INTERVIEW: Comix Legend and Creator of American Splendor – Harvey Pekar
Do you think It’s better to live in modest circumstances and be a creative force than to be rich and be like a Paris Hilton?
No I don’t think it’s good to be like Paris Hilton under ANY circumstances… She’s just ADRIFT… she doesn’t seem like she has any kind of values or ANYTHING…
Do you think that’s endemic of the current generation?
No I mean, I guess, there’s always been spoiled rich kids… She’s not new in that respect… She’s real naïve… she doesn’t know anything about anything but the people she hangs out with… her CLASS of people… So… Yeah, sure I would rather live in – but I’m also perfectly satisfied to live in modest circumstances and if I can be creative then fine… What I’m kinda worried about is how long will I be able to do this stuff? ‘Cause I don’t think that… for one thing I see some economic hard times coming up… I see less people reading… and I worry that the demand for my work which is not tremendous at this point anyway, will… that there WON’T be any demand.
I don’t see that… Everyone I know knows your work, first off, AND is a big fan ACROSS THE BOARD… You’re a beloved figure…
Well, I hope you’re right… ‘Cause I’m not meeting people like that… I’m just sitting at home and writing… you know… I go to the post office… I go to the grocery store… that’s what I do…
You were never interested in going to places like New York, where people know who you are and appreciate you so much?
I hate traveling… Especially since they got all that crap at the airports and everything… they make you check everything and… you know, and you wind up forgetting stuff at the station and you come home without your coat… something like that… ‘Cause it was a warm day and you took it off and draped it over a chair and forgot you were wearing it… No, I don’t like to travel and also I got a really rotten sense of direction…
If I was always with somebody that could keep me from getting lost, or something like that, I would feel a lot better about traveling… I kind of dug the fact that when I was going around publicizing the movie they always had some nice looking young girl, they sometimes called them “handlers”, that they’d assign me and they would take me around to all these different places… shlep me around… so I didn’t get lost… they knew what subway to take… bus… taxi… whatever… so if I could get a situation like that going, someone to lead me around… THAT would be pretty good…
One thing I was thinking… just to mention how beloved you are… was of that episode of the Anthony Bourdain show: No Reservations… you know, the Cleveland show… You do know that that was the MOST POPULAR show of his ever… That was the one that people talked about… Everyone says, “Oh I loved the Cleveland show with Pekar!!”
You know, it’s funny… I though that show came off good… and it wasn’t just because of me… I thought there were a lot of good things about the show… and I like Bourdain an awful lot… I think he’s a real nice guy… but you know it’s funny… in CLEVELAND, some people really HATED it… Because of the fact that they showed these crumbling factories and stuff like that and lousy neighbourhoods… which that’s all there IS in Cleveland.
(LAUGHS)
There’s not even many straight middle clas– I mean everything is FALLING TO PIECES here… the population has been cut in half and…
Anyway, so people got mad because, they said, “Well why didn’t he talk about the CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA??”, cause that’s one of the world’s best orchestras… or, “Why didn’t he talk about the Art museum??”… ‘cause we got a good art museum.. You know, there’s some things about Cleveland that are kind of nice like that…
But it was a show based on YOUR work… Seen through YOUR eyes..
Yeah, we discussed ideas about where to go and everything… That BOOK STORE (Zubal book store, former Hostess Twinkie factory)… that was a real nice experience…
Yeah that looked amazing…
Especially that 50 year old Twinkie filling…
(LAUGHS)
When I heard about that I FLIPPED… They said, “YEAH, that stuff is still good, you can eat it… GO AHEAD”. Some people would just turn on the thing and eat some of that Twinkie filling…
So I just want to say how much again how much I appreciate you speaking with us.. I just have a few more quick questions…
Yeah, go ahead man…
What role has cinema played in your work…
I don’t know that it’s had a TREMENDOUS influence on me… I mean there are some films that I really like… I guess the stuff that I think is the best stuff I’ve ever seen is the Italian neo-realist films, like the Bicycle Thief… that’s really moving to me…
Do you believe that print comix is a dying art form?
Well I don’t think that BOOKS should die… It doesn’t say much about the human race that people much prefer television and the internet to books… I mean I’m not saying there’s not a place for stuff like that… but you can’t DUPLICATE the experience of reading a book by watching something on television… I mean it’s a unique experience… a real private experience… an intimate experience.. you know you’re holding the thing in your hand and reading it at your own pace…
Yeah it’s a completely different GESTALT!!
Yeah, whatever THAT means…
(LAUGHS!!)
- Harvey as illustrated by Comix legend and Z Report pal: Bill Griffith
Reading this article, all I could think of is how a piece on this website about some vapid, talentless fuckwad gets dozens of comments defending said vapid, talentless fuckwad. That Harvey Pekar has not been given his proper due of success and financial security for his body of work is an absolute fucking crime.
It is incredible isn’t it.
[...] interview with Harvey. Learn more about Harvey on his Wiki [...]
This is a great interview, thanks for posting it. I’ve never really read an at-length interview with Harvey Pekar before, and I think you asked a great range of questions. I loved your capitalized response when he said that his wife had sold his records!
American Splendor was a great comic, and I think what Pekar did just keeping it going year after year was really impressive. It was a real work of art, and it is a true loss that he has passed away. My best wishes go out to his friends and family.
Thanks.. Harvey’s passing is a great loss.. Heartens me to see how appreciated he was..