Showing posts with label Harvey Pekar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Harvey Pekar. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
SNARF #6 ROBERT CRUMB UNDERGROUND COMIX WILL EISNER HARVEY KURTZMAN PEKAR RARE!!
Friday, February 24, 2012
HARVEY PEKAR AMERICAN SPLENDOR COMIC BOOK UNDERGROUND AUTOBIOGRAPHY
HARVEY PEKAR
AMERICAN SPLEDOR. UNDERGROUND COMIX
Art by Ty Templeton, David Lapham, Hunt Emerson, Dean Haspiel, Lora Innes & José Marzan, Greg Budgett & Gary Dumm, Josh Neufeld and Zachary Baldus Cover by Darick Robertson
It's an AMERICAN SPLENDOR filled with personal growth for Harvey Pekar, as he learns to compromise with an artist, attends a town meeting, reaches a truce with his cat and learns new and interesting facts from the local barber, among other extraordinary tales of everyday existence. Featuring a heavy-hitting lineup of some of the top artists in comics.
OUT OF PRINT. HARD TO FIND COLLECTOR'S ITEM.
For fans of the counterculture underground comix!
HARVEY PEKAR AMERICAN SPLENDOR #1 COMIC BOOK WINDFALL UNDERGROUND AUTOBIOGRAPHY
HARVEY PEKAR
AMERICAN SPLEDOR #1 WINDFALL. UNDERGROUND COMIX
Continuing the amazing chronicle of the comic-book world's greatest autobiographer, focusing on the aftermath of one man's experiences with cancer. In "Flight to Chicago," Harvey and his wife Joyce experience frustration and exhaustion as a simple trip turns into an agonizing obstacle course. "Windfall Gained" tells the tale of tragedy turned to happy accident when Harvey's impatience on a snow-covered street turns to gold. Finally, in "Bloodletting," Harvey must face the difficult choice of surgery. This is an entertaining and informative look at one man's life, filled with all the drama and comedic pratfalls that we've come to expect from day-to-day existence.
OUT OF PRINT. HARD TO FIND COLLECTOR'S ITEM.
For fans of the counterculture underground comix!
Saturday, April 23, 2011
VIETNAM WAR GRAPHICNOVEL HARVEY PEKAR AMERICAN SPLENDOR
AMERICAN SPLENDOR GRAPHIC NOVEL - UNSUNG HERO
AFRICAN AMERICAN SOLDIER IN VIETNAM
Hard to find COLLECTOR'S ITEM!
Written by Harvey Pekar. Art by David Collier.
Few authors are able to capture an honest snapshot of everyday life the way Harvey Pekar can. From ruminations on jazz musicians to back problems and traffic tickets, Pekar writes in a clear, unsentimental voice that not only explores the mundane, but celebrates it as well. This time out, Pekar focuses his sharp literary eye on Robert McNeill, an ordinary man who's lived an extraordinary life. McNeill recounts his time spent as a G.I. in Vietnam, on a tour through that surreal and horrific landscape that even now, thirty years later, we're struggling to define.
Unsung Hero is a tale of cynicism and endurance, tempered by McNeill's distinct sense of humor and Pekar's touching wit. American Splendor: Unsung Hero is the first Dark Horse collection from the long-running comic-book series that inspired the upcoming American Splendor feature film! The film version of American Splendor won the prestigious Grand Jury Prize at this year's Sundance Film Festival and has earned both critical and popular acclaim! Softcover, 80 pages
Impossible to find!
Monday, November 29, 2010
ROBERT CRUMB BOOK HARVEY PEKAR UNDERGROUND COMIX 60's!!
