Harvey Pekar was born 75 years ago. Pekar was an 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, Pekar helped change the appreciation for and perceptions of the graphic novel, the drawn memoir and the autobiographical comic narrative. Pekar described his work as autobiography written as its 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. Its one thing after another. Ive tried to control a chaotic universe. And its a losing battle. But I cant let go. Ive tried, but I cant. Pekar and his younger brother Allen were born in Cleveland, Ohio to 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. While Pekar said he wasnt 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. As a child, Pekars first language was Yiddish, and he learned to read and appreciate novels in the language. Pekar has said that for the first few years of his life, he didnt have friends. The neighborhood he lived in had once been all white but became mostly black by the 1940s; as one of the only white kids still living there Pekar was often beaten up. He later believed this instilled in him a profound sense of inferiority. However, this experience also taught him to eventually become a respected street scrapper. Harvey Pekar graduated from Shaker Heights High School in 1957, then attended Case Western Reserve University, where he dropped out after a year. He then served in the United States Navy, and after discharge returned to Cleveland where he worked odd jobs before being hired as file clerk at Clevelands Veterans Administration Hospital. He held this job even after becoming famous, refusing all promotions until he finally retired in 2001. Pekar was married from 1960 to 1972 to his first wife, Karen Delaney. His second wife was Helen Lark Hall. Pekars third wife was writer Joyce Brabner, with whom he collaborated on Our Cancer Year, a graphic novel autobiography of his harrowing yet successful treatment for lymphoma. He lived in Cleveland Heights, Ohio with Brabner and their foster daughter Danielle. Pekars 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 mutual love of jazz records when Crumb was living in Cleveland in the mid-1960s. Crumbs work in underground comics led Pekar to see the forms possibilities, saying, Comics could do anything that film could do. And I wanted in on it.” It took Pekar a decade to do so: I theorized for maybe ten years about doing comics. 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, and soon Pekars story Crazy Ed appeared in Crumbs The Peoples Comics, and Crumb became the first artist to illustrate American Splendor. The comic documents daily life in the aging neighborhoods of Pekars native Cleveland. The first issue of American Splendor appeared in 1976. Pekars best-known and longest-running collaborators include Crumb, Gary Dumm, Greg 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, Brian Bram and Alex Wald; as well as such non-traditional illustrators as Pekars wife, Joyce Brabner, and comics writer Alan Moore. Stories from the American Splendor comics have been collected in many books and anthologies. A film adaptation of American Splendor was released in 2003, directed by Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman. It featured Paul Giamatti as Pekar, as well as appearances by Pekar himself. Shortly before 1 am on July 12, 2010, Pekars wife found him dead in his Cleveland Heights, Ohio, home. No immediate cause was determined. Pekar had been diagnosed with cancer for the third time in his life and was about to undergo treatment. In October 2010, it was determined that Pekars cause of death was an accidental overdose of antidepressants fluoxetine and bupropion. Pekar was cremated and buried in Lake View Cemetery, next to Eliot Ness. His headstone features one of his quotations as an epitaph: Life is about women, gigs, an bein creative. Here, Pekar appears on the Letterman show in the summer of 1988.
Posted on: Wed, 08 Oct 2014 04:09:20 +0000
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