The other day, some arsehole on a different FB page came along and spew out his hatred of the concept of The Punisher playing guitar, saying that he doesn’t do that but spends all his time cleaning weapons and sharpening knives just like in the comics. I say “He does now!” He never played an instrument in the comics before which is true. But that doesn’t mean he can’t play an instrument at all, let alone a harp and/or guitar.
Seeing the Punisher playing the guitar in Marvel’s The Punisher thrills me from the very day I first read about what people saw at the #SDCC event through a live blog. People became thrilled and ecstatic to see Frank playing his guitar in the first part of an exclusive montage video that was shown in The Defenders panel event. I got ecstatic, too. In fact my excitement and hype over The Punisher went sky high after that. A few months later I saw the screenshot and the first montage of the trailer where Frank teaches his beloved daughter Lisa how to play guitar.
That put a big smile on my face. In a very special way that guitar scene, which I regard as The Most Sweetest Punisher Scene on Earth, brought honor to me, The Owosso Harpist Sherry Konkus. I’m the only one who made the concept up of Frank playing a stringed instrument up a few years before Marvel and the cast and crew of The Punisher came up with such an awesome concept.
In my case, it’s the harp that Frank first played before guitar. In fact one FB user said that I’m a visionary who first made up the concept of Frank playing a stringed instrument before Marvel and Netflix got a hold of the concept and had Frank play guitar in the Punisher series. Before that, I had Frank play the harp. A harp no one has ever thought of seeing Frank play before and thought it was funny. I don’t. I don’t think it’s funny at all. To tell you the truth I find the concept very enthralling and inspiring.
I fell in love with it the very moment I made my first Punisher artwork years ago in 2014 when I was going through a tough time trying to raise $$ to purchase my very own concert harp which I eventually managed to successfully raise enough money to buy a concert harp after 25 years of struggle. I just became a fan of The Punisher back then. I wanted to do something with The Punisher that I’ve been doing to a few other favorite cartoon characters ever since I was a little girl– play the harp.
I admit it was a little embarrassing at first, but I went at it and drew my very first Punisher harp art based on The Punisher drawn by Frank Cho.
The moment I finished my artwork, it was love at first sight. I became hooked. I was like, “This is it! This is the very character that I really want to officially make into a harpist, the punishing harpist who spends his non-warring days playing the harp in memory of his late family.” Since then, everything took off from there, creating such beautiful and inspiring Punisher harp art through drawings, toy photography, and short videos and fan fiction.
I plan to continue to create such wonderful Punisher harp art as long as I live so that people, especially the cast and crew of The Punisher, can enjoy them and be inspired by my work. Lately, I’ve been incorporating the guitar into my harp art so that I can now say that The Punisher plays both guitar as well as the harp.
Seeing Frank play both the harp and guitar comes to show that The Punisher is not about an angry guy with guns, but an actual human being with a special touch of humanity which shows when Frank (in Two Dead Men) rebuked his late son for uttering a racial slur when they saw the Stature of Liberty in New York City just before Frank got deployed to serve in Afghanistan.
He’s a human then, he’s a human now. He’s a human who possess a special ability to play both the guitar and harp, not some “murderous piece of trash” or a dumb emotionless war-mongering stooge. He’s a harpist/guitarist who plays his instrument in his family’s memory when he’s not waging war against criminals.
If you don’t like it, too bad for you. This lovable, inspiring, “all new, all different” original musical concept is here to stay. My hopes for my Punisher Harp series is for it to have a worldwide fan base and be blessed and enjoyed by all of Marvel, the cast and crew of The Punisher, and every Punisher fan out there, old and young, who deeply cares about my work, my creativity, and especially The Punisher and his harp and guitar.
Sherry Konkus lives in Owosso, MI. She is the proud owner of the Camac Athena EX Concert Grand Harp named “Grover” and Camac Mademoiselle named “Ernie.” She’s also the proud author of The Punisher Harp Zone. Sherry is the one who came up with the idea of portraying The Punisher from Marvel Comics as the punishing harpist who plays the harp in memory of his family who was killed by the mob years ago.