Harvey Pekar

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Template:Short description Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox writer Harvey Lawrence Pekar (Template:IPAc-en; October 8, 1939 – July 12, 2010)<ref>"United States Social Security Death Index," index, FamilySearch Familysearch.org Accessed 19 Mar 2013, Harvey L Pekar, 12 July 2010.</ref> was 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.

Frequently described as the "poet laureate of Cleveland",<ref name="The Original Goodbye Splendor">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="tabletmag.com">"Harvey Pekar Dies: Comic book writer was 'poet laureate of Cleveland'" by Marc Tracy, Tablet, July 12, 2010</ref> Pekar "helped change the appreciation for, and perceptions of, the graphic novel, the drawn memoir, the autobiographical comic narrative."<ref name="washingtonpost.com">"HARVEY PEKAR: Remembering the man — and legacy — one year later" by Michael Cavna, The Washington Post, 7/13/2011</ref> Pekar described his work as "autobiography written as it's happening. The theme is about staying alive, getting a job, finding a mate, having a place to live, finding a creative outlet. Life is a war of attrition. You have to stay active on all fronts. It's one thing after another. I've tried to control a chaotic universe. And it's a losing battle. But I can't let go. I've tried, but I can't."<ref>"Harvey Pekar" (obituary), The Daily Telegraph, July 13, 2010</ref>

Among the awards given to Pekar for his work were the Inkpot Award, the American Book Award, a Harvey Award, and his posthumous induction into the Eisner Award Hall of Fame.

Life

Harvey Pekar and his younger brother Allen were born in Cleveland, Ohio, to a Jewish family.<ref>Schumer, Arlen. "The 13 Most Influential Jewish Creators and Execs, PART 4," 13th Dimension (Sep 22, 2015).</ref> Their parents were Saul and Dora Pekar, immigrants from Białystok, Poland. Saul Pekar was a Talmudic scholar who owned a grocery store on Kinsman Avenue, with the family living above the store.<ref name= plaindealer /> Although Pekar said he wasn't close to his parents due to their dissimilar backgrounds and because they worked all the time, he still "marveled at how devoted they were to each other. They had so much love and admiration for one another."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Pekar's first language as a child was Yiddish and he learned to read and appreciate novels in the language.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Pekar said he did not have friends for the first few years of his life.<ref>Cleveland by Harvey Pekar, illustrated by Joseph Remnant, Zip Comics and Top Shelf Productions, 2012, page 42.</ref> The neighborhood he lived in had once been all white but became mostly black by the 1940s. One of the few white children living there, Pekar was often beaten up. He later believed this instilled in him "a profound sense of inferiority."<ref name="nytimes.com">"Template:Cite news</ref> This experience, however, also taught him to become a "respected street scrapper."<ref name="nytimes.com"/>

Pekar graduated from Shaker Heights High School in 1957. He then briefly served in the United States Navy. After being discharged he attended Case Western Reserve University, where he dropped out after a year.<ref name= plaindealer /> He worked odd jobs before he was hired as file clerk at the Veterans Administration Hospital in 1965.<ref>Pekar entry, Britannica Book of the Year 2011 (Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 2011), p. 149.</ref> He held this job after becoming famous, refusing all promotions, until he retired in 2001.<ref name=plaindealer /><ref name="nytimes.com"/>

Pekar was married three times. He was married from 1960 to 1972 to his first wife, Karen Delaney.<ref name=Rhode>Rhode, Michael G., editor. Harvey Pekar: Conversations (Conversations with Comic Artists Series) (University Press of Mississippi, 2008), pp. xiii-xiv.</ref> According to fellow cartoonist R. Crumb, who knew the couple socially, "She left him.... She took all the money out of their bank account and ran off.... Never heard from her again."<ref name=CrumbOnOthers />

His second wife was Helen Lark Hall, who appeared (as "Lark") in a number of early issues of American Splendor.<ref name=CrumbOnOthers>Crumb, Robert; interviewed by Alexander Wood. "Crumb on Others," The Official Crumb Site (Dec. 2013).</ref> They married in 1977. According to Crumb again (and as dramatized in the American Splendor film), "...she was trying to have a career in academia and Harvey would embarrass her. They'd go to these academic cocktail parties and Harvey would deliberately antagonize these professors. He thought the whole academia thing was bullshit. So he used to embarrass her and she'd become angry at him until finally she gave up on him."<ref name=CrumbOnOthers /> They divorced in 1981.

