movie review: American Splendor

[Gilbert Shelton]

Mike, 

What the movie fails to mention is that our own Frank Stack (Editor of
the Texas Ranger, '58-'59) is the cartoonist who
illustrated Our Cancer Year and whose contribution to American Splendor
comic strips is rather greater than that of Robert
Crumb.  Stack told me that he hasn't heard from Pekar since Frank told
him he didn't want to illustrate any more 150-page
stories. 

Gilbert 
  

Michael Eisenstadt wrote: 

     My roommate was Jay Trachtenberg's 4th caller last 
     week thus scroring tickets to the above AND a tee- 
     shirt. 

     Harvey Pekar is a schlumpy guy living in Cleveland 
     where he works as a file clerk in a VA hospital and 
     collects old jazz records and comic books. His stroke 
     of great good luck is to meet R. Crumb whom he gets 
     to illustrate stories of his life as comic books. 

     The beauty of doing so is to memorialize the mundane 
     into nuggets of great moral insight. As for example 
     when Harvey sees outside his apartment window 2 
     handymen throwing a derelict mattress into a dumpster 
     and discussing a woman: "She's average." "No, she's 
     stupid." "That's what average is: stupid." Memorialized 
     by the strokes of R. Crumb's Rapidograph pen, the pathos 
     of this insight with the visual accompaniment of the 
     mattress being tossed in the dumpster is permanently 
     inserted into the cerebellum at least for a while. 
     The movie displays a number of these insightful moments 
     followed by Crumb's drawings of them to excellent effect. 

     After 2 failed marriages, Harvey has a second stroke 
     of great good luck in meeting Joyce who phones him from 
     Delaware "the second smallest state in the country" in 
     search of a copy of American Splendor No. 8. This is 
     the concurrence of two world-class neurotics who live 
     unhappily ever after: Joyce nags and Harvey broods. 
     For example to Harvey screetching at the top of his 
     voice on the sidewalk "Use your inside voice, Harvey." 

     Harvey appears a number of times on the Dave Letterman 
     show as a loser to be laughed at (such is the Dave 
     Letterman show) until he is permanently 86'ed from the 
     show for ranting against GE the owners of the network 
     while wearing a tee-shirt with the slogan ON STRIKE 
     AGAINST NBC. 

     While Joyce is in Jerusalem saving the children, Harvey 
     discovers he has cancer. Joyce advises him to do a 
     comic book about it as a means of coping with the 
     ordeal of his treatment. This is published as "Our 
     Cancer Year", an effective emotional placebo as it 
     turns out. Harvey recovers to soldier on in his quest 
     for tiny truths in everyday life. For example, best 
     not to get on a checkout line at the grocery behind an 
     old Jewish woman with a number of discount coupons to 
     negotiate (illustrated below). 

     Joe Bob Briggs says "Check it out!" 

      
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