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Bob and Harv's Comics [Paperback]
Harvey Pekar
Harvey Pekar (Author)
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(Author), Robert Crumb
Robert Crumb (Illustrator)
› Visit Amazon's Robert Crumb Page
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See search results for this author
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(Illustrator)
* Paperback: 86 pages
* Publisher: Running Press (November 5, 1996)
* Language: English
* ISBN-10: 1568581017
* ISBN-13: 978-1568581019
* Product Dimensions: 10 x 8 x 0.4 inches
Product Description
Gathered here are the collected works of the titans of adults comics--legendary underground cartoonist R. Crumb and the "high priest of comic-book naturalism" (Newsweek) Harvey Pekar. The comic collision of these underground luminaries is funny, obsessive, ever-so-slightly neurotic, but always biting and honest. Illustrations throughout.
Pekar's American Splendor is hands down the best adult comic book and maybe the best comic book, period, in the U.S. It is full of the adventures of Pekar himself--a genuine working-class intellectual, a clerk in a government hospital who on the side writes about jazz, the comics, and authors whose work deserves renewed attention. He writes and storyboards the stories and recruits professional comics artists to draw them. The most famous of these is his longtime friend, Robert Crumb, dean of the 1960s "underground" comics artists and subject of the extravagantly praised documentary film Crumb (1994). The touchstones for the formal qualities and attitudes of these cartoon-illustrated slices-of-life are the stories of such urban impressionists as Grace Paley and Meyer Liben and the films of the French new wave directors, especially Jean-Luc Godard and Eric Rohmer. Pekar and Crumb don't derive from those artists, however; they are their peers
Both Robert Crumb (Self-Loathing Comics), who defined the underground comics of the 1960s, and Harvey Pekar (Cancer Year), whose autobiographical comic (American Splendor) launched an entire movement in the 1980s, have transformed American alternative comics. Four Walls Eight Windows is releasing Bob & Harv's Comics, a collection of their pithy collaborations (Crumb illustrates Pekar's stories) that also shows how superbly suited they are to interpret each other's work.
Described by art critic Robert Hughes as "the Brueghel of the 20th century," Robert Crumb has become the only sixties counter culture artist to break through into the fine art world with great acclaim. Laura Hoptman, curator of the Carnegie International said, "Crumb is one of the most subversive and important voices to come out of America in the 20th century." He's one of the greatest draftsmen of our time.
"I never get bored seeing more work from a master who is so obsessively in love with the act of drawing; every image, even and otherwise prosaic still life from a 'pizzeria in St. Hyppolyte du Fort, ' captures the eye and imagination." -- Steven Heller "The New York Times Book Review"
1ST ED NEW UNDERGROUND COMIX SIXTIES COUNTER CULTURE!!!
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Bob and Harv's Comics [Paperback]
Harvey Pekar
Harvey Pekar (Author)
› Visit Amazon's Harvey Pekar Page
Find all the books, read about the author, and more.
See search results for this author
Are you an author? Learn about Author Central
(Author), Robert Crumb
Robert Crumb (Illustrator)
› Visit Amazon's Robert Crumb Page
Find all the books, read about the author, and more.
See search results for this author
Are you an author? Learn about Author Central
(Illustrator)
* Paperback: 86 pages
* Publisher: Running Press (November 5, 1996)
* Language: English
* ISBN-10: 1568581017
* ISBN-13: 978-1568581019
* Product Dimensions: 10 x 8 x 0.4 inches
Product Description
Gathered here are the collected works of the titans of adults comics--legendary underground cartoonist R. Crumb and the "high priest of comic-book naturalism" (Newsweek) Harvey Pekar. The comic collision of these underground luminaries is funny, obsessive, ever-so-slightly neurotic, but always biting and honest. Illustrations throughout.