Pekar's third wife, whom he married in 1984, was writer Joyce Brabner<ref name=Rhode /> who became a regular character in American Splendor and to whom he remained married until his death.

In 1990, as described by Publishers Weekly, "Pekar was diagnosed with lymphoma and needed chemotherapy. By the time the disease was discovered, the couple was in the midst of buying a house (a tremendous worry to Pekar, who fretted about both the money and corruptions of bourgeois creature comforts)."<ref>"Our Cancer Year," Publishers Weekly (Sept. 1993). Accessed Jan. 10, 2019.</ref> After Pekar's recovery, he and Brabner collaborated on Our Cancer Year (released in 1994), a graphic novel account of that experience, as well as his harrowing yet successful treatment.

Around this same time, Brabner and Pekar became guardians of a young girl, Danielle Batone, when she was nine years old.<ref name="C">Template:Cite web</ref> Danielle became the couple's foster daughter and eventually became a recurring character in American Splendor as well.<ref name=SMH>"A splendid take on the funny peculiar," Sydney Morning Herald (May 1, 2004).</ref>

Pekar lived in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, with Brabner and Batone.<ref name="C" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Career

Early comics work

Pekar's friendship with Robert Crumb led to the creation of the self-published, autobiographical comic book series American Splendor. Crumb and Pekar became friends through their shared love of jazz records.<ref>"Who is Harvey Pekar?" Template:Webarchive, WKSU.org</ref> It took Pekar a decade to do so: "I theorized for maybe ten years about doing comics."<ref>"Harvey Pekar" Template:Webarchive, Metajam.mobi</ref> Pekar's influences from the literary world included James Joyce, Arthur Miller, George Ade, Henry Roth, and Daniel Fuchs.<ref>American Splendor: Harvey Pekar, Paul Giamatti, Shari Springer Berman, and Robert Pulcini, Charlie Rose (August 19, 2003).</ref>

Around 1972, Pekar laid out some stories with crude stick figures and showed them to Crumb and another artist, Robert Armstrong. Impressed, they both offered to illustrate.<ref>Rhode. Harvey Pekar: Conversations, p. 19.</ref> Pekar & Crumb's one-pager "Crazy Ed" was published as the back cover of Crumb's The People's Comics (Golden Gate Publishing Company, 1972), becoming Pekar's first published work of comics. Including "Crazy Ed" and before the publication of American Splendor #1, Pekar wrote a number of other comic stories that were published in a variety of outlets:

American Splendor

Template:Main The first issue of Pekar's self-published American Splendor series appeared in May 1976, with stories illustrated by Crumb, Dumm, Budgett, and Brian Bram. Applying the "brutally frank autobiographical style of Henry Miller,"<ref name="nytimes.com" /> American Splendor documented Pekar's daily life in the aging neighborhoods of his native Cleveland.

Pekar and his work came to greater prominence in 1986 when Doubleday collected much of the material from the first ten issues in American Splendor: The Life and Times of Harvey Pekar,<ref name=Carlson>Carlson, Michael. "Harvey Pekar: Writer who celebrated the minutiae of everyday life in his 'American Splendor' series," The Independent (23 October 2011).</ref> which was positively reviewed by, among others, The New York Times.<ref>Rosenthal, David. "THE COSMIS MEETS THE ORDINARY. POW!," New York Times (May 11, 1986).</ref> (1986 was also the year Pekar began appearing on Late Night with David Letterman.)<ref name=Carlson />

Pekar self-published 15 issues of American Splendor from 1976 to 1991 (issue #16 was co-published with Tundra Publishing). Dark Horse Comics took on the publishing and distribution of Pekar's comics from 1993 to 2003.

