Word: pekar
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...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...
...Pekar grew up as the child of Polish-Jewish immigrants in Cleveland during the 1940s and 50s. As a result, much of The Quitter involves the classic American literary theme of assimilation. Though extremely popular in other mediums, this theme, again, has gotten little attention in comix except obliquely, through such genre works as Seigel and Shuster's Superman character. Thanks to Pekar's obsessive self-examination and what he calls his "trick" memory of near perfect recall, The Quitter takes its place as a top example of the New World Experience in graphic literature (see also the outstanding Four...
...major part of the book focuses on Pekar's realization of how different his own experience of America is from that of his parents. One early scene shows him enduring a punishing street payback after following his mother's advice about turning in a kid that stole his hat. "At that point, I decided there was no point in going to my parents for advice. They didn't understand how America worked." So begins the author's lifelong alienation from his parents whom he loves and respects but from whom he gets little of what he needs...
...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 respect and attention from his peers, something he felt he never got from his parents. Other, ultimately self-defeating behaviors also manifest themselves. His drive to excel at everything eventually makes Pekar so deeply fearful...