I only really know him from the movie American Splendor and his David Letterman appearances, but I agree that he was a working-class hero:
Pekar used his few minutes of fame to bring national attention to striking stage hands and abuses of NBC’s parent company, GE, to light. He was truly heroic because he did not think of himself. He could have went on being an amusing character for Letterman, he could have gotten his own TV show (maybe). All he had to do is not speak out. But he didn’t keep silent, maybe he couldn’t. Instead he took a principled stand for all to see.
Pekar’s characters, much like himself, were the ordinary people, working people, of Cleveland who struggled so hard just to get by. Unlike them, Pekar used his talents as a writer and creator to make visible these struggles, therefore turning art into politics. He will be missed.
Captain Goto
I never knew about the Letterman stuff. The dude had some fire in him after all, behind that beaten-down facade.
trollhattan
Completely agree. Cranky in an oddly engaging way, and the film was brilliant if vastly quirky.
Also, too, the Cleveland episode of “No Reservations” featuring Pekar was one of the series’ best.
Kurzleg
Pekar seemed completely genuine every time I saw him on TV or in film. No pretense at all. I didn’t know him or his work well, but I was truly saddened at his passing. The kind of person you root for.
As I noted @ Roy Edroso’s place, my favorite Pekar moment was the comic where, upon waking up, he sees himself in the mirror and says, “Another reliable disappointment.” Not to get morose, but that captures so much of what it feels like sometimes.
gregw
This might be off topic but watching Versus coverage of the Tour de France and stayed with the channel with their Sports Soup show. The woman cohost shows Rush’s comments about Steinbrenner, that “that cracker made a lot of African Americans millionaires”. Her comment, “Rush; fat, stupid and racist is no way to go through life.
HyperIon
and Paul Giamatti was perfect as Harvey.
Napoleon
@trollhattan:
Bourdain says it was his favorite episode.
http://anthony-bourdain-blog.travelchannel.com/read/the-original-goodbye-splendor?fbid=rInZE7s89ge
http://ruhlman.com/2010/07/goodbye-harvey-pekar.html
PS, they are going to rerun it on Monday.
Napoleon
Links to the Lettermen stuff here:
http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/07/cleveland_comic-book_legend_ha.html
Harvey was a true local legend.
TomG
I love watching Anthony Bourdain and I’m pleased (and surprised) that Anthony met and did a segment with Harvey.
I’m going to have to re-read as much of American Splendor as I can find…many issue reprints are in libraries, thank goodness. The movie was very good and yes, Paul G. was well cast.
Warren Terra
I never read his comics but the movie, which was a testament to its creators’ love of Pekar, was great.
There’s been a lot of good writing memorializing Pekar. See Phil Nugent’s blog for one example.
Violet
The movie was excellent. I didn’t know anything about him before I saw it, but he seemed like a really interesting guy. RIP.
Hob
For anyone who wants to know a lot more, Tom Spurgeon wrote a very thorough obit.
adolphus
I first “met” Pekar on Letterman an followed his books sporadically ever after. Letterman can be a condescending oaf at times, but the article you linked to was wrong. Letterman did have Pekar back in 1993 after he moved to CBS.
See here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mvTJW4No98
Actually now that I look it up, it was a couple of months before Letterman left NBC for CBS. Interesting timing.
Mortimer
I teach at a small university close to Cleveland, and a colleague and I taught a graphics-novel course at which we asked Pekar to speak. He gave a marvelous two-hour discussion of his work and his life, the epitome of a no-bullshit discussion, that was a joy to listen to. Students still come up to me talking about how much they enjoyed that evening.
RIP Harvey.
mapaghimagsik
Thank heavens for Balloon Juice bringing this up. I learned about this a few days ago, and thought “wow, that leaves a mark.”
Pekar did some very real, very engaging stuff. I enjoyed American Splendor and had an anthology called ‘The Quitter’ And a ton more, really.
Even my ‘comicy’ sites that I visit didn’t really touch on Pekar’s death — at least not right away. It was depressing, if a little apt.
adolphus
A little OT so sue me.
Speaking of the movie. I went back and watched it after Pekar’s death. It never registered that Judah Friedlander (from 30 Rock) was Toby. His performance was a little gem, too. I hope we see more of him in the future.
dj spellchecka
he also did commentary for the kent state npr station
http://www.wksu.org/features/harveypekar/
the plain dealer’s obit took up a third of the front page yesterday [no image online, sadly]
a real clevelander…
then there’s this
The Plain Dealer Editorial Board
The comic-writing world and the many of us who at one time inhabited the quirky and dysfunctional world that Harvey Pekar captured so splendidly in his “American Splendor” comics are mourning the author’s unexpected death this week.
He died at his Cleveland Heights home at age 70, still hard at work on a mound of projects, including, reportedly, a graphic novel about Cleveland.
Pekar was the improbable artist, finding his metier in recording the banalities and traumas of life through graphic means, via the inspiration of his friend, celebrated cartoonist R. Crumb. He fed his talents with the help of a wide stable of collaborators and friends — a group that ranged as far as he did, from jazz to the streets of Cleveland to war in Macedonia.
He was a restless, creative, haunted soul who spoke for R. Average, and has finally found peace.