In 2006, Pekar released a four-issue American Splendor miniseries through the DC Comics imprint Vertigo Comics.<ref name="vert-ency">Template:Cite book</ref> This was collected in the American Splendor: Another Day paperback. In 2008 Vertigo released a second four-issue "season" of American Splendor that was later collected in the American Splendor: Another Dollar paperback.

Pekar's best-known and longest-running collaborators include Crumb,<ref name=Fantagraphics>Fiore, Robert. "Harvey Pekar, R.I.P.," Fantagraphics blog (July 13, 2010).</ref> Dumm, Budgett, Spain Rodriguez, Joe Zabel, Gerry Shamray, Frank Stack, Mark Zingarelli, and Joe Sacco. In the 2000s, he teamed regularly with artists Dean Haspiel and Josh Neufeld. Other cartoonists who worked with him include Jim Woodring, Chester Brown, Alison Bechdel, Gilbert Hernandez, Eddie Campbell, David Collier, Drew Friedman, Ho Che Anderson, Rick Geary, Ed Piskor, Hunt Emerson, Bob Fingerman, and Alex Wald; as well as such non-traditional illustrators as Pekar's wife, Joyce Brabner, and comics writer Alan Moore.

In addition to his autobiographical work on American Splendor, Pekar wrote a number of biographies. The first of these, American Splendor: Unsung Hero (Dark Horse Comics, 2003), illustrated by David Collier, documented the Vietnam War experience of Robert McNeill, one of Pekar's African-American coworkers at Cleveland's VA hospital.<ref name=Carlson />

Stories from the American Splendor comics have been collected in many books and anthologies.

American Splendor film

Template:Main A film adaptation of American Splendor was released in 2003, directed by Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman. It starred Paul Giamatti as Pekar, as well as appearances by Pekar himself (and his wife Joyce, foster daughter Danielle, and co-worker Toby Radloff). American Splendor won the Grand Jury Prize for Dramatic Film at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival, in addition to the award for Best Adapted Screenplay from the Writers Guild of America. At the 2003 Cannes Film Festival, the film received the FIPRESCI critics award.<ref name = FIPRESCI>Template:Cite web</ref> American Splendor was given the Guardian New Directors Award at the 2003 Edinburgh International Film Festival.<ref>Pulver, Andrew. "The albino, the mineshaft or the comic-book artist?", The Guardian (August 25, 2003).</ref> It was also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the 2003 Academy Awards. Pekar wrote about the effects of the film in American Splendor: Our Movie Year.

Other comics work

Harvey Pekar at WonderCon 2005, San Francisco

On October 5, 2005, the DC Comics imprint Vertigo published Pekar's autobiographical hardcover The Quitter, with artwork by Dean Haspiel. The book detailed Pekar's early years.

In 2006, Ballantine/Random House published his biography Ego & Hubris: The Michael Malice Story about the life of Michael Malice, founding editor of Overheard in New York.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In June 2007, Pekar collaborated with student Heather Roberson and artist Ed Piskor on the book Macedonia, which centers on Roberson's studies in that country.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In January 2008 the biographical Students for a Democratic Society: A Graphic History was published by Hill & Wang. In March 2009, he published The Beats: A Graphic History, a history of the Beat Generation, including Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, illustrated by Ed Piskor.<ref>Template:Cite newsTemplate:Cbignore</ref> In May 2009 he published Studs Terkel's Working: A Graphic Adaptation.

In 2010, Pekar started the webcomic The Pekar Project with the online magazine Smith.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2011, Abrams Comicarts published Yiddishkeit, co-edited by Pekar with Paul Buhle and Hershl Hartman. The book depicts aspects of Yiddish language and culture. Artists in this anthology include many of Pekar's previous collaborators.

