American Splendor #1 cover (outside Tommy's in Coventry)If you've read my sidebar, you know that I dig Harvey Pekar. Who is this Harvey Pekar, you might ask? Well, let me introduce you. Harvey Pekar, age 68, now lives in my favorite neighborhood of Cleveland (Coventry Village in Cleveland Heights). When I lived there, I used to go for walks on his street (before I even knew who he was or that he lived there). He's into vintage jazz and record collecting. He thinks negative thoughts 24-7. He worries a lot. His wife and adopted daughter are everything in the world to him.
He loves the grit of Cleveland like a muskrat loves his musk. He has lived here his whole life, and for the most part, lived in some of the not-so-cushy neighborhoods -- in neighborhoods where money is earned with sweat and perseverance, and ethnic loyalties run deep. In other words, neighborhoods like mine. Places where, if it weren't for the perpetual snow and cold of the Cleveland winter, the demographic stirring of the iron ore melting pot we call home would probably result in more crime and violence than is currently observed. (That snow keeps us all indoors-- and complacent -- for four or five months out of the year.)
Harvey is a retired file clerk. Have you ever worked with files? I don't mean on your pc, I mean real, manila folder files with labels on them? Most people my age have not. It is a loathsome task. When it was needed, I used to file customer records at a cell phone company. Imagine (those of you working in offices now) if you had to ask A PERSON to bring you a file every time you wanted to review a client's history or read the memo about XYZ or refresh your memory on the specs needed for blah blah blah? Harvey was the one who would get you that file. He must have had one of the dullest day jobs anyone could ever imagine.
However, he's one of the most influential and ground-breaking comic book writers of all time. Pekar was one of the first comic book writers (or really, any kind of writer) to chronicle his broodings of the mundane and mostly unrecognized events of human existence, particularly those wrapped in grimy gloominess and saturated in the stink of man.
A good example of this can be found in one of his stories, "Class Antagonism," in which Harvey's co-worker tells him he can't have any cake because he never brings food to the workplace for his co-workers -- he only takes and never gives. The story is told in nine frames and in about 100 words. That's all it's about! The "punchline" is when Pekar asks this co-worker if it's ok for him to eat donuts left by the Johnson & Johnson salesman, since no one in the building paid for those. And she says she doesn't care.
In a more "exciting" episode, Harvey tries to interview some guy about "the most important phenomena in Cleveland during the 1930s." The guy tries to tell Harvey that the Goldberg hustlers called Maggies sold linoleum (or magnoleum, as they called it) to immigrants, blacks, and farmers on the corner of 117th and Kinsman during the depression at outrageously high prices in order to satiate their gambling addiction. When, during the interview, the guy's story doesn't "add up," the guy admits to his own dishonesty but defends himself saying, "Socrates said all men are dishonest, so even he was dishonest." The last frame of the comic shows Pekar musing, "There you have it folks -- now you know all about the Maggies with a little Socrates thrown in."
It's like a comic book version of Seinfeld, written by George, and set in 1970s/1980s Cleveland. In many ways, Pekar is the lone pioneer of the story of nothing. He is truly a creative genius. But not every story was about nothing. Although Pekar's stories were always about regular people within his circle of friends, on his street, or at his workplace, many of the stories centered on such heady themes as race, love, divorce, charity, labor, cancer, and (of course) the pure angst of being Harvey Pekar.
On top of all that, he's an acclaimed jazz critic and author of several books. A movie based on his autobiographical comic book series American Splendor featuring Paul Giamatti as Harvey was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the 2003 Academy Awards. But don't get the idea that Harvey ever made any substantial money on all this. For most of his career, the comic writing caused him to lose money. He's a regular guy. He stayed on as the file clerk (what he called his "flunky" career) until retirement age. His following is not mainstream, but cultish and underground. He's the unsung hero of Cleveland.
Recently, Harvey joined the Travel Channel's Anthony Bourdain for a Cleveland episode of "Anthony Bourdain, No Reservations." I missed it when it first aired, but I finally got to see it last week, and it was great.
Here is some of what Anthony had to say about Harvey (from the travel.discovery.com web site for No Reservations):
When my old crony, Ruhlman, said he was going to introduce me to Harvey Pekar I was frankly -- intimidated. Pekar was like ... the poet laureate of Cleveland! I'd been following his American Splendor books since the 70s. I'd seen the movie ... I knew he was supposed to be this cranky, misanthropic working class guy with a loathing for TV phonies.
He turned me on to Zubal's Books, this amazing repository of all the world's printed knowledge in an old TWINKIE factory. They even let Ruhlman drink vintage twinkie filling out of the ancient pipes!
He introduced me to Toby, the only guy in the world who could make a giant rubber stamp interesting.
We all went to Sokolowski's University Inn: me, Harvey, Joyce, Toby, Danielle ... Wow, these guys are really great! Cleveland definitely does not suck! ... They were, all of them -- incredibly cool and nice. Smart, funny weird? Yes ... but these days? The perfect American family.
Click on the link below to see a clip from the show.
