Tuesday, July 13, 2010

American Splendor, 1976

Not for every taste, but right up my alley. R.I.P., Harvey Pekar.

A simple story, a slice of life. The comic book version of cinema verite. A lot of early Pekar was pretty ribald and raunchy, but it did honestly reflect his life as a young man in Cleveland. Finding American Splendor was like finding an underground zine or letter that talked about things you  thought about, too, not all of it pleasant or easy to think about.

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for posting about American Splendor. I really enjoyed that movie. One thing that struck me was that Harvey Pekar was a career federal employee just like me. He was kind of inspirational. He retired from the VA about the time the movie came out. He was not a young guy.

    Kwei-lin

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  2. True. Even in the comic book, the narrative was about him looking back on his younger days. His perspective meant a lot to me.

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