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
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.
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.
life people satirical splendid
American Splendor... that's a satirical name. People who would look at it wouldn't think my life was splendid at all. They'd think it was kind of funky.
freelance life lucky rest stuff unless whether work writer
I have to be a freelance writer for the rest of my life, unless I get some kind of real lucky break. But other than that, I'll always have to work. I always worry about whether my stuff is going to get over. Will they like this, will they like that?
artist comic details happens life mundane stuff virtually
I concentrate, more than I think virtually any comic book artist has in the past, on the so-called mundane details of every day life - quotidian life. What happens to a person during a working day, marital relations, and stuff like that.
creative gigs life-is
Life is about women, gigs, an' bein' creative.
cannes couple far impact involves life newspapers nice prizes reviews success
The film's success so far involves winning a couple of prizes at Cannes and Sundance, and getting some very nice reviews in newspapers and magazines. That hasn't had a big impact on my life yet.
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.
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.
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.