INTERVIEW: Comix Legend and Creator of American Splendor – Harvey Pekar

You worked at the hospital all those years… 

Yeah, right… 

I’ve always found it interesting that you would continue to work at the hospital after all those years… Was it some form of Stockholm syndrome? For such a creative, intellectual guy, what was the draw? I mean you couldn’t have gotten any kind of stimulation from it… 

Well, I mean, first of all… There’s NOT A WHOLE LOT OF THINGS THAT I CAN DO TO MAKE MONEY… I mean, I CAN’T TYPE, I mean I’m really LIMITED… Like, Crumb can’t drive… or he WON’T drive, but I mean there’s a lot of shit that I CAN’T do so I had to have some kind of a simple-ass job…  so I got a simple-ass job that was not ONLY a simple-ass job but it was steady work with the Government, so I didn’t have to worry about getting laid off and I got nice fringe benefits and then I wound up with this job that was so EASY that I could do it and do it WELL and I got praised for it, you know, some PLAQUES for doing good work… But I mean, I was practically DOING IT IN MY SLEEP… It wouldn’t even be bumming me out or anything ‘cause it wouldn’t be consuming all my attention… putting these papers away and thinking about other stuff, and bullshitting with people I worked with.  My job was to go around the hospital and find lost charts and give them to medical clinics and stuff so that meant I was constantly on the move so I saw a wide variety of people and I had all kind of relationships going with different people… IT WASN’T REALLY THAT BAD.  If you’re in one place and you gotta concentrate really hard on what you’re doing and stuff.  I don’t like that.  If it’s stuff you don’t like to do, but if you can move around and you don’t have to think about the work ‘cause it’s so easy that THAT’S FINE. 

I can totally relate to that myself… having a job that doesn’t tax your faculties… so you can just concentrate on your art…  

The only thing is, after a while, you received so many critical accolades and success… You never had the opportunity to write for a newspaper or a literary magazine and have THAT be your steady job?? 

NAHH, I never made any – (a phone rings in background) — CAN YOU HOLD ON ONE SECOND? 

Sure… 

(returning in literally one second) 

ANYWAY, it was very, very few comic book guys that were actually making a living at it.  There were a lot that were doing it, but not making a living at it, and it was important stuff but they had to do other jobs, live with their girlfriends… do something like that.  I didn’t come close… The most I made in a year when things were going good when I used to go to comic conventions and drag along my books and sell them to people in a booth was something like 3000 BUCKS… There wasn’t a whole lot of interest in comix… I mean I hung around with people who were interested in them, but around the world nobody gave a shit about ‘em.  

Does it surprise you, your influence on the medium?  I mean, what you set out to do, you actually achieved… 

YEAH IT DID SURPRISE ME!  Because I mean, you know, for someone to sit down and draw up a plan and then actually have it work… you know, I wasn’t used to having things work out for me. So it was hard to believe that I was making that kind of progress.  

It’s well known you’re a jazz guy… How much of an influence would you say it has on your writing? It seems a lot of your storytelling cadence has the same ebb and flow, push and pull, of a great jazz record…  

Well, I just try to write economically and to the point and try to put in humour… I think what’s real important to me is CLARITY… I want people to know what I’m talking about and not have to wrack their brain to figure out what I’m saying. 

Has there ever been a time, with one of your stories where you felt you crossed the line and revealed too much about yourself or someone close to you?? 

Nahh… I never really… I don’t think I’ve done anything to be ashamed of… I mean, I’ve got a lot of faults, which I will readily admit, but I’ve never MURDERED anybody, I’ve never ROBBED anybody or anything like that… that’s serious shit… but being cheap I’ll cop to that.. OK I’m cheap, there are worse things… Who doesn’t have faults? 

The Quitter - illustrated by Dean "Dino" Haspiel

How closely do you collaborate with your artists.. Do you make graphic suggestions? 

Yeah, well, when I write the scripts I’ll write captions and I’ll write the dialogue and stuff… I’ll put the thoughts in balloons and I’ll make a note in there of what I would like to see.  I’m not real specific about it… I’ll say, “draw two guys talking on a street corner”… I wouldn’t, I mean, if you ever seen any of Harvey Kurtzman’s or Alan Moore is another guy… those guy’s are like, they talk about EVERY DAMN ASPECT OF IT, you know, they just see everything, how everything is supposed to be, well, most people aren’t like that, and I think it might actually get in the way with some artists, like I was being condescending or something… like “Hey I CAN DO THIS”.. 

You’re depicted in the press as a curmudgeon/eccentric, yet your work reveals a great empathy and sensitivity… Do you feel you’ve been misrepresented and to what extent do you feel you’ve played a role in perpetuating that image? 

Well, I mean, I’m DEPRESSED A LOT OF THE TIME.  I’ve actually been diagnosed as having major depression, you know…  I’ve even… I mean, for a short period time over a year and half I was REALLY FUCKED UP, when I just retired and I didn’t know what to do with myself. The movie hadn’t come out and I was really messed up… Um, I don’t know… am I a curmudgeon?  I suppose people can get that impression because I’m not a kind of guy who goes around slapping people on the back and tickle you under the chin or something but… I just leave it up to other people… I don’t think I’m particularly mean or anything like that.  If someone calls me up out of the clear blue sky, NOT JUST FOR AN INTERVIEW… but if they want to talk to me, I mean they can invite themselves over to my house and Ill talk to them… and some of these people, I mean I don’t know what they want from me but… you know… I don’t mind that. 

Pekar as drawn by R. Crumb