Word: harvey
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...genre. Two years ago Craig Thompson's mammoth-sized Blankets, about growing up in the devout Christian hinterlands of Wisconsin, became the first such work to gain both critical and popular success. This month will see the arrival of two more very strong books based on the authors' childhood. Harvey Pekar's The Quitter, comes from a veteran comix-maker, while, Shane White's North Country marks the author's debut. Though their early circumstances could not have been more different, the authors' childhoods share some remarkable similarities...
...Quitter (DC/Vertigo; 104 pages; $20), a hardcover book illustrated by Dean Haspiel, represents Harvey Pekar's first major work of original material since the release of the film American Splendor, based on his comix series. As anyone who watched that splendid movie knows, Pekar led a fairly unremarkable life as a Cleveland file clerk until he decided to turn that very mundaneness into comic art. Hiring others to illustrate his non-fiction vignettes of such quotidian occurrences as starting a car in the winter or talking with co-workers, Pekar's stories were driven by his intensely cranky, neurotic, highly...
...young Harvey learns about America the hard...
...Harvey Pekar's The Quitter and Shane White's North Country both tell powerful coming-of-age stories from completely different places and times. In spite of that, their similarities make for striking comparison reading. While either would make a fine addition to this growing sub-genre, to have both in one month feels almost gluttonous...
...Dean Haspiel renders Harvey's story in stylish black and white art rooted in the dynamics of superhero books but with an alty personality all its own. If the book has a fault, it's that too often the artwork gets reduced to merely illustrating the words instead of taking over the narrative drive. But at least Haspiel has plenty of opportunities to display his chops in depicting fight scenes. Longtime fans may be shocked to discover what a scrapper the younger Pekar was. A large part of the book explores his use of violence as a way to gain...