Harvey Pekar

Early comics work

Pekar's friendship with Robert Crumb led to the creation of the self-published, autobiographical comic book series American Splendor. Crumb and Pekar became friends through their shared love of jazz records.^[20] It took Pekar a decade to do so: "I theorized for maybe ten years about doing comics."^[21] Pekar's influences from the literary world included James Joyce, Arthur Miller, George Ade, Henry Roth, and Daniel Fuchs.^[22]

Around 1972, Pekar laid out some stories with crude stick figures and showed them to Crumb and another artist, Robert Armstrong. Impressed, they both offered to illustrate.^[23] Pekar & Crumb's one-pager "Crazy Ed" was published as the back cover of Crumb's The People's Comics (Golden Gate Publishing Company, 1972), becoming Pekar's first published work of comics. Including "Crazy Ed" and before the publication of American Splendor #1, Pekar wrote a number of other comic stories that were published in a variety of outlets:

• "Crazy Ed", with Robert Crumb, in The People's Comics (Golden Gate Publishing Company, 1972)
• "A Mexican Tale," with Greg Budgett and Munan, in Flaming Baloney X (Propaganda Ink, c. 1975)
• "It Pays to Advertise" with Willy Murphy, in Flamed-Out Funnies #1 (Keith Green, Aug. 1975)
• "Ain' It the Truth" with Willy Murphy, in Flamed-Out Funnies #1 (Keith Green, Aug. 1975)
• "The Boys on the Corner: A Good Shit Is Best" with Willy Murphy, in Flamed-Out Funnies #1 (Keith Green, Aug. 1975)
• "The Kinsman Cowboys: How'd Ya Get Inta This Bizness Ennyway?" with Greg Budgett & Gary Dumm, in Bizarre Sex #4 (Kitchen Sink Press, Oct. 1975)
• "Famous Street Fights: The Champ" with Robert Armstrong in Comix Book #4 (Kitchen Sink Press, Feb. 1976)
• "Don't Rain on My Parade" with Robert Armstrong in Snarf #6 (Kitchen Sink Press, Feb. 1976)

American Splendor

The first issue of Pekar's self-published American Splendor series appeared in May 1976, with stories illustrated by Crumb, Dumm, Budgett, and Brian Bram. Applying the "brutally frank autobiographical style of Henry Miller,"^[11] American Splendor documented Pekar's daily life in the aging neighborhoods of his native Cleveland.

Pekar and his work came to greater prominence in 1986 when Doubleday collected much of the material from the first ten issues in American Splendor: The Life and Times of Harvey Pekar,^[24] which was positively reviewed by, among others, The New York Times.^[25] (1986 was also the year Pekar began appearing on Late Night with David Letterman.)^[24]

Pekar self-published 15 issues of American Splendor from 1976 to 1991 (issue #16 was co-published with Tundra Publishing). Dark Horse Comics took on the publishing and distribution of Pekar's comics from 1993 to 2003.

In 2006, Pekar released a four-issue American Splendor miniseries through the DC Comics imprint Vertigo Comics.^[26] This was collected in the American Splendor: Another Day paperback. In 2008 Vertigo released a second four-issue "season" of American Splendor that was later collected in the American Splendor: Another Dollar paperback.

Pekar's best-known and longest-running collaborators include Crumb,^[27] Dumm, Budgett, Spain Rodriguez, Joe Zabel, Gerry Shamray, Frank Stack, Mark Zingarelli, and Joe Sacco. In the 2000s, he teamed regularly with artists Dean Haspiel and Josh Neufeld. Other cartoonists who worked with him include Jim Woodring, Chester Brown, Alison Bechdel, Gilbert Hernandez, Eddie Campbell, David Collier, Drew Friedman, Ho Che Anderson, Rick Geary, Ed Piskor, Hunt Emerson, Bob Fingerman, and Alex Wald; as well as such non-traditional illustrators as Pekar's wife, Joyce Brabner, and comics writer Alan Moore.

In addition to his autobiographical work on American Splendor, Pekar wrote a number of biographies. The first of these, American Splendor: Unsung Hero (Dark Horse Comics, 2003), illustrated by David Collier, documented the Vietnam War experience of Robert McNeill, one of Pekar's African-American coworkers at Cleveland's VA hospital.^[24]

Stories from the American Splendor comics have been collected in many books and anthologies.

