The battle lines are drawn each time a leaked picture hits the web. The tattooed Joker. The dark-costumed Superman. The old-school-but-with-new-web-shooters Spider-Man. The Flash — the TV one or the movie one? Aquaman, a.k.a. the WWE’s Roman Reigns. Starlord by way of Han Solo. And whatever the hell Lex Luthor was doing with wardrobe from…
I miss bookstores. Being able to walk up and down the aisles, pulling out a title that sounds intriguing, perusing the dust jacket flap, sometimes sitting down on the floor and reading the first couple of pages…just killing a couple of hours lost in a bibliophile’s heaven. Okay, bookstores aren’t entirely gone, but they are,…
The Avengers opens today. As near as I can tell from the Internets, I’m the last person in the world to see it. The New York Daily News reviewed it on Monday, since apparently everyone in the city has the option of going to a screening. I hope to catch it this weekend, like a…
Way to go, [[[American Splendor]]] fans! Donors have given enough money to honor author Harvey Pekar with a desk and sculpture to be installed at the Cleveland Height-University Heights Public Library. Joyce Brabner, Pekar’s widow, said in early November that $30,000 had to be raised by Dec. 5, for his tribute. The campaign, started online…
Comic-book writer Harvey Pekar, whose autobiographical comic series American Splendor was made into a 2003 Oscar nominated film starring Paul Giamatti as Harvey in addition to Harvey appearing as himself, has been found dead in his Ohio home. He was 70. Cleveland Heights police Capt. Michael Cannon says officers were called to Pekar’s home by…
YIVO’s “Comics and the Jewish American Dream” interview series (moderated by Danny Fingeroth) concludes tonight at 7:00 pm with Harvey Pekar, creator of American Splendor. Go and see where Joaquin Phoenix learned how to behave on Letterman. Admission at the door has been dropped to $10. All you have to do is say the secret…
Help me Wikipedia, you’re my only hope! What are webcomics? Oh, okay. They’re comics published on the web. That was easy. What else have we got? Over 18,000 exist, few are self-sustaining, blah blah blah, some are like newspaper comics and some are like graphic novels, yadda yadda yadda, sometimes use sprites, pixels, photos or…
Born in 1967 in New York City, Dean Edmund Haspiel started in the comics industry as an assistant to such luminaries as Howard Chaykin, Bill Sienkiewicz, and Walter Simonson. In 1987 Haspiel created The Verdict with Martin Powell. He also created the two-man comics anthology Keyhole with Josh Neufeld. In 2006 Haspiel created the online…
For several decades now, Harvey Pekar has existed in comic book form as a straight-talking, ill-tempered, hypochondriac who can’t go very long without finding something to complain about. The latest edition of his American Splendor strikes me as an important moment in that career, then, as Pekar is settling into a more mellow existence. In…
At last, one of my favorite TV shows paying homage to the comic book format! Writer Anthony Bourdain, the host of the Travel Channel show No Reservations, is a big fan of Cleveland’s own Harvey Pekar, many of whose daily-life adventures in American Splendor have been drawn by Gary Dumm. Last night’s episode of No…
