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
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.
credited people
People writing about me have said that I've influenced a lot of people, and there are some artists who have credited me with influencing them.
comics gotten regular
I've gotten more and more cut off from the regular comic-book world, from straight comics and stuff like that. Once in a while, I'll take a look at something.
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.
flailing fully jazz liked looking modern realized time
I was 16 years old, and I was just flailing around, looking for an interest. I heard, you know, these jazz records. They were modern records, at the time in the '50s, and I realized that I didn't fully get what was going on. But I liked a lot of what I heard.
critical criticize israel jew jewish jews mentally people saying
I'm just tired of people saying I'm a self-hating Jew because I'm critical of Israel or make fun of old Jewish ladies. I do not hate myself. And Jews who criticize Israel aren't necessarily mentally ill.
element guess self
I guess there's an element of self-loathing there,
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?
mistake grateful thinking
I don't think I made any really big mistakes; it's just that I chose something difficult to do. Looking back, I suppose I should be grateful that I got as far as I got.
splendor ongoing autobiography
American Splendor is just an ongoing journal. It's an ongoing autobiography. I started it when I was in my early 30s, and I just keep going.
over-you conflict pursue
You do not pursue potential conflict unless you hold power over your foe.
anyone funny
We're as interesting and funny as anyone else.
comic decided parody patriotism time voracious
When I was a kid, back in the '40s, I was a voracious comic book reader. And at that time, there was a lot of patriotism in the comics. They were called things like 'All-American Comics' or 'Star-Spangled Comics' or things like that. I decided to do a logo that was a parody of those comics, with 'American' as the first word.
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.