Complaints Dept.
Comic book legend Harvey Pekar corners the market on cranks By Jason McBride
Image credit: Theo Wargo/Wireimage
He’s best known as the curmudgeonly subject of the 2003 hit indie film American Splendor, based on his autobiographical comic series of the same name. In real life and in his books, Harvey Pekar is a cantankerous ex–file clerk plagued by everybody and everything. With blunt wit, a keen intelligence and suppurating self-loathing, he specializes in chronicling the quotidian: nagging spouses, broken-down cars, trips to the grocery store. Think Notes From Underground as written by Lenny Bruce. In his latest graphic novel, Ego and Hubris: The Michael Malice Story, Pekar turns his gimlet-eyed sights on another poor schlub—a Brooklyn-based writer and sourpuss beset by know-nothings and dead-end jobs. He could be Pekar’s doppelgänger. It’s a compelling portrait—proof that Pekar has the sensitivity to make even the most misanthropic soul universal. After all, misery loves company.
Why did you devote a whole comic to Michael Malice?
Under certain circumstances, he is loaded with malice. But he’s actually a pretty nice guy. At a very young age, he decided he wasn’t going to take crap from anybody. We have a lot in common.
Did you ever want to write a straight-ahead novel?
No. After meeting Robert Crumb, it occurred to me that comics were as good an art form as novels. They’d just been used in a limited way. That was obvious to me, but not to anybody else. I saw my chance to be an innovator.
How much did your life change after the film American Splendor was released?
My life is still really narrow. I get up, do some work, do laundry, go to the post office. I listen to a lot of NPR, follow the adventures of Dick Cheney.
Have you ever considered antidepressants?
After I retired, I got really depressed. I was in and out of the hospital for a year and a half, electroshock therapy and everything. Now I take a lot of Prozac—60 milligrams a day. I wrote what is arguably my best work, The Quitter, after I started taking Prozac.
Any other movie projects planned?
I don’t have any desire to actually adapt my own work. But I like the money. I’m a full-time writer now; I hardly ever turn a freelance assignment down. I want to keep working—and not at McDonald’s. Hopefully it won’t come to that.
Harvey Pekar reads from Ego and Hubris: The Michael Malice Story at Innis Town Hall April 26 as part of This Is Not a Reading Series. $5. 2 Sussex Ave., 416-598-1447, www.pagesbooks.ca.
Why did you devote a whole comic to Michael Malice?
Under certain circumstances, he is loaded with malice. But he’s actually a pretty nice guy. At a very young age, he decided he wasn’t going to take crap from anybody. We have a lot in common.
Did you ever want to write a straight-ahead novel?
No. After meeting Robert Crumb, it occurred to me that comics were as good an art form as novels. They’d just been used in a limited way. That was obvious to me, but not to anybody else. I saw my chance to be an innovator.
How much did your life change after the film American Splendor was released?
My life is still really narrow. I get up, do some work, do laundry, go to the post office. I listen to a lot of NPR, follow the adventures of Dick Cheney.
Have you ever considered antidepressants?
After I retired, I got really depressed. I was in and out of the hospital for a year and a half, electroshock therapy and everything. Now I take a lot of Prozac—60 milligrams a day. I wrote what is arguably my best work, The Quitter, after I started taking Prozac.
Any other movie projects planned?
I don’t have any desire to actually adapt my own work. But I like the money. I’m a full-time writer now; I hardly ever turn a freelance assignment down. I want to keep working—and not at McDonald’s. Hopefully it won’t come to that.
Harvey Pekar reads from Ego and Hubris: The Michael Malice Story at Innis Town Hall April 26 as part of This Is Not a Reading Series. $5. 2 Sussex Ave., 416-598-1447, www.pagesbooks.ca.
TEST Originally published April 2006
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