I FIRST MET PETER HALFAR IN THE FALL of 1965 in Munich, Germany, where I began publishing Vagabond, a literary magazine. Maria Spaans, from the Netherlands, was art editor for the first two issues, and Peter followed in her footsteps. Five issues of Vagabond were published in Munich before I shifted the enterprise to New Orleans, and in that time Peter, Maria and I became close friends. Peter’s favorite word is unheimlich. It colors his art and his outlook, and in the sense he means it, unheimlich translates as a quirky, sometimes playful, sometimes foreboding surrealism. The unheimlich permeated the pages of the early issues of Vagabond. Peter, Maria and I went our separate ways after I left Munich, but we never fully lost contact, and when I returned to Europe for a visit in 1986, I saw them both. Maria was married and living in Paris, and Peter was still living in Munich. But he had become something of a world traveler since I last saw him, and it showed in his art, which was flourishing. And something new had been added. Shyly, on the last day of my visit, Peter pressed a thick folder into my hands. “Stories,” he said. “I have been writing stories. Unheimliche stories!” — John Bennett Continue reading →