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Comic genius

September 5, 2003

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Directors: Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini
Stars: Paul Giamatti, Hope Davis, Judah Friedlander, James Urbaniak
Rated: M
Opens: Thursday
More information: The New American Splendor Anthology (Random House, $32.95) will be available in bookstores next week. Kings Comics on 310 Pitt Street, city, stocks Pekar works such as the graphic novel Unsung Hero.

A file clerk created a superhero-free cult comic and became the subject of one of the movies of the year. Sacha Molitorisz reports.

American Splendor is a feature about Harvey Pekar, a melancholy writer of comic books from Cleveland, Ohio. The part of Pekar is played by actor Paul Giamatti, but Pekar makes a handful of well-timed appearances. And in one of these, Pekar makes a perplexing admission: he didn't read the script before filming.

"No, I didn't," says Pekar.

Let's get this straight, Harvey. American Splendor is a film about your life. A film that you not only appear in, but narrate. And you never read the script?

"I don't know why," says Pekar, in the same croaky, world-weary voice of his narration, "but I guess I just had an awful lot of confidence after I met the people who were making the movie.

I figured they'd do the right thing by me in some sort of way, and I didn't want to be breathing down their necks.

"And they thanked me for that after the movie because a lot of authors meddle in movies made about them. And, anyway, I figure making a movie is different from making a comic book, so I don't know if I had anything useful to tell them."

Pekar's laid-back approach is atypical; but then, Pekar's whole life story is atypical. Born in 1939, Pekar became a compulsive collector of records as a young man, which is how he met a like-minded misfit named Robert Crumb, who was then working for a greeting card company.

After meeting in 1962, the pair bonded over boxes of 78s at garage sales. Then Crumb moved from Cleveland to San Francisco and found fame creating counter-culture comic characters such as Fritz the Cat, Mr Natural and Devil Girl.

Pekar, meanwhile, stayed in Cleveland and thrived - if by "thrived" you mean "landed a job as a file clerk in a hospital and lamented two failed marriages". It's at that point the movie opens, with Pekar making despondent observations about his eccentric workmates and lonely home life.

Troubled by the notion that he might never make a mark and inspired by Crumb, Pekar decided to write a comic book - despite that he couldn't draw. Not a comic book for kids featuring superheroes in tights, but a comic book for adults containing wry observations about everyday life.

In a recent comic he penned for The New York Times, Pekar recalled this epiphany. "Comics for adults," he wrote. "Why not? I have access to every word that Shakespeare used. And there's so much that could be done in comics that hasn't been done. I have a chance to be an innovator."

As he says now: "I started out wanting to write autobiographical stories about everyday life, quotidian experiences, because I thought they were ignored by writers too much in every genre."

And so, in 1976, the first issue of American Splendor was published, featuring words by Pekar and drawings by Crumb. The timing, however, was less than ideal.

"There was an underground comic movement in the '60s," says Pekar. "That died after America pulled out of Vietnam. Then I started in the '70s - at the worst possible time. But I could afford it. At that time I was single and I was spending thousands of dollars on rare records, so I thought I'd put out a comic. And so I lost money on that instead."

It might not have made Pekar much money, but American Splendor #1 earned a cult following, so he wrote another edition. And then another.

He has stopped numbering them but says he has published about 28 issues, chronicling his battle with cancer, his battles with chat show host David Letterman, and a third marriage, to Joyce. Naturally, these dramas also feature in the movie. Friends such as fellow clerk Tony Radloff also pop up.

The film is wonderfully moving, amusing and inventive. It has a similar tone to Ghost World, Terry Zwigoff's 2000 drama based on the comic of the same name, but is better.

In fact, it is one of the best films of the year, the deserving winner of the grand jury dramatic prize at Sundance and an international film critics' award at Cannes.

Even Pekar likes it. He says it presents a reasonably accurate representation of his life.

"It got the mood right, even if in some cases there were changes made as far as the actual details of my life," he says.

"A couple of times they were trying to make the thing have a plot and a dramatic arc - they would put things in and move things out of sequence - but that didn't bother me too much."

And now, after struggling during his early years, Pekar must be rich and famous, right? His comics must have surely amassed a large and loyal audience in nearly three decades?

Actually, no, says Pekar. Publishing his comics usually left him out of pocket. In a good year he made $US3000 ($4600) or $US4000. Even now, his work hardly sells.

"My stuff can only be gotten in two or three places in this whole area of Ohio I live in," he says. "That gives you an idea of how popular they are. They're comic books in form but not in content, and the typical reader of comic books wants to read about costumed superheroes.

"I just wish there was a way to get them out there. I've been talking to a publisher about doing square-back books to get into other types of bookstores.

"I've retired from my job as a government file clerk, but recently I had cancer again - I'm in remission now - and I've lost a lot of my contacts.

"I've been out of circulation so long, but I'm trying to pick up the threads and get back into publishing more.

"But comics now are in pretty bad shape. The big monster movies may be making a comeback, but I've heard even that doesn't translate into comic book sales."

As American Splendor is released around the world, perhaps the movie will boost sales of the comic books.

"I'm hoping something will come of it," says Pekar. "But I had an experience with Letterman. I thought going on his show would help, but it didn't. I think it's partly because my comics are not aimed at your typical comic book fans.

"And the people who do know my comics and want 'em can't find 'em."

In the meantime, Pekar continues to write prose and music reviews. His obsession with music remains undiminished.

One of the highlights of the movie is the soundtrack of rare old jazz music, selected by Pekar.

So, what's next for a music nut, comic-book writer and retired file clerk in his mid-'60s?

"What I'll probably do once all the dust is settled is write a long comic book with my wife

about this whole movie experience and call it My Movie Year."

Beyond that, he hopes to visit Australia one day, partly to escape George W. Bush.

As he says in that croaky voice: "It'd be nice to visit a civilised country for a change."




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