I don’t know why. I did know he wrote it. Most of the Janis Joplin stuff I care for is on, you guessed it, Cheap Thrills.

I’ve not heard of Greg Egan, nor of there being no photos of him. I have however heard of me making high school webpages in 1998 that actually looked better than that (the only thing missing is the frames.)

LIVING person with no pictures online & who has made no public appearances? I guess there are technically pics of Thomas Pynchon aside from his high school pics (and I agree that they are definitely pics of him.) Does his Simpsons voiceover count as a “public appearance”? You probably already thought of him. As far as “writer with a mysterious, non-public-friendly identity” stories go I prefer B. Traven, writer of The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre, but he isn’t living and there are pictures of people who MIGHT be him. And of course Jack Chick is dead, but that might have been a pic of him.
Bill Watterson makes no public appearances and never really did, but there are pics of him from back in the day (I keep forgetting that he started Calvin & Hobbes while still in his 20s) however there are no RECENT pics of him whatsoever.
Mark Hollis from Talk Talk, I can only find, like, two pics of him from after 1991. He is now dead though.