Pekar's American Splendor is hands down the best adult comic book and maybe the best comic book, period, in the U.S. It is full of the adventures of Pekar himself--a genuine working-class intellectual, a clerk in a government hospital who on the side writes about jazz, the comics, and authors whose work deserves renewed attention. He writes and storyboards the stories and recruits professional comics artists to draw them. The most famous of these is his longtime friend, Robert Crumb, dean of the 1960s "underground" comics artists and subject of the extravagantly praised documentary film Crumb (1994). The touchstones for the formal qualities and attitudes of these cartoon-illustrated slices-of-life are the stories of such urban impressionists as Grace Paley and Meyer Liben and the films of the French new wave directors, especially Jean-Luc Godard and Eric Rohmer. Pekar and Crumb don't derive from those artists, however; they are their peers
Both Robert Crumb (Self-Loathing Comics), who defined the underground comics of the 1960s, and Harvey Pekar (Cancer Year), whose autobiographical comic (American Splendor) launched an entire movement in the 1980s, have transformed American alternative comics. Four Walls Eight Windows is releasing Bob & Harv's Comics, a collection of their pithy collaborations (Crumb illustrates Pekar's stories) that also shows how superbly suited they are to interpret each other's work.
Described by art critic Robert Hughes as "the Brueghel of the 20th century," Robert Crumb has become the only sixties counter culture artist to break through into the fine art world with great acclaim. Laura Hoptman, curator of the Carnegie International said, "Crumb is one of the most subversive and important voices to come out of America in the 20th century." He's one of the greatest draftsmen of our time.
"I never get bored seeing more work from a master who is so obsessively in love with the act of drawing; every image, even and otherwise prosaic still life from a 'pizzeria in St. Hyppolyte du Fort, ' captures the eye and imagination." -- Steven Heller "The New York Times Book Review"
1ST ED NEW UNDERGROUND COMIX SIXTIES COUNTER CULTURE!!!
Monday, February 8, 2010
SNARF #12 UNDERGROUND COMIX RICHARD CORBEN PEKAR JESUS!
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PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
SNARF #12. UNDERGROUND COMIX
Featuring A FANTASTIC RICHARD CORBEN COVER!!!
Underground Comic Book published in 1989 by KITCHEN SINK.
June 1989
Kitchen Sink Press, Inc.
6 5/8" x 10 1/4"
$2.00
36 pages
Cover: Glossy color
Guts: Newsprint
OUT OF PRINT. HARD TO FIND COLLECTOR'S ITEM.
Featuring great work by some of the best underground comix artists of that period.
Artists:
Denis Kitchen (Editor+)
Dave Schreiner (Editor+) - 2[t]
Howard V. Corben - 1
Howard Cruse - 3-5
Wayne Honath - 6, 23
P.S. Mueller - 7-10
Frank Stack (="Foolbert Sturgeon") - 11-16
Steve Toornman - 17, 24
Mark Landman - 18-21
Samuel Beckett - 22[s]
Jim Siergey - 22[a]
Joe Matt - 25-28
Harvey Pekar - 29-31[s]
Gary Dumm - 29-31[a+]
Robert Crumb - 31[a+]
Sharon Clayman - 32-33[s]
Al Via - 32-33[a]
Dennis Worden - 33[a], 34[t]
Philip M. Cohen - 33-34[letter]
Daniel G. Gerlach - 34[letter]
Rand Holmes - 34
Ernie Bushmiller - 36[ad]
Stories:
2 - Special Superhero Issue
3 - Raising Nancies
6 - Howie's Wish List
7 - Uncle Dud
11 - At Home With Jesus
17 - Art School in the Seventies
18 - The Man With The Autonomous Tongue
22 - Waiting for Gummo
23 - Howie and Pete in "You Pour, I Pick"
24 - The Mile
25 - The Pleasures Of Being Human
29 - What Superman Means To Me
32 - Elevator Man
33 - Letters
35 - Hey Gang! Get Your Great T-Shirts Now (Ad)
36 - Nancy Eats Food (Ad)
For fans of the counterculture underground comix!
Visit the POP CULTURE SHOP eBAY Store!
PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
SNARF #12. UNDERGROUND COMIX
Featuring A FANTASTIC RICHARD CORBEN COVER!!!