Critical writing

Pekar was an assiduous record collector as well as a freelance book, comic, and jazz critic, writing mainly about significant figures from jazz's golden age but also championing out-of-mainstream artists such as Scott Fields, Fred Frith and Joe Maneri. He published his first criticism in The Jazz Review in 1959.<ref name=Rhode /><ref name="nytimes.com" /> Pekar wrote hundreds of articles for DownBeat, JazzTimes, The Village Voice, and The Austin Chronicle;<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> as well as liner notes for Verve Records and other labels.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Pekar occasionally wrote criticism about the work of other comics creators. For instance, he famously saw Art Spiegelman's use of animals in Maus as potentially reinforcing stereotypes.<ref name=Pekar1986>Template:Cite journal</ref> Pekar was also disdainful of Spiegelman's overwhelmingly negative portrayal of his father in Maus,<ref name=Pekar1986 /> calling him disingenuous and hypocritical for such a portrayal in a book that presents itself as objective.<ref name=Pekar1986 /> Pekar furthermore wrote that Maus' portrayal of Poles is unbalanced — that, while some Poles are seen as helping Jews, they are often shown doing so for self-serving reasons.<ref name=Pekar1990>Template:Cite journal</ref> From 1986 to 1990, Pekar had a regular column in the comics anthology Weirdo called "Harvey Sez," in which he wrote about the contemporary comics scene.

He reviewed literary fiction in the Review of Contemporary Fiction.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Pekar won awards for his essays broadcast on public radio.<ref name=radio_awards>Template:Cite web</ref>

Theater, music and media appearances

Pekar's comic book success led to a guest appearance on Late Night with David Letterman on October 15, 1986. Pekar was invited back repeatedly and made five more appearances in quick succession. These appearances became notable for the increasing hostility and verbal altercations between Pekar and Letterman,<ref name=Fantagraphics /> particularly on the subject of General Electric's ownership of NBC. The most heated of these was in the August 31, 1988, episode of Late Night, in which Pekar accused Letterman of appearing to be a shill for General Electric and Letterman promised never to invite Pekar back on the show.<ref>Hynes, James. "The Big Shill," In These Times (September 21, 1988).</ref> Despite the ban, more than four years later Pekar appeared on Late Night again — on April 20, 1993, and he made a final appearance on Late Show with David Letterman on May 16, 1994.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> After Pekar's death, Letterman reflected in 2017 that...

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Starting in 1999, Pekar recorded occasional commentaries for the Kent, Ohio, public radio station WKSU, on such topics as his name, turning 60, speeding tickets, Veterans Day, and his appearances on David Letterman's show.<ref name=WKSU>Template:Cite news</ref>

Pekar appeared in Alan Zweig's 2000 documentary film about record collecting, Vinyl.<ref name=winnipeg>Template:Cite web</ref> In August 2007, Pekar was featured on the Cleveland episode of Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations with host Anthony Bourdain.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

While there had been earlier American Splendor theater adaptations,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> in 2009, Pekar made his theatrical debut with Leave Me Alone!, a jazz opera for which he wrote the libretto. Leave Me Alone! featured music by Dan Plonsey and was co-produced by Real Time Opera and Oberlin College, premiering at Finney Chapel on January 31, 2009.<ref>Template:Cite AV media</ref>

In 2009, Pekar was featured in The Cartoonist, a documentary film on the life and work of Jeff Smith, creator of Bone.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Death and work released posthumously

Pekar's grave stone in Lake View Cemetery, Cleveland

Shortly before 1 a.m. on July 12, 2010, Pekar's wife found Pekar dead in their Cleveland Heights, Ohio, home.<ref name=plaindealer>Template:Cite news</ref> No immediate cause was determined.<ref>Template:Cite newsTemplate:Cbignore</ref> In October the Cuyahoga County coroner's office ruled it was an accidental overdose of antidepressants fluoxetine and bupropion.<ref name="overdose">Template:Cite web</ref> Pekar had been diagnosed with cancer for the third time and was about to undergo treatment.<ref name="plaindealer"/>

Pekar was interred at Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland.<ref>Template:Cite newsTemplate:Cbignore</ref> His headstone features one of his quotations as an epitaph: "Life is about women, gigs, an' bein' creative."