Rest in splendor, Harvey Pekar.
matoko_chan
Pardon the OT, Harvey’s Eulogie, but i have some DougJ bait.
why conservatives are racists–
why conservatives sleep around more– they are stupider.
heh
Hob
@mapaghimagsik: Even my ‘comicy’ sites that I visit didn’t really touch on Pekar’s death—at least not right away
Wow, we must really be hanging out in different places… literally every comics-related site I read, and almost every artist or writer I know who has a blog or is on Facebook, wrote something as soon as they heard.
Shibby
I actually met Harvey Pekar on two occasions. Once when he did a commentary on his movie as it played in the background at the Cleveland art Museum. He also brought along his wife and daughter. The second time he came to my college to speak. Knowing him from the art museum and the fact that we were both from Cleveland I decided to go to the before party. They had a ton of nice cheeses and wines laid out (it’s a fantastically expensive school). He didn’t seem interested in any of it and took an uncomfortable seat in a lounge chair in the corner. I sat next to him and struck up a conversation. We talked for over an hour about Cleveland, his life, my life and in general had a great time. He was very much down to earth and was most pleased when I said “Your wife seems like a real nice lady”. I still feel a little bad about it though because all these Humanities majors were so looking forward to meeting him and he just wanted to talk to me, a science major, the whole time because we shared the same hometown.
ChristianPinko
I was economically struggling in the 1990s, living in a tiny, overheating-in-summer studio apartment on Chicago’s North Side. During those years American Splendor was an inspiration, documenting the poetry of working-poor life. His autobiographical comics touched on a host of issues: being a man, being Jewish, being working class. You didn’t have to live in Cleveland to understand what Pekar was writing about.
geg6
@Napoleon:
That’s awesome. I have been a Harvey Pekar fan for years and years and was thrilled when Bourdain featured him and his beloved Cleveland.
Harvey understands blue collar, Rust Belt cities like no one else ever did or ever has. Watch the rerun of the Bourdain show. He was a true original and he loved his city.
El Cid
Also O/T, but god-damned fucking amazing.
When Haiti led a revolution in 1791and led a successful slave revolt against French rule, it was the first slave nation ever to free itself.
After independence and the end of slavery was won from France in 1804, France used continuing military and economic threats to impose a cruel, vicious debt fine on them of 150 million French francs, later reduced to 60 million, which crippled the fledgling nation.
Now, via the Daily Kos, this from the French Foreign Ministry announced on today, Bastille day.
In a truly miraculous world it should have been a great deal more, but for this world, at least at present it seems pretty inspirational.
Napoleon
@geg6:
I rarely watch his show but I did catch the Cleveland one. What is hysterical is that it starts with him meeting Ruhlman in a Skyline Chili near my office. All I could think of is that if I would have happened to have stop by it while he was there I am pretty sure I would have immediately driven myself to a phsyc ward somewhere on the theory that I must have lost it.
Hob
I only met him twice I think, but he was a family friend and loomed large in my pantheon, up there with Vonnegut. Here’s a rambling story… just felt like I had to write something.
He & Joyce were collaborating on another book, and I think it was pretty much finished. I look forward to reading that even though it’s gonna make me cry.
asdf
“He was very much down to earth and was most pleased when I said ‘Your wife seems like a real nice lady.'”
This speaks well of Mr. Pekar.
asdf
Of course, it could just be that Mrs. Pekar was aces!
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@El Cid: Vive le MOTHERFUCKIN’ FRANCE!
I’m gonna be humming La Marseillaise the rest of the day.
trollhattan
@Napoleon:
Nice! Thanks for blog link.
(Bourdain’s one of those rare folks who actually writes in his own voice. To read him is to also hear him.)
matoko_chan
@El Cid: tyvm EC that was amazing.
like andrew says, know hope.
;)
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko:
allons enfants de la patriaaaaa
la jour de gloire et arrive!
that has to the bloodiest national anthem evah.
i still know it by heart.
redoubt
@matoko_chan: You two are in my brain. I started singing it immediately I read it. Damn allergies.
Hob
@asdf: She is! What most people know Joyce is what’s in the movie, which is pretty accurate, but she’s a really interesting person in her own right and a serious progressive activist. In the early ’80s she was working with prison inmates in Delaware, which included some theater work, which led to some side jobs as a costumer, which led to running a combined costume store and comics store, which led to her meeting Harvey through the mail. She continued to do political publishing through the ’80s (including anti-war comics based on veterans’ stories, that led to a school censorship effort backed by the DOD– which failed). And she was an equal co-author of Our Cancer Year, which is a pretty great book.
matoko_chan
quand sangue impure! abreve nous sillons!
c’mon DougJ……lets us rumble.
Did you see this?
My hypothesis is that backfire effect is only observed in conservatives because they have lower IQ.
;)
asiangrrlMN
@trollhattan: I saw him on that ep, and I thought Pekar was so crankily endearing. R.I.P., Harvey.
mapaghimagsik
@Hob:
Very possible. I fear facebook and the information it gathers, and considering the wide variety of comic sites, that adds in too.
Which ones are you reading?
Hob
@mapaghimagsik: I don’t keep up with a lot of them normally, but was making the rounds the other day for obvious reasons. Comics Reporter, comicsbeat.com, Daily Crosshatch, Comics Journal, others I can’t remember.
asdf
Thank you, Hob.