American Splendor film

A film adaptation of American Splendor was released in 2003, directed by Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman. It starred Paul Giamatti as Pekar, as well as appearances by Pekar himself (and his wife Joyce, foster daughter Danielle, and co-worker Toby Radloff). American Splendor won the Grand Jury Prize for Dramatic Film at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival, in addition to the award for Best Adapted Screenplay from the Writers Guild of America. At the 2003 Cannes Film Festival, the film received the FIPRESCI critics award.^[28] American Splendor was given the Guardian New Directors Award at the 2003 Edinburgh International Film Festival.^[29] It was also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the 2003 Academy Awards. Pekar wrote about the effects of the film in American Splendor: Our Movie Year.

Other comics work

On October 5, 2005, the DC Comics imprint Vertigo published Pekar's autobiographical hardcover The Quitter, with artwork by Dean Haspiel. The book traces Pekar’s youth in postwar Cleveland, depicting an angry, insecure teenager who drifts through school, jobs, and relationships while repeatedly abandoning pursuits out of anxiety and fear of failure.^[30]

In the years following, Pekar produced a large number of book-length graphic works in rapid succession, often in collaboration with other writers, the editor Paul Buhle, and his long-time American Splendor artist Gary Dumm. These books often focus on biography, history, and reportage rather than the memoir comics with which Pekar had established his reputation.

In 2006, Ballantine/Random House published Pekar's graphic biography Ego & Hubris: The Michael Malice Story, illustrated by Dumm. The book examines the early life and personality of Michael Malice, a Ukrainian-born American writer and founding editor of Overheard in New York. The project grew out of Pekar's personal encounters with Malice — initially adapting his anecdotes into a shorter comic^[31] — before expanding into a book-length character study of a figure Pekar found psychologically elusive.^[32][33]

He co-wrote Macedonia (Random House, June 2007) with Heather Roberson, a graphic nonfiction book based on her research and travels in the Balkans. The book examines how the Republic of Macedonia avoided the violent conflicts that accompanied the breakup of Yugoslavia, while also exploring ethnic tensions between Macedonians and Albanians. The work is based on Roberson's field research and interviews, which Pekar adapted into a scripted narrative for comics.^[34][35] It marked Pekar's first major collaboration with Ed Piskor.^[36][37]

He was the principal writer of Students for a Democratic Society: A Graphic History (Hill & Wang, 2008), constructing much of the book’s narrative while incorporating contributions from other writers in a volume edited by Buhle. The book, primarily illustrated by Dumm, presents a history of the New Left student movement, tracing the rise and fragmentation of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) through personal accounts.^[38]

Pekar was the principal writer of The Beats: A Graphic History, a collaborative comics history of the Beat Generation — featuring figures such as Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg — illustrated by multiple artists, including Piskor, and edited by Buhle. The book, largely written by Pekar, presents a celebratory and accessible account of the Beats’ lives and cultural impact; it was published in March 2009 by Hill & Wang. ^[39]

Pekar served as the principal writer and adaptor — collaborating with multiple artists — of a comics treatment of Studs Terkel's seminal 1974 oral history book Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do. Studs Terkel's Working: A Graphic Adaptation was published in May 2009 by The New Press;^[40] the book was again edited by Buhle.^[41]

In the summer of 2009, Pekar started the webcomic The Pekar Project with the online magazine Smith.^[42] Edited by Jeff Newelt, the project was conceived as an experimental alternative to American Splendor, featuring new stories by Pekar illustrated by multiple artists, including Tara Seibel, Rick Parker, Joseph Remnant, and Sean Pryor, with stories ranging from brief, abstract pieces to longer narratives. The site also served as a hub for Pekar-related content, including interviews, behind-the-scenes material, and contributions from other collaborators.^[43]