Underground Comic Book published in 1989 by KITCHEN SINK.
June 1989
Kitchen Sink Press, Inc.
6 5/8" x 10 1/4"
$2.00
36 pages
Cover: Glossy color
Guts: Newsprint
OUT OF PRINT. HARD TO FIND COLLECTOR'S ITEM.
Featuring great work by some of the best underground comix artists of that period.
Artists:
Denis Kitchen (Editor+)
Dave Schreiner (Editor+) - 2[t]
Howard V. Corben - 1
Howard Cruse - 3-5
Wayne Honath - 6, 23
P.S. Mueller - 7-10
Frank Stack (="Foolbert Sturgeon") - 11-16
Steve Toornman - 17, 24
Mark Landman - 18-21
Samuel Beckett - 22[s]
Jim Siergey - 22[a]
Joe Matt - 25-28
Harvey Pekar - 29-31[s]
Gary Dumm - 29-31[a+]
Robert Crumb - 31[a+]
Sharon Clayman - 32-33[s]
Al Via - 32-33[a]
Dennis Worden - 33[a], 34[t]
Philip M. Cohen - 33-34[letter]
Daniel G. Gerlach - 34[letter]
Rand Holmes - 34
Ernie Bushmiller - 36[ad]
Stories:
2 - Special Superhero Issue
3 - Raising Nancies
6 - Howie's Wish List
7 - Uncle Dud
11 - At Home With Jesus
17 - Art School in the Seventies
18 - The Man With The Autonomous Tongue
22 - Waiting for Gummo
23 - Howie and Pete in "You Pour, I Pick"
24 - The Mile
25 - The Pleasures Of Being Human
29 - What Superman Means To Me
32 - Elevator Man
33 - Letters
35 - Hey Gang! Get Your Great T-Shirts Now (Ad)
36 - Nancy Eats Food (Ad)
For fans of the counterculture underground comix!
Thursday, October 29, 2009
OUR CANCER YEAR BOOK HARVEY PEKAR AMERICAN SPLENDOR!!!
Visit the POP CULTURE SHOP eCRATER Store!
Visit the POP CULTURE SHOP eBAY Store!
PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
Visit the POP CULTURE SHOP eCRATER Store!
Visit the POP CULTURE SHOP eBAY Store!
PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
Our Cancer Year (Paperback)
by Harvey Pekar (Author), Joyce Brabner (Author), Frank Stack (Illustrator)
Product Description
It was they year of Desert Storm that Harvey Pekar and his wife, Joyce Brabner, discovered Harvey had cancer. Pekar, a man who has made a profession of chronicling the Kafkaesque absurdities of an ordinary life (if any life is ordinary) suddenly found himself incapacitated. But he had a better-than-average chance to beat cancer and he took it — kicking, screaming, and complaining all the way. Pekar and Brabner draw on this and other trials to paint a portrait of a man beset with fears real and imagined — who survives.
"This is a story about a year when someone was sick, about a time when it seemed that the rest of the world was sick, too." So begins Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner's painful comic book autobiography centering on the year that they found out that Pekar had cancer; the year that also saw Operation Desert Shield turn into Operation Desert Storm. Drawing upon the many personal trials they faced, Pekar and Brabner create a portrait of a man beset with fears both real and imagined.
Joined by his wife and collaborator Brabner and illustrator Stack, Pekar's (The New American Splendor Anthology) first book-length comics narrative is by turns amusing, frightening, moving and quietly entertaining. As always, Pekar's work records his apparently ordinary life as a hospital clerk in Cleveland while simultaneously capturing the epiphanic combination of mundanity and awkward, sporadic nobility of everyday life. In 1990, Pekar was diagnosed with lymphoma and needed chemotherapy. By the time the disease was discovered, the couple was in the midst of buying a house (a tremendous worry to Pekar, who fretted about both the money and corruptions of bourgeois creature comforts). Brabner, a self-described "comic book journalist," had to oversee both the new house and a sick and very difficult husband. Pekar's cancer treatment and suffering will take your breath away, but there's a happy ending; and the book (and their marriage) is distinguished by Brabner's great tenderness and determination in the middle of Pekar's medical nightmare. Stack's brisk and elegantly gestural black-and-white drawings wonderfully delineate this captivating story of love, community, recuperation and international friendship.
