Comic Review: American Splendor #1

[jakebe]

Before buying this latest limited series of American Splendor comics, I’ve only been acquainted with Harvey Pekar through the excellent movie of the same name, starring Paul Giamatti. The film presented Pekar as a prickly, lonely individual who drew on his circle of equally eccentric friends to produce comics that tapped into something within the underground culture. From everything else I’ve heard, this is a pretty accurate representation.

Pekar was notorious for his curmudgeonly outlook and hot temper, which apparently took a bout with lymphoma to temper. Now he’s made it a point to tell people about the progress he’s made, about how he isn’t into “causing a scene” any more. This first issue of the comic seems to be mostly devoted to this idea, how much Pekar has mellowed out over time.

What’s most interesting about the seven stories collected here, is how unguarded his thoughts are when they migrate from his head to his page. The writing is almost stream-of-consciousness in some places, and it’s neat to see where Pekar will go next. He spends much of the time in his comic about his trip to Chicago talking about the food he eats, and how reasonably priced it is. This is a man, you think, that clearly enjoys a good meal more than just about anything in the world. His first thought after a fall down the stairs is how he doesn’t mess around with a cast, not “I should get this checked out.”

There’s also a rebuttal of a review about his graphic novel Macedonia (which makes me want to rush out and buy it), an account of how keeping his newly-found cooler head helped get him out of a jam, a look back at a movie theatre he used to work at and the bar next to it. Each anecdote is a little meandering, without a clear point for the most part, but that doesn’t matter. The glimpse inside his head is worth it, and it’s neat to see Pekar has no illusions about himself. We get to see how callous he can be (“I’m No Help!”) and how the littlest thing (what to do about mowing his lawn, his wife’s chiding him for his grunting habit) can sit on his mind until he has to talk about it somehow.

This kind of cathartic storytelling makes me think of [Bad username or site: ”millerwolf” @ livejournal.com], and perhaps he and Pekar are doing the same thing through different mediums; attempting to exorcise their demons or tidy their brains through the simple act of talking about them. What we do through blogs today, Pekar was doing through comics twenty years ago. And he’s still doing it today. It makes me wonder what his webpage looks like.

Rating: 6/10