Monday, July 12, 2010
graphic novels Comic book memoirist Harvey Pekar, dead at 70
Posted by Curt Holman @Curt_Holman on Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 12:52 PM
Famed comic book memoirist Harvey Pekar, 70, has been found dead in home, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. For decades Pekar devoted his comic book series American Splendor to warts-and-all naturalism and inspired a generation of "confessional" comic book followers, while his irascible personality made him an occasional foil to David Letterman. Although the cause of death has yet to be determined, Pekar survived a bout with lymphatic cancer in the 1990s, an episode he dramatized in his most powerful book, Our Cancer Year. Paul Giamatti gives a terrific, curmudgeonly performance as Pekar in the 2003 film American Splendor:
The American Splendor comic occasionally found epiphanies in everyday life but made the strongest impression as a self-portrait of its slovenly, outspoken author. Pekar has little in common with other cartoonists, proving closer in spirit to comedian Lenny Bruce or poet Charles Bukowski. He often portrays himself talking — or ranting — to the reader against a blank background in his signature torn T-shirt, and occasionally in the film, Giamatti repeats his monologues word for word.
The film includes this sequence, lightly-animated, from my favorite Pekar story:
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