Bibliography

Cavna, Michael. "How Harvey Pekar Became One of David Letterman’s Greatest Recurring Guests." Washington Post. The Washington Post, n.d. Web. 20 Nov. 2016.

  In this article, the Washington Post wrote an article about how and why Pekar was such a popular recurring guest on David Letterman’s The Late Night Show. Mostly due to his snobby and quirky attitude, Pekar clashed with David Letterman’s usual witty remarks. Ontop of being able to showcase his comic American Splendor, audiences also get a glimpse at Pekar’s personality in real life. Sometimes going off script, Pekar would say whatever was on his mind and this article written by Michael Cavna, explains the impact it had on the audience, the show, and on Pekar himself. The article also discusses Pekar’s outburst on the show where he attacked General Electric, who owns NBC. The repercussion of that led to his disappearance from the show for several years, explaining why he hasn’t appeared again. Even though Pekar was great with the interviews, everyone loved him, his actions did not humour General Electric and is the reason behind his hiatus from any further interviews.

Galbincea, Pat. "Coroner Rules That Harvey Pekar's Death Due to 'natural Causes'" Cleveland.com. The Plain Dealer, 19 Oct. 2010. Web. 14 Nov. 2016."Harvey Pekar."


 * This article

contains more information about Harvey’s life but focuses more on his more successful years up to his death. It mentions his interactions with David Letterman and how he got a reputation of being racous which eventually got him banned from the show. This information was useful for our section about his interviews and appearances. This article also has more information about his death, which brought up his problems with depression. He was 70 years old when his died of an overdose of anti-depressants. Overall, it provided the website with a solid foundation of who Harvey was later in life rather than the earlier years the other articles focused on.

"Harvey Pekar." Independent [London, England], 19 July 2010, p. 8. Infotrac Newsstand, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=STND&sw=w&u=ko_acd_shc&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA231955335&it=r&asid=2bb963354b48bcc4c62ee80062967bb1. Accessed 10 Nov. 2016. “Harvey Pekar By The Independent”


 * This article focused on a large portion of Harvey’s life. It delved into the

early years like his birth, his parents, and where he grew up, which helped identify his influences and lifestyle that played a role in his writing. Before his writing became popular, Harvey had worked many menial jobs. The article moved into how he met Robert Crumb and how their relationship grew. Eventually, they worked together the first American Splendor ''along with several other artists. Soon enough he began writing'' more and more and his work had grown an audience. Another big milestone in his life was when he was diagnosed with cancer. He wrote about this event with his wife in his memoir Our Cancer Scare

which was also successful. This article was extremely useful as a resource for Harvey’s biography, since many other article didn’t go into as much detail as this one.

 Meiser, Rebecca. "Life After Harvey." Life After Harvey. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Nov. 2016.




 * This article really dives into the life after Harvey Pekar’s death and its impact it had on the people closest to him and to the comic world. It focuses mostly on Pekar’s late wife, Joyce Brabner, who was very close to Pekar. Not only did the world lose a great story teller, Brabner lost the dearest companion and co-writer. This article gives an insight on his adult life through Brabner’s perspective and what she has done since they first met till the time of his death. It also shows the influence that Brabner and Pekar had on one another, since they were very close and both were writers. Knowing the history between the two really helps on figuring out what some of the comics in American Splendor is really about.

Pekar, Harvey, Robert Crumb, Greg Butgett, Gary Dumm, and Brian Bram. American Splendor #1''. Cleveland, OH: Harvey Pekar, 1976. Print.''


 * This is the Harvery Pekar’s first published graphic memoir American Splendor. It contains seven

stories that capture Harvey’s own life living in Cleveland in the 70’s. These stories include: A Fantasy, How I Spent My Summer Vacation: 1972, The Rank, Remembering Be-Ins, A Tune is Introduced in Cleveland, Love Story, and A Mexican Tale. He also goes into some past memories of his childhood. Some stories don’t even star Harvey, and may look at other interesting characters from the city, possibly through a conversation Pekar overheard. Pekar wrote the stories, collaborating with artists who drew the art for the graphic memoir. This is the first issue of the American Splendor series which Harvey Pekar ended up creating 39 issues in his entire career. The book is useful in delving into Harvey’s style of writing and discovering what makes his graphic memoir so unique.

 Spurgeon, Tom. "The Comics Reporter." The Comics Reporter. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Nov. 2016.


 * Tom Spurgeon wrote this article about Pekar’s life. With an overview of who he is and what he does, the article goes into great detail

about Pekar. This was a great read to start off with since I did not know who Harvey Pekar was. Spurgeon writes about all of Pekar’s major accomplishments in his adult life, such as his first publication of American Splendor and his appearance on the Late Night Show with David Letterman, the film adaptation of his graphic memoir, and his various other publications in which Brabner helped him write it. The article then proceeds to explain his childhood, his family and where he went to school. This backstory really gave me an understanding of what he went through and why he wrote some of his comics in the manner that he did. The article continues to explore Pekar’s life with great detail. All his ups and downs, awards and failures are explained and linked to previous

experiences. Spurgeon ends with a note on how Pekar impacted everyone around him and the comic world. 

 

