Harvey Pekar, age 70, died yesterday .
I don’t know the reason he died. But I would not be surprised if it was the cancer he was battling over the years finally won.
Peker was a non-pretentious non-compromising comic book cartoonist writer. He wrote the comicbook AMERICAN SPLENDOR. It was as if he followed himself around and used for stories his thoughts and what fine messes he found himself in. Wait! That's me!
To have a steady income, he was a file transfer clerk at a hospital in Cleveland, Ohio.
And when he wasn’t working and jiving with his co-workers or fussing with his boss he was either working on his next comic book issue or prowling around garage sales looking for cheap jazz LP records. While looking for used yard-sale LP he met cartoonist Robert Crumb who also likes to hunt around garage sales looking for old jazz LPs. They became friends and Crumb illustrated some of his comic book stories.
He married one of his fans, Karen Delaney. After a 12 years they went their separate ways. From Google, I learned he was married twice after that.
A movie, staring Paul Giamatti, was made of him a few years ago, named, of course , AMERICAN SPLENDOR.
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