* Paperback: 252 pages
* Publisher: Running Press (October 12, 1994)
* Language: English
* ISBN-10: 1568580118
* ISBN-13: 978-1568580111
* Product Dimensions: 10 x 8 x 0.6 inches
This is the most impressive nonfiction graphic novel since Art Spiegelman's Maus. Pekar is the hospital worker-author of the autobiographical comic, American Splendor, and Brabner, his wife, is a peace activist-journalist working in the comics form. Not artists themselves, they have collaborated with many illustrators over the years and here with one of Pekar's favorites, Frank Stack. Stack's fluid line and strong compositional skills in both single panels and whole pages do much to grab and hold us as Pekar and Brabner re-create the awful year when, having already decided to move from the apartment they had lived in for 10 years (and he for 9 more before) to a house, she became involved in a complicated project, and he undertook grueling chemotherapy for cancer. It's doubtful that any medium other than the comics could make the commonly unusual ingredients of their story--suffering drug side effects, getting on each other's nerves just when you feel you shouldn't, hassling with home repairs, etc.--so compelling. Few prose-only cancer survivors' accounts are as good.
Visit the POP CULTURE SHOP eBAY Store!
PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
Visit the POP CULTURE SHOP eCRATER Store!
Visit the POP CULTURE SHOP eBAY Store!
PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
Our Cancer Year (Paperback)
by Harvey Pekar (Author), Joyce Brabner (Author), Frank Stack (Illustrator)
Product Description
It was they year of Desert Storm that Harvey Pekar and his wife, Joyce Brabner, discovered Harvey had cancer. Pekar, a man who has made a profession of chronicling the Kafkaesque absurdities of an ordinary life (if any life is ordinary) suddenly found himself incapacitated. But he had a better-than-average chance to beat cancer and he took it — kicking, screaming, and complaining all the way. Pekar and Brabner draw on this and other trials to paint a portrait of a man beset with fears real and imagined — who survives.
"This is a story about a year when someone was sick, about a time when it seemed that the rest of the world was sick, too." So begins Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner's painful comic book autobiography centering on the year that they found out that Pekar had cancer; the year that also saw Operation Desert Shield turn into Operation Desert Storm. Drawing upon the many personal trials they faced, Pekar and Brabner create a portrait of a man beset with fears both real and imagined.
Joined by his wife and collaborator Brabner and illustrator Stack, Pekar's (The New American Splendor Anthology) first book-length comics narrative is by turns amusing, frightening, moving and quietly entertaining. As always, Pekar's work records his apparently ordinary life as a hospital clerk in Cleveland while simultaneously capturing the epiphanic combination of mundanity and awkward, sporadic nobility of everyday life. In 1990, Pekar was diagnosed with lymphoma and needed chemotherapy. By the time the disease was discovered, the couple was in the midst of buying a house (a tremendous worry to Pekar, who fretted about both the money and corruptions of bourgeois creature comforts). Brabner, a self-described "comic book journalist," had to oversee both the new house and a sick and very difficult husband. Pekar's cancer treatment and suffering will take your breath away, but there's a happy ending; and the book (and their marriage) is distinguished by Brabner's great tenderness and determination in the middle of Pekar's medical nightmare. Stack's brisk and elegantly gestural black-and-white drawings wonderfully delineate this captivating story of love, community, recuperation and international friendship.
