Comic Review: American Splendor #3

[jakebe]

There’s something about the writing of Harvey Pekar. It grows on you the more you read it. As you become more familiar with his awkward little phrases, and his affinity for those clunky four and five syllable words that probably speak well but don’t read well, there’s this great code that opens up for you. You’re suddenly able to read his language, and weird words like ‘knowledgeable’ become one of the best compliments ever.

So in this issue Harvey talks about his political opinions (he really hates President Bush), and reminisces about an old Chicago neighborhood. These little vignettes are my favorites of the entire series so far; here Harvey manages to get out of his own way, and the result is a fascinating, illuminating look at not only the way he sees himself, but the way he (and people like him) see the world.

“Global Warming” reminds me of one of Miller Wolf’s posts about political worries; it’s fairly naked in its fear of what’s on the horizon, and I think Harvey’s worry is the worry of a lot of people who are paying attention about the subject. When you’re right up on the brink of environmental catastrophe, anything that you’re doing seems small and useless in comparison. I can imagine Harvey, huddled over his desk late at night, scribbling this comic down because he couldn’t get to sleep without doing it.

"Coventry"is a great look at one of Chicago’s old neighborhoods, and it’s really interesting to see what Harvey remembers about it after all this time. The look backwards into memory follows a stream of consciousness; thinking about this place takes you to this other place, which takes you to this person and then to this situation that person got themselves into, so forth and so on. Throughout the series, his personal history pieces are the ones I’ve enjoyed most, and this one is the best yet.

He closes with a small, sweet remembrance of his cousin, an astronomer. Most of these reflections have been little meditations on growing older, dealing with the pain and loss that comes more frequently towards the end of your life, learning how to accept that with grace. Pekar is at his most sympathetic when he deals with this, I think, and this issue’s stories are collected with that in mind. If you had to get only one issue in the series, this would be the one to get.

Rating: 8/10