Some Pekar works were to be released posthumously,<ref name="Itzkoff">Template:Cite news</ref> including two collaborations with Joyce Brabner, The Big Book of Marriage and Harvey and Joyce Plumb the Depths of Depression, as well as a collection of the webcomics that ran as a part of The Pekar Project.<ref>Template:Cite web Archive version requires blocking-off text in order to make black-on-black text visible.</ref> As of 2019, however, none of those projects have yet seen print. Working with illustrator Summer McClinton, Pekar, politically a leftist,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> also finished a book on American Marxist Louis Proyect tentatively called The Unrepentant Marxist, after Proyect's blog. In the works since 2008, the book was to be published by Random House. After a conflict between Proyect and Joyce Brabner, Brabner announced that she would hold the book back indefinitely.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In December 2010, the last story Pekar wrote, "Harvey Pekar Meets the Thing", in which Pekar has a conversation with Ben Grimm, was published in the Marvel Comics anthology Strange Tales II; the story was illustrated by Ty Templeton.<ref>What I Bought (15 December 2010) Template:Webarchive, by Greg Burgas, at Comic Book Resources; published 17 December 2010; retrieved 25 June 2014</ref>

One of his final graphic memoirs was "Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me" (2013) in which he explains how he lost his faith in the Jewish state. It was illustrated by JT Waldman and the epilogue was penned by his widow, Joyce Brabner.

Legacy

Frequently described as the "poet laureate of Cleveland,"<ref name="The Original Goodbye Splendor"/><ref name="tabletmag.com"/> Pekar "helped change the appreciation for, and perceptions of, the graphic novel, the drawn memoir, the autobiographical comic narrative."<ref name="washingtonpost.com"/>

According to Los Angeles Times columnist David Ulin, American Splendor "remains one of the most compelling and transformative series in the history of comics."<ref>"The Reading Life: Harvey Pekar's Jewish question" by David L. Ulin, Jacket Copy, The LA Times, July 12, 2012.</ref> In addition, Pekar was the first author to publicly distribute "memoir comic books."<ref name="jewishbookcouncil.org">"Graphic Memoir: The Legacy of Harvey Pekar" by JT Waldman, The Prosen People, The Jewish Book Council, July 3, 2012.</ref> While it is common today for people to publicly write about their lives on blogs, social media platforms, and in graphic novels, "In the mid-seventies, Harvey Pekar was doing all this before it was ubiquitous and commercialized."<ref name="jewishbookcouncil.org"/>

In October 2012 a statue of Pekar was installed at the Cleveland Heights-University Heights Library, a place he visited almost daily.<ref>Harvey Pekar Estate. "Harvey Pekar Library Statue: Comics as Art & Literature Desk," KickStarter. Funding period: Nov. 2, 2011 - Dec. 5, 2011.</ref><ref>"Harvey Pekar statue unveiled at library is tribute to the late graphic novelist from Cleveland" by Tom Breckenridge, The Plain Dealer, October 14, 2012.</ref>

On July 25, 2015, the city of Cleveland Heights, Ohio dedicated the corner of Northwest Coventry Road and Euclid Heights Boulevard to the life and legacy of Harvey Pekar. This area is now known as Harvey Pekar Park.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Awards

Bibliography

File:Harvey Pekar (1985).jpg
Pekar and Joyce Brabner at Hallwalls, Buffalo, New York (1985)

Comics format

Published posthumously

Prose

  • Circus Parade by Jim Tully. Foreword by Harvey Pekar. Introduction by Paul J. Bauer and Mark Dawidziak. (Kent State Univ. Press, 2009) 978-1-60635-001-0

References

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Further reading

Notable exchange in The Comics Journal between Pekar and critic R. Fiore on such topics as literary realism, Pekar's comics, Art Spiegelman's Maus, the Hernandez brothers, and the underground comix era:

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