In response to article "The Premature Immortalization of Harvey Pekar"
I'm no scholar, but I was smart enough to become Harvey Pekar's understudy. As an editorial cartoonist with a fine arts background with minors in political science and sociology, street smarts and chutzpah, I secured the position because he recognized I was trying to diversify comics. This ended up becoming an accidental keyhole into observing America's so-called everyman. Why did I do this? Because I could. He lived down the street from me and he liked my art style well enough that he started to hand me comic stories. We worked over the span of 2.5 years and secured seven clients. In an attempt to get our collaborative comics published online, we got roped into an editorial hassle called the Pekar Project. Which ended up being a very cool gig on many levels. Harvey was a very simple guy and tried to avoid complication at all costs. He had no debts, including no house payment. Any kind of payment would drive him crazy. He often let me borrow books that he took out from the library for projects that we were working on and I got many reminders to return them before they were ever close to being late. IT seems to me that Harvey was a jewish immigrant who happened to get mixed in the modern world. Most of his recognition came out of sheer timing. He was lucky in that aspect. In order to get noticed with the assistance of timing you need to have the work. This is where he could rise above most in my opinion because he actually sat down and did the writing. Some may critique it and call it "meat and potatoes" writing, because it was so incredibly straight forward and doric. However, the fact of the matter is, It was observant and progressive. He set out to accomplish what he meant to do. It was no accident and his fame came out of sheer persistence and dedication. Also, he was a scholar, he used his day job to study (when he didn't have filing to do). How many writers are actually reading all day long for 30+ years? And listening to his subjects (people at the hospital) he had a gifted ear for dialogue. Everything lined up perfectly for him. Those jazz articles were meant to be informative and he tried to use his extensive jazz knowledge, but also wrote in a way that the layman could understand. Pekar wasn't a hot dog, he was a stickler. He was a collaborator and let all of his artists take his scripts and create their own vision. Robert Crumb was just telling me about the genius of Harvey's scripts. We both agreed that one of the reasons it was nice to illustrate his script was he let the artist have their own vision. It's nothing to sneeze at, that's how he got all those artists to engage in his work. He didn't even read the script for the movie that was made about him. He said, "why, it wasn't my art." Harvey an opportunist? Maybe, he once told me that all artists want and need recognition and if they deny it they are not being truthful. That Letterman deal was all about him getting an opportunity to at least get something out of a funky situation. He got roped up in a show that he thought could possibly help his comic book sales and did all kinds of goofy things to keep it going, when he found out it wasn't doing anything for him (and he wasn't getting paid very much) he started to "twist his mustache" and come up with a way to gain something out of the situation. He might as well try and make a mark right? As far as his fame was concerned, his big break was with Robert Crumb. He had Roberts "seal of approval" all the way up until Random House put out an anthology of his work because of the movie. The only publication he ever made a dime on. And he talked about Robert's work up until hours before his death. He actually carried around a copy of "The Sweeter Side Of Crumb" it was one of his favorite works.
He didn't write about himself because he was indulgent, He was truly interested in the craft. He studied many midwestern writers interested in the same format. There was a science to his writing, it had to be jotted down immediately so that nothing would get lost in the exactness of the moment he was re-creating with words. He was an innovator. He did not consider himself an intellectual, rather an autodidact. He considered intellectuals to be from academia depending on what you taught or wrote. You could very well be a "technician in disguise" even if you had a doctorate.
I happened to be working with Harvey hours before his a death (there's a ny times article to prove it). We talked about Lebron James leaving Cleveland. I was interested on how he felt about it. He said to me, "I don't blame the guy. He's young and he wants to win a championship. He know's he's not going to get that here." Harvey was not a team player. He loved sports and he really did love Cleveland, but he never held a loyalty to anything. He was an individualist. The only thing he was loyal to was his marriage, he didn't even like comics. He was disappointed that artists weren't pushing the art form. He was impatient. He was a critic to his own religion. At the end of his life he enjoyed his work, friendship, good health, children, good food, a bit of financial security, his books and love of art, his wife, recognition and coupon books for the neighborhood grocery store. I'm so happy that he died content with his life, didn't have to suffer and didn't have to read this article!
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