Harvey Pekar dead at age 70
Revolutionary Cleveland graphic novelist

Ground-breaking graphic novelist Harvey Pekar died early Monday 7/12/10 in his Cleveland Heights home. His wife, Joyce Brabner, with whom Pekar published the monumental novel-length comic Our Cancer Year found Pekar early Monday in their home. The book chronicled, in painful and sometimes hilarious detail, Pekar’s year-long struggle with cancer in 1990. Cause of death had not yet been determined as of publication date.

Watch the Cool Cleveland video here as Pekar, in a rare good mood, talks (on 01.26.09) with Cool Cleveland’s Thomas Mulready about his libretto for the jazz opera Leave Me Alone!, written by jazz saxophonist and Clevelander Dan Plonsey, a rumination on the state of the avant-garde in the arts that was presented at Oberlin College in January, 2009.

Harvey Pekar worked with the top cartoon illustrators, detailing his dour, file-clerk lifestyle and mundane day-to-day events in comic book form, reinvigorating the graphic novel and inviting comparisons to the work of Checkov and Dostoevski. Among his collaborators was illustrator R. Crumb, whom Pekar met in 1962 when Crumb was employed at American Greetings in Cleveland.

Pekar’s novel-length comic books gained critical attention, but never sold well, although he eventually collected awards such as the American Book Award for his American Splendor anthology and a Peabody for his radio commentary. He was a regular on The David Letterman Show for years, and his life was chronicled in a Hollywood feature film in 2003, American Splendor, shot entirely on location in Cleveland and Lakewood, starring Paul Giamatti as Pekar. The film won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. The remarkable experience of making the film was turned into another graphic novel by Pekar, Our Movie Year.

At the time of this video interview, Pekar was preparing the premiere of his first opera, and appeared in a rare upbeat mood. We asked him how he stays so cheerful, to which he replied, “I’m not that cheerful, I’m just putting it on for the camera. I’m actually miserable.” After reminding him that he is a “star” of international proportions, he replied, “Thanks for reminding me. I’ll keep that in mind as I go through life… what’s left of it.” Watch the video here.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 12th, 2010 at 6:03 pm and is filed under Arts, Civic Affairs, Literary, News, Thomas Mulready. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.