* Paperback: 252 pages
* Publisher: Running Press (October 12, 1994)
* Language: English
* ISBN-10: 1568580118
* ISBN-13: 978-1568580111
* Product Dimensions: 10 x 8 x 0.6 inches
This is the most impressive nonfiction graphic novel since Art Spiegelman's Maus. Pekar is the hospital worker-author of the autobiographical comic, American Splendor, and Brabner, his wife, is a peace activist-journalist working in the comics form. Not artists themselves, they have collaborated with many illustrators over the years and here with one of Pekar's favorites, Frank Stack. Stack's fluid line and strong compositional skills in both single panels and whole pages do much to grab and hold us as Pekar and Brabner re-create the awful year when, having already decided to move from the apartment they had lived in for 10 years (and he for 9 more before) to a house, she became involved in a complicated project, and he undertook grueling chemotherapy for cancer. It's doubtful that any medium other than the comics could make the commonly unusual ingredients of their story--suffering drug side effects, getting on each other's nerves just when you feel you shouldn't, hassling with home repairs, etc.--so compelling. Few prose-only cancer survivors' accounts are as good.
OUR CANCER YEAR BOOK HARVEY PEKAR AMERICAN SPLENDOR!!!
Visit the POP CULTURE SHOP eCRATER Store!
Visit the POP CULTURE SHOP eBAY Store!
PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
Visit the POP CULTURE SHOP eCRATER Store!
Visit the POP CULTURE SHOP eBAY Store!
PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
Our Cancer Year (Paperback)
by Harvey Pekar (Author), Joyce Brabner (Author), Frank Stack (Illustrator)
Product Description
It was they year of Desert Storm that Harvey Pekar and his wife, Joyce Brabner, discovered Harvey had cancer. Pekar, a man who has made a profession of chronicling the Kafkaesque absurdities of an ordinary life (if any life is ordinary) suddenly found himself incapacitated. But he had a better-than-average chance to beat cancer and he took it — kicking, screaming, and complaining all the way. Pekar and Brabner draw on this and other trials to paint a portrait of a man beset with fears real and imagined — who survives.
"This is a story about a year when someone was sick, about a time when it seemed that the rest of the world was sick, too." So begins Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner's painful comic book autobiography centering on the year that they found out that Pekar had cancer; the year that also saw Operation Desert Shield turn into Operation Desert Storm. Drawing upon the many personal trials they faced, Pekar and Brabner create a portrait of a man beset with fears both real and imagined.
Joined by his wife and collaborator Brabner and illustrator Stack, Pekar's (The New American Splendor Anthology) first book-length comics narrative is by turns amusing, frightening, moving and quietly entertaining. As always, Pekar's work records his apparently ordinary life as a hospital clerk in Cleveland while simultaneously capturing the epiphanic combination of mundanity and awkward, sporadic nobility of everyday life. In 1990, Pekar was diagnosed with lymphoma and needed chemotherapy. By the time the disease was discovered, the couple was in the midst of buying a house (a tremendous worry to Pekar, who fretted about both the money and corruptions of bourgeois creature comforts). Brabner, a self-described "comic book journalist," had to oversee both the new house and a sick and very difficult husband. Pekar's cancer treatment and suffering will take your breath away, but there's a happy ending; and the book (and their marriage) is distinguished by Brabner's great tenderness and determination in the middle of Pekar's medical nightmare. Stack's brisk and elegantly gestural black-and-white drawings wonderfully delineate this captivating story of love, community, recuperation and international friendship.
* Paperback: 252 pages
* Publisher: Running Press (October 12, 1994)
* Language: English
* ISBN-10: 1568580118
* ISBN-13: 978-1568580111
* Product Dimensions: 10 x 8 x 0.6 inches
This is the most impressive nonfiction graphic novel since Art Spiegelman's Maus. Pekar is the hospital worker-author of the autobiographical comic, American Splendor, and Brabner, his wife, is a peace activist-journalist working in the comics form. Not artists themselves, they have collaborated with many illustrators over the years and here with one of Pekar's favorites, Frank Stack. Stack's fluid line and strong compositional skills in both single panels and whole pages do much to grab and hold us as Pekar and Brabner re-create the awful year when, having already decided to move from the apartment they had lived in for 10 years (and he for 9 more before) to a house, she became involved in a complicated project, and he undertook grueling chemotherapy for cancer. It's doubtful that any medium other than the comics could make the commonly unusual ingredients of their story--suffering drug side effects, getting on each other's nerves just when you feel you shouldn't, hassling with home repairs, etc.--so compelling. Few prose-only cancer survivors' accounts are as good.
