Harvey Pekar
Harvey Pekar
Harvey Lawrence Pekarwas an American underground comic book writer, music critic, and media personality, best known for his autobiographical American Splendor comic series. In 2003, the series inspired a well-received film adaptation of the same name...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionComic Book Artist
Date of Birth8 October 1939
CountryUnited States of America
establish far liked people work
It didn't take long to establish myself, as far as people thinking my work was good. They liked it from the start.
incidents life
I write about my life, choosing incidents that I think will be, for one reason or another, significant to people. Often because they may have experienced the same things.
motions people work
I worry about getting work, and then when I get it, I worry about doing it well. I don't want to just go through the motions and give people stuff. This stuff is really important to me.
comic looks typical work
My work looks like a comic book in form, but it's not a typical comic book in content. I write autobiographical stuff.
home
It's real easy for me to write a lot of stories. I just go and I live through something, and I go home and write about it. It's that quick.
people
I came up with American Splendor. Some people think it's American Squalor.
beyond comics expand knew life mission prove sort talking time
I was sort of on a mission with 'American Splendor.' I wanted to try to prove that comics could do things. I wanted to expand them beyond superheroes and talking animals. And I knew that was going to take a long time. But I just started writing an autobiography about my quotidian life.
morning regardless somewhat wake
I wake up every morning in a cold sweat, regardless of how well things went the day before. And put that I said that in a somewhat but not completely tongue-in-cheek way.
based buying charts chord hear jazz kept music pop records relationship solos structure swing underlying
I kept on buying records and listening to them. Finally, I was able to hear the relationship between the jazz improvisers' solos and the underlying structure that it's based on, the chord progression. That was pretty easy to do in the swing era, y'know, when jazz was, like, pop music, you know. It had made the charts and everything like that.
basic time trying
I can't write in a whole lot of different styles, trying to please the highbrows one time and the lowbrows the next. I pretty much have a basic style I employ.
balloons comics draw figures henry influenced scripts stick storyboard using writers
I was influenced by autobiographical writers like Henry Miller, and I had actually done some autobiographical prose. But I just thought that comics were like virgin territory. There was so much to be done. It excited me. I couldn't draw very well. I could write scripts and storyboard style using stick figures and balloons and captions.
among guess medication stay
I guess I wanted to show people, among other things, that you don't have to be a hero to get through cancer. You can be a craven coward and get through. You have to stay on your medication and take your treatments, that's all.
limitation people sorts variety vast word
There's no limitation on comics, nothing. From a logical standpoint, how can there be a limitation on comics? You can use any word in the dictionary. You can put them in any order you want to. You can use a vast variety of illustrating styles. People could do all sorts of things.
cheap mind
I don't mind if I show myself being cheap or unreasonable sometimes.