Harvey Pekar

I spent the past three days reading Harvey Pekar's book, The New American Splendor Anthology. Pekar's stories are illustrated, so it seems like I've been reading a comic book. A bleak comic book.

It's like reading Lynda Barry, or Bill Griffith's Zippy. You know these kinds of comics: they're in the back pages of your city's weekly magazine, the kind that's given out for free at bus or train stations.

Pekar's book is a mesmerizing look at his dilemmas and quandaries. He's a crank. He's compulsive. He's obsessive. He's a nine-to-fiver. He's a music fiend, a book hound, and he's always looking for a good deal. It's good stuff.

I got put onto to Pekar because his life has become a movie, and it opens this month.