Harvey Pekar. Our Man in Cleveland.

Two years ago today, Harvey Pekar died, he was 70 years old and there's a fair chance you haven't heard of him. I hadn't until I picked up the 'American Splendor' dvd in my local blockbuster in 2004.

My drawing of Harvey Pekar

So who was he, and why did he get a film made about him? Harvey was a working class intellectual from Cleveland, Ohio, who in his younger life was unable to hold down a job until he got a job as a file clerk in the Veteran hospital, a job he kept until he retired. He came from a jewish background, was a socialist, a jazz critic in his spare time, suffered from lymphoma, appeared on the Letterman Show, oh yeah, and he wrote comics too.

Pekar became friends with budding comic artist Robert Crumb in the 1960's and as Crumb & the underground comic scene took off and moved away from the traditional superheroes, he realised "comics are words and pictures. You can do anything with words and pictures". He couldn't see a voice like his in the comic-world, so he decided to write a comic about his own life, experiences and views, the first issue was published in 1976. Harvey couldn't draw himself so would write the stories and lay them out with stick figures to show illustrators like Crumb what to draw, which added to the appeal of American Splendor, different issues would often be drawn by different artists.

So why do I like Harvey Pekar & his work? His comics document the ordinary, the everyday banality, the frustrations, and the absurdity of life - American Splendor had a cynical, world weary humour. Despite his intellect, his temperament & skills meant he was unlikely to advance in the world of work, or perhaps he didn't want too, so he looked for a creative outlet, a means of leaving his mark on the world. Which is why I identify with him I suppose, I share a similar frustration at the world for not being the way I thought it would be or indeed should be. That desire or need to leave a mark, to be creative is the reason I'm writing a blog at all.

Harvey is also the reason I've become interested in graphic novels relatively late in life, before I watched American Splendor I hadn't read a comic since the Beano when I was in junior school. Now I've read graphic novels by Daniel Clowes, Alan Moore and Art Spiegelman amongst others, and he's inspired me to want to write & draw my own graphic novels. Which is why when the opportunity came along to donate to his wife, Joyce Brabner's kickstarter campaign to create a memorial for Harvey I jumped at the chance - you can read about that here it's a pretty amazing idea, one day I hope to visit it at Cleveland library.

This is just a short tribute to an endlessly interetsing man, that barely scratches the surface of what he was about, I hope that just one person somewhere reads this and discovers what I did. Why not start with the excellent movie starring Paul Giamatti, like I did?

PS. You can take a quick look at one of Harvey's last ventures, the Pekar Project webcomic, over at smithmag.net