A short life of the author
Harvey Pekar (1939–2010) was born on 8 October 1939 in Cleveland, Ohio. He worked as a file clerk at the Veterans Administration hospital in Cleveland for over thirty years while writing comics.
Life and Career
American Splendor — which Pekar self-published from 1976, with art by Robert Crumb, Gary Dumm, and dozens of other artists — depicts the ordinary details of Pekar’s life: his job, his marriages, his record collecting, his illnesses, his arguments with neighbours. It was revolutionary: comics about an unremarkable life, devoid of fantasy, heroism, or even much plot.
Our Cancer Year (1994, with Joyce Brabner and Frank Stack) — about his battle with lymphoma — is his most sustained single work. The 2003 film American Splendor, starring Paul Giamatti and directed by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.
Major Works and Themes
Pekar wrote about the texture of ordinary life — work, frustration, relationships, illness — and proved that this material could sustain a decades-long comics project. He was an influence on every autobiographical cartoonist who followed.
Key Works
- American Splendor (1976–2008)
- Our Cancer Year (1994)
Collecting Pekar
American Splendor #1 (self-published, 1976) brings $100–$300. Later issues and collected editions bring $10–$40. Pekar died in 2010.