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"A Love Letter to Cleveland" from Gary and Laura Dumm, will be unveiled Tuesday near the West Side Market.

(Gary and Laura Dumm)

CLEVELAND, Ohio – A two-year labor of love will be unveiled Tuesday evening as Gary and Laura Dumm's "A Love Letter to Cleveland" murals are unveiled on the Orange Blossom Press building near the West Side Market.

The three murals are the artists’ depiction of famous people, places and things that shaped Cleveland. The cover will be pulled off the murals at 5 p.m. by the artists with some help from Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson and Councilman Joe Cimperman.

The event will last until 7 p.m., snacks provided, in the alley behind the Orange Blossom building at 1935 W. 25th Street, near the West Side Market.

The murals are each eight feet tall and each measures 26, 28 or seven feet wide. People will be challenged to identify the faces of Clevelanders on the murals. Some are famous, like Superman, Harvey Pekar, Halle Berry and Ghoulardi, others tougher to identify like Dorothy Fuldheim, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Cy Young and Eliot Ness.

Gary Dumm, 66, best known for his work illustrating the stories of Pekar in “American Splendor” comics for 30 years, drew 50 people and things on the murals, whittling the list down from the original 200.

“There were so many people and things we wanted to put in, but there is only so much space available,” he said. “I did the drawings and then Laura did her magic and colored the whole thing. We then put all the pieces together to create the murals. If it were left up to me, the whole thing would be black and white.”

The project started for Dumms, who are lifelong Clevelanders, in 2011 as an entry into the Ohio Department of Transportation’s large scale art project for Cleveland underpasses. They went up against the creations of 150 artists and made it to the final three, but were ultimately passed over.

By that time, they had already done much of the work.

Superman and his creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, are honored on Gary and Laura Dumm's murals.

“I was at the Orange Blossom Press (in 2012), talking to Greg Patt about our disappointment when he suggested putting the murals on his building,” Dumm said. “The murals would be smaller, but they would still look great for all the people who go to the West Side Market.”

Dumm applied for a grant with the Community Partnership For Arts and Culture, which is funded through the county’s “sin tax," and was awarded the $20,000 grant to finish the project. After Gary Dumm created the drawings and Laura colored them, they turned the files over to Repros Inc. to be transferred onto giant vinyl canvasses.

“This Sunday workmen will spend all day installing the murals on the Orange Blossom building,” Dumm said. “And boy are we hoping it does not rain. They will cover the murals so they can be officially unveiled on Tuesday.”

One of the panels is devoted to one of the best known Clevelanders in the world: Superman and his creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

“We had to make a big deal out of Superman,” he said. “After all this is his 75th anniversary. And, of course, I am a huge comic fan.”

The murals have a special coating that should protect them from sun, wind and rain for up to five years. Dumm said they would figure out what to do then if the murals need to be replaced.

More famous Clevelanders are featured in the wall murals to be unveiled Tuesday near the West Side Market.

Dumm wishes there were a way to include a key to the murals to identify the people and places. “We included a blue, flowing ribbon that runs through the murals representing the Cuyahoga River,” he said. “That includes the identifying names, but they are not always right next to the person. A little detective work will be required.”

Dumm said Orange Blossom would give a pamphlet explaining the murals out to anyone who knocked on their door.

Dumm is currently working with writer Scott MacGregor on a graphic novel called “Simple, Ordinary Man,” a fictionalized story of Irish and Italian immigrant workers killed in an explosion while mining for fresh water under Lake Erie.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m digging in a mine under Lake Erie,” Dumm said in a perfect dour learned from years of working with Harvey Pekar.