Best of American Splendor by Harvey Pekar
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Book Reviews of Best of American Splendor
Book Review: The Saga Continues
Summary: 5 Stars
Harvey Pekar is one of my heroes! 20 years ago when I was a student at the University of South Carolina, I came across the first American Splendor Anthology in the browsing section of the school's library. This was the book that inspired me to be a writer myself.
With that said, on to this book. If you liked the other American Splendor collections, I don't see why you wouldn't like this. Toby the Geek, Mr. Boats, his archenemy David Letterman (yes, THAT David Letterman) and the usual cast of characters (minus Freddy the Brooklyn Freeloader) are along for the ride. This goes pretty in-depth with Harvey's family life with his wife Joyce and his adopted daughter Danielle, but as with most of his stuff, its easy for the reader to relate. I particularly like where he discusses his inability to hold a decent conversation with Danielle (what adult hasn't been through that)?
Some other stuff really stands out. A Black jogger confronts Harvey about his depiction of Black characters in his works. Personally, as an African-American fan myself I've always respected the fact that Pekar's Black characters range from the ignorant to the intelligent, showing a wide variety of black life and just portraying us as people who he happens to encounter in his daily life without an agenda. Although admittedly I enjoyed his discomfort about the question of Robert Crumb, whose portrayal of blacks I despise.
Perhaps the most moving segment involves a British fan with autism who writes Harvey about his sad life and experiences. One really feels for this fellow, as others mock and misunderstand his illness and loneliness(at one point, he is molested by a crude oaf in a Chinese Restaurant, but no one sees fit to stop this cad or even call the police). Surprisingly, Harvey does not say if he responds to the pathetic fellow.
But overall, once again Pekar gives us through his writings and cartoons a multidimensional look at the human condition, and shows us, perhaps unintentionally, how much we as human beings really have in common. Enjoy.
Book Review: A Fine Pekar Snapshot
Summary: 5 Stars
Harvey Pekar is one of the people who helped begin the gradual broadening of acceptable subject matter for comics in the U.S. Starting in the 1960s, a number of comics creators began producing "underground comics" -- comics which had nothing to do with the typical subject matter of comic books. Harvey Pekar entered this arena in 1976 with his autobiographical series American Splendor.
This volume contains stories culled from recent decades of American Splendor. One of the most striking things about the book that's visible right away is the variation in the artwork. Various artists have illustrated his stories over the years, and this book is a showcase of styles, from the rounded, almost kanji-like drawings of Frank Stack to the thin line realism of Joe Zabel.
The stories themselves vary quite a bit in nature, but all revolve around Pekar's life in Cleveland as a file clerk at a V.A. hospital. They have all the pluses and minuses of stories of anybody's daily life, but in each Pekar finds something meaningful to say that elevates it above the status of mere episode. The author is known for being downbeat and combative, and many of these stories deal with the pains and anxieties of real life, with no positive resolution. If you enjoy the fiction of Raymond Carver, Tobias Wolff, or maybe Charles Bukowski, you'll enjoy these stories of Harvey Pekar's life.
Book Review: Graphic literature
Summary: 5 Stars
It's not just the fact that Harvey was the first to put the everyday into comic-book format, it's the fact he has a literary knack for observation (and I mean that in a good way!). Plus also, the everyday, for Harvey, is rarely what the rest of us mean by the term -- these vignettes into his life are highly interesting happenings. Also, the fact he also uses illustrators other than Crumb -- some equally good but very different -- allows you to get more of a sense of the man doing the writing, 'cos all these illustrators see him a little bit differently. That said, I would start with the anthologies ('American Splendor (The Life and Times of Harvey Pekar)' and 'The New A. S. Anthology') first -- they're a little bit better (and this collection contains no Crumb at all -- not that it matters all that much).Book Review: great art
Summary: 5 Stars
I love this guys work/and he's really a unique cool dude. I dabble
in art/lots of night classes for years. Pleased to see some "alive"
person who doesn't cater to the "gallery" crowd.
Book Review: Hard to say what draws one to a Pekar comic
Summary: 4 Stars
There are certainly moments when I'm astounded by how well I can relate to some of these stories. For instance, Harvey has a pretty keen ability to sense "the beginning of the end" of a relationship. In other instances, he struggles to rationalize the stereotyping that occurs in his stories, sometimes relying on a sort of tacit understanding that, even though the line is clearly visible from where he stands, he hasn't quite crossed it just yet.
On the other hand, you have to be careful not to try and read one of these volumes all the way through in one sitting. Somehow it just doesn't work so well that way. There's a certain flow to his stories that seems to be interrupted at certain points throughout the compilation. At moments like that you need to set the book down and come back to it later.
I preferred the other two trade paperback compilations to this one, but it has its moments too. I got into Pekar via the HBO movie of a few years ago, and one of the amusing aspects of these books is observing the subtle ways in which the comics differ from the film. If I'm not mistaken, the movie makes no mention of the fact that Harvey is in the midst of moving into a new house when he discovers he has cancer.
If you are already familiar with the peculiar charms of an American Splendor comic, then you'll probably find what you're looking for here.
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