Visit the POP CULTURE SHOP eBAY Store!
PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
Visit the POP CULTURE SHOP eCRATER Store!
Visit the POP CULTURE SHOP eBAY Store!
PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
Our Cancer Year (Paperback)
by Harvey Pekar (Author), Joyce Brabner (Author), Frank Stack (Illustrator)
Product Description
It was they year of Desert Storm that Harvey Pekar and his wife, Joyce Brabner, discovered Harvey had cancer. Pekar, a man who has made a profession of chronicling the Kafkaesque absurdities of an ordinary life (if any life is ordinary) suddenly found himself incapacitated. But he had a better-than-average chance to beat cancer and he took it — kicking, screaming, and complaining all the way. Pekar and Brabner draw on this and other trials to paint a portrait of a man beset with fears real and imagined — who survives.
"This is a story about a year when someone was sick, about a time when it seemed that the rest of the world was sick, too." So begins Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner's painful comic book autobiography centering on the year that they found out that Pekar had cancer; the year that also saw Operation Desert Shield turn into Operation Desert Storm. Drawing upon the many personal trials they faced, Pekar and Brabner create a portrait of a man beset with fears both real and imagined.
Joined by his wife and collaborator Brabner and illustrator Stack, Pekar's (The New American Splendor Anthology) first book-length comics narrative is by turns amusing, frightening, moving and quietly entertaining. As always, Pekar's work records his apparently ordinary life as a hospital clerk in Cleveland while simultaneously capturing the epiphanic combination of mundanity and awkward, sporadic nobility of everyday life. In 1990, Pekar was diagnosed with lymphoma and needed chemotherapy. By the time the disease was discovered, the couple was in the midst of buying a house (a tremendous worry to Pekar, who fretted about both the money and corruptions of bourgeois creature comforts). Brabner, a self-described "comic book journalist," had to oversee both the new house and a sick and very difficult husband. Pekar's cancer treatment and suffering will take your breath away, but there's a happy ending; and the book (and their marriage) is distinguished by Brabner's great tenderness and determination in the middle of Pekar's medical nightmare. Stack's brisk and elegantly gestural black-and-white drawings wonderfully delineate this captivating story of love, community, recuperation and international friendship.
* Paperback: 252 pages
* Publisher: Running Press (October 12, 1994)
* Language: English
* ISBN-10: 1568580118
* ISBN-13: 978-1568580111
* Product Dimensions: 10 x 8 x 0.6 inches
This is the most impressive nonfiction graphic novel since Art Spiegelman's Maus. Pekar is the hospital worker-author of the autobiographical comic, American Splendor, and Brabner, his wife, is a peace activist-journalist working in the comics form. Not artists themselves, they have collaborated with many illustrators over the years and here with one of Pekar's favorites, Frank Stack. Stack's fluid line and strong compositional skills in both single panels and whole pages do much to grab and hold us as Pekar and Brabner re-create the awful year when, having already decided to move from the apartment they had lived in for 10 years (and he for 9 more before) to a house, she became involved in a complicated project, and he undertook grueling chemotherapy for cancer. It's doubtful that any medium other than the comics could make the commonly unusual ingredients of their story--suffering drug side effects, getting on each other's nerves just when you feel you shouldn't, hassling with home repairs, etc.--so compelling. Few prose-only cancer survivors' accounts are as good.
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