Critical writing

Pekar was an assiduous record collector as well as a freelance book, comic, and jazz critic, writing mainly about significant figures from jazz's golden age but also championing out-of-mainstream artists such as Scott Fields, Fred Frith and Joe Maneri. He published his first criticism in The Jazz Review in 1959.^[13][11] Pekar wrote hundreds of articles for DownBeat, JazzTimes, The Village Voice, and The Austin Chronicle;^[44] as well as liner notes for Verve Records and other labels.^[45]

Pekar occasionally combined his music writing with his comics writing: during the period 1992–1996, he and Joe Sacco created a series of comics strips for The Village Voice primarily about jazz — the people who played it and the people who lived it. These strips were reformatted and collected in American Splendor: Music Comics, published by Dark Horse in 1997.^[46]

Pekar occasionally wrote criticism about the work of other comics creators. For instance, he famously saw Art Spiegelman's use of animals in Maus as potentially reinforcing stereotypes.^[47] Pekar was also disdainful of Spiegelman's overwhelmingly negative portrayal of his father in Maus,^[47] calling him disingenuous and hypocritical for such a portrayal in a book that presents itself as objective.^[47] Pekar furthermore wrote that Maus' portrayal of Poles is unbalanced — that, while some Poles are seen as helping Jews, they are often shown doing so for self-serving reasons.^[48] From 1986 to 1990, Pekar had a regular column in the comics anthology Weirdo called "Harvey Sez," in which he wrote about the contemporary comics scene.

He reviewed literary fiction in the Review of Contemporary Fiction.^[49] Pekar won awards for his essays broadcast on public radio.^[50]

Comics format

• American Splendor: The Life and Times of Harvey Pekar (Doubleday, 1986)
• More American Splendor (Doubleday, 1987) ISBN 0-385-24073-2
  • Both above anthologies re-issued in a single volume by Ballantine Books in 2003 ISBN 0-345-46830-9
• The New American Splendor Anthology (Four Walls Eight Windows, 1991) ISBN 0-941423-64-6
• Our Cancer Year, with Joyce Brabner and Frank Stack (Four Walls Eight Windows, 1994) ISBN 1-56858-011-8
• American Splendor Presents: Bob & Harv's Comics, with R. Crumb (Four Walls Eight Windows, 1996) ISBN 1-56858-101-7
• American Splendor: Unsung Hero, with David Collier (Dark Horse Comics, 2003) ISBN 1-59307-040-3
• American Splendor: Our Movie Year (Ballantine Books, 2004) ISBN 0-345-47937-8
• Best of American Splendor (Ballantine Books, 2005) ISBN 0-345-47938-6 Selections from his later, Dark Horse period.
• The Quitter, with Dean Haspiel (DC/Vertigo, 2005) ISBN 1-4012-0399-X
• American Splendor: Ego & Hubris - The Michael Malice Story, with Gary Dumm (Ballantine Books, 2006) ISBN 0-345-47939-4
• Macedonia, with Heather Roberson and Ed Piskor (Ballantine Books, 2006) ISBN 0-345-49899-2
• American Splendor: Another Day (DC/Vertigo, 2007) ISBN 978-1-4012-1235-3
• Students for a Democratic Society: A Graphic History, edited by Paul Buhle, with art (mostly) by Gary Dumm (Hill & Wang, 2008) ISBN 978-0-8090-9539-1
• American Splendor: Another Dollar (DC/Vertigo, 2009) ISBN 978-1-4012-2173-7
• The Beats: A Graphic History, mostly by Pekar with contributions by other writers (including Joyce Brabner). Art mostly by Ed Piskor, with additional art by Jay Kinney, Nick Thorkelson, Summer McClinton, Peter Kuper, Mary Fleener, Gary Dumm, Lance Tooks, Jeffrey Lewis, and others. Edited by Paul Buhle (Hill & Wang, 2009) ISBN 978-0-285-63858-7
• Studs Terkel's Working: A Graphic Adaptation, edited by Paul Buhle . With art by Sharon Rudahl, Terry LaBan, Gary Dumm, Peter Gullerud, Pablo G. Callejo, et al. (The New Press, 2009) ISBN 978-1-59558-321-5

Prose

• Circus Parade by Jim Tully. Foreword by Harvey Pekar. Introduction by Paul J. Bauer and Mark Dawidziak. (Kent State Univ. Press, 2009) 978-1-60635-001-0