleveland back in the day. Sometimes, somebody would come over to a party, and they’d bring over a record or bootleg or something. There was always something in the back of my mind and I just started thinking about it more and exploring it more deeply and started to think, ‘There’s something, there’s a story here, there’s something that can be told.’ I thought, ‘Man, someone should really do a book about all this.’ And my wife was like, `Why don’t you?’

Cleveland.com: You talked with several of his former bandmates and friends but didn’t talk with Pere Ubu’s David Thomas presumably because he’s made it clear over the years in interviews that he’s not interested in contributing to the myth-building of Laughner as a troubled and gone-too-soon nascent genius. But isn’t that a sizable part of the appeal of his story?

Aaron Lange I think I was more interested in the death-tripping aspect when I was younger and started the project. I started to kind of move away from that, but it couldn’t be ignored. I think it has to be looked at and addressed because it’s just an intrinsic part of Peter’s appeal and legend, for better or worse. To deny that would be insincere, it’s there, it’s ugly, but people are attracted to death.

Cleveland.com: The first part of the book covers and goes surprisingly deep into the history of Cleveland and Northeast Ohio before reaching Laughner and the music scene.

Aaron Lange: Yeah, I don’t think people expected that. I think they were expecting something a little more straightforward and another kind of rock biography, which I wasn’t interested in doing. That was always the intention. I don’t think I anticipated the scope. But yes, that was always the plan. I definitely knew I was going to talk about Ghoulardi and stuff like that. I think I surprised myself more by getting into John D. Rockefeller and the architecture. That stuff wasn’t necessarily my original plan, but that’s just kind of where my research took me.

Cleveland.com: So, throughout the history of pop music and “rock stars,” we’ve grown sadly accostumed to them dying young through overdosing or by suicide but the list of musicians who wore themselves down is relatively short, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan of The Grateful Dead comes to mind, but not many others. Did you gain any insight on Laughner’s downward health spiral?

Aaron Lange: Yeah, I learned a lot of things. But I also ended up with a lot of questions, too. I’m just as confused as ever as to how Peter destroyed himself so quickly and so young. I just did not get to the bottom of that. I don’t know if you can. And, you know what’s interesting about that to me is as you get older and you realize 24. You did, you did all of that and then burned out at 24, right? And it’s important to remember that it’s not like he overdosed or he didn’t commit suicide. He just, like, wore himself out. It just, it’s kind of staggering.

Cleveland.com: You’d think that would be difficult to do.

Aaron Lange: It’s not easy. I mean, you look at Shane McGowan from The Pogues who just abused himself mercilessly with alcohol and he was in his sixties. It’s kind of hard to wrap your head around.

Cleveland.com: He seemed aware of what he was doing to himself, right?

Aaron Lange: Yeah. He was in the hospital a lot and he, he did talk about, um, I don’t know if you talk about getting sober per se. But I think he wanted to get a grip on it at the very least.

Cleveland.com: So, having done all that research and illustrating the history of the region, has it changed your view or relationship with Cleveland?

Aaron Lange: Well, it’s changed how I move through the world, I think. You can read about Jack The Ripper or something and that’s very interesting, but it’s probably more interesting to someone who lives in London because they’re like, I know that street, I know where this happened and they can feel it in their bones. So learning more about Cleveland and its history the city kind of comes alive.

So you’re standing at a Public Square and you’re aware of all the things that have happened there. It’s kind of hallucinatory. You think, ‘Oh my God, Abraham Lincoln’s corpse was brought here. There was a public hanging here. There were Vietnam protests. Peter Laughner stood here for a photo shoot.’ There are these layers of history, and when you’re aware of them and you’re standing in the spot where they happened can be very powerful. … And then you learn about the city founders or these industrialists and then you’re walking somewhere and ‘Oh, this street is named after this industrialist.’ These names aren’t just arbitrary. They are in the suburbs, but in the city these street names and these building names and these park names are directly connected to the architects of this city. And that’s kind of interesting and knowing what streets used to be Indian trails, and where there used to be burial mounds and it’s almost like Stonehenge kind of stuff.

The “Ain’t It Fun” graphic nove book release event takes place at 6 p.m. Sunday,, Dec. 17, at the Beachland Tavern, 15711 Waterloo Rd, Cleveland. It will feature interviews with author and artist Aaron Lange and his Stone Church Press co-publisher, Jake Kelly, Additional special guests include Jim Ellis (CLE Magazine) & Harvey Gold (Tin Huey). Jake Kelly DJs before and after the event. The event is free. For more information, good to beachlandballroom.com.