Harvey Pekar

Ed Piskor

A tour of America's underground literary movement, presented in a graphic tale format, includes coverage of the Benzedrine-fueled antics of Jack Kerouac, Chicago's beatnik bistro, and San Francisco's City Lights bookstore.

A Graphic History

The Beats

Harvey Pekar's mother was a Zionist by way of politics. His father was a Zionist by way of faith. Whether Harvey was going to daily Hebrew classes or attending Zionist picnics, he grew up a staunch supporter of the Jewish state. But soon he found himself questioning the very beliefs and ideals of his parents. In Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me, the final graphic memoir from the man who defined the genre, Pekar explores what it means to be Jewish and what Israel means to the Jews. Over the course of a single day in his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, Pekar and the illustrator JT Waldman wrestle with the mythologies and realities surrounding the Jewish homeland. Pekar interweaves his increasing disillusionment with the modern state of Israel with a comprehensive history of the Jewish people from biblical times to the present, and the result is a personal and historical odyssey of uncommon power. Plainspoken and empathetic, Pekar had no patience for injustice and prejudice in any form, and though he comes to understand the roots of his parents' unquestioning love for Israel, he arrives at the firm belief that all peoples should be held to the same universal standards of decency, fairness, and democracy. With an epilogue written by Joyce Brabner, Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me is an essential book for fans of Harvey Pekar and anyone interested in the past and future of the Jewish state. It is bound to create important discussions and debates for years to come.

Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me

Robert Crumb

Harvey Pekar is a true American original, known by many as the blue-collar Mark Twain. For over 25 years he's been writing comic books about his life, chronicling the ordinary and everyday in stories both funny and moving.

American Splendor Presents Bob and Harv's Comics

Joyce Brabner

It was they year of Desert Storm that Harvey Pekar and his wife, Joyce Brabner, discovered Harvey had cancer. Pekar, a man who has made a profession of chronicling the Kafkaesque absurdities of an ordinary life (if any life is ordinary) suddenly found himself incapacitated. But he had a better-than-average chance to beat cancer and he took it — kicking, screaming, and complaining all the way. Pekar and Brabner draw on this and other trials to paint a portrait of a man beset with fears real and imagined — who survives.

Our Cancer Year

Experience the heartwarming, all-American story of a crank and his comic book...Thanks to the hit American Splendor movie, Harvey Pekar is now known around the world. But how did a former file clerk from Cleveland and up with an Oscar nomination? The story begins in 1976, when Harvey began publishing his autobiographical, slide-of-downtrodden-life comic book, illustrated by a who's who of underground comic artists, including R. Crumb, Frank Stack, Gary Dumm and Joe Sacco. Titan is proud to present our third book from Harvey, an all-new compilation of his best work, featuring 100 per cent previously uncollected material.

Best of American Splendor

Artists Gerry Shamray, Gary Dumm, Gregory Budgett, and Kevin Brown illustrate this collection of pieces from the "American Splendor" series, author Harvey Pekar's celebration of Cleveland working-class life.

The Life and Times of Harvey Pekar : Stories

American Splendor

Joseph Remnant

Offers a brief history of the city before the author's birth in 1939, then focuses on the author's life in the city and the ups and downs it faced during those seventy years.

Harvey Pekar's Cleveland

Paul Buhle

Jewish vernacular and the new land

Yiddishkeit

The Quitter

Transforms sixteen short oral histories originally published in "Working" into graphic novel vignettes, including stories from a stock broker, a labor organizer, a proofreader, a gravedigger, a mail carrier, and a jazz musician.

A Graphic Adaptation

Studs Terkel's Working

R. Crumb

Artists R. Crumb, Gary Dumm, and others illustrate the author's stories from twelve months in his life, when he went from being an unknown comic book writer to being famous with the release of the film, "American Splendor."

American Splendor : Stories

Our Movie Year

From Off the Streets of Cleveland

The New American Splendor Anthology

Dean Haspiel

With an appreciation by Anthony Bourdain HAVE ATTITUDE, WILL TRAVEL Harvey Pekar changed the face of comics when his American Splendor series replaced traditional slam-bang superhero action with slice-of-life tales of his own very ordinary existence in Cleveland, Ohio, as a file clerk, jazz-record collector, and philosophical curmudgeon. Much as Seinfeld famously transcended sitcom conventions by being “a show about nothing,” Pekar’s deadpan chronicles of regular life—peppered with wry and caustic reflections—have transformed comics from escapist fantasy into social commentary with voice balloons. Huntington, West Virginia “On the Fly” is prime Pekar, recounting the irascible everyman’s on-the-road encounters with a cross section of characters—a career criminal turned limo-driving entrepreneur, a toy merchant obsessed with restoring a vintage diner, comic-book archivists, indie filmmakers, and children of the sixties—all of whom have stories to tell. By turns funny, poignant, and insightful, these portraits à la Pekar showcase a one-of-a-kind master at work, channeling the stuff of average life into genuine American art.

Huntington, West Virginia "On the Fly"

Michael Malice has had an unconventional childhood and, despite his high intelligence, finds himself in a series of dead-end jobs, until he meets the author who gives him the confidence to find a job which utilizes his creative talents.

The Michael Malice Story

Ego & Hubris

Beat Kuşağı

Harvey Pekar never has "just another day"; follow his battles of everyday life in this latest volume of his autobiographical series.

Another Day

American Splendor, #1

The comic book author delves into his childhood, which he spent among Jewish immigrants in Cleveland, to identify the roots of his fear of failure, an affliction that plagued him until the time of his death.

Harvey Pekar

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