photo by Steven Mastroianni

Harvey Pekar's downtrodden Everyman-waiting in line at the grocery store, watching the clock at work, grousing about most everything-has long been celebrated without much fanfare in his ongoing comic work, "American Splendor," an annual comic series illustrated by such high-profile artists as Robert Crumb, Frank Stack, Dean Haspiel, Gary Dumm, and Joe Sacco. Frankly autobiographical and frequently cranky, Pekar's anti-hero has been a cult cause-célèbre since 1976. Even his American Book Award and his prickly appearances on Late Night with David Letterman didn't much affect Pekar's low-profile life in Cleveland.

But in 2003, the world came to know Harvey through the fine acting of Paul Giamatti and appearances by Pekar himself in the film American Splendor, named Best Picture of 2003 by the L.A. Film Critics Association, the Seattle Film Critics Awards, and the National Society of Film Critics. Directors Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman received an Oscar nomination for their screenplay, and the film received the Grand Jury Prize at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival, and was lauded at Cannes.

But through it all, Pekar has remained a passionate devotee of jazz, and a contributing critic to many national journals with his music and book reviews. And until 2001, he worked as a clerk in Cleveland's VA hospital since 1966-a place rich in extraordinary characters in ordinary situations.

Even a casual conversation with Harvey is a heightened experience. The guy is opinionated and passionate; don't waste his time with small-talk or trifles. Pekar can be just as passionate about politics as he is buying a loaf of bread; every minute is a blip on life's radar, followed by a big sigh.

Born to Jewish immigrant parents in Cleveland in 1939, Pekar toughed it out on the streets, and eventually became a working-class intellectual. His underground rants in "American Splendor" are prefaced by the phrase "From off the streets of Cleveland," and their popularity and success launched a revolution in comics in the 1980s. When diagnosed with lymphoma in 1990, Pekar, with his wife, Joyce Brabner, created the graphic nonfiction work My Cancer Year. Now graphic novels and nonfiction works are big business in publishing. It's hard to imagine this, or Cleveland, without Harvey.

— Amy Sparks
Summer 2006

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