Harvey Pekar Quotes

It`s extremely seldom that anybody wants me to change what I`ve written about them. Generally I portray them in a good light, if they`re friends.

American Splendor... that`s a satirical name. People who would look at it wouldn`t think my life was splendid at all. They`d think it was kind of funky.

I write scripts in storyboard fashion using stick figures, and thought balloons and word balloons and captions. Then I`ll write descriptions of what scenes should look like and turn it over to the artist.

I really don`t have a lot in common with the people who attend the Comic Con. It`s like assuming that all people who write prose are the same.

There hasn`t been enough change in comics to suit me. I don`t know why exactly.

People writing about me have said that I`ve influenced a lot of people, and there are some artists who have credited me with influencing them.

It seemed to me you could do anything in comics. So I started doing my thing, which is mainly influenced by novelists, stand-up comedians, that sort of thing.

It didn`t take long to establish myself, as far as people thinking my work was good. They liked it from the start.

My work looks like a comic book in form, but it`s not a typical comic book in content. I write autobiographical stuff.

I`ve probably had my day in the sun. I think I`ve influenced a lot of comic book writers.

I`d been familiar with comics, and I`d collected `em when I was a kid, but after I got into junior high school, there wasn`t much I was interested in.

I try and write the way things happen. I don`t try and fulfill people`s wishes.

People who are readers of fiction aren`t particularly interested in comic books.

I came up with American Splendor. Some people think it`s American Squalor.

Plays have been made of my comics.

I decided I was going to tell these stories. I went around and met Crumb. He was the cartoonist. I started realizing comics weren`t just kid stuff.

I met Robert Crumb in 1962; he lived in Cleveland for a while. I took a look at his stuff. Crumb was doing stuff beyond what other writers and artists were doing. It was a step beyond Mad.

I`m a guy that likes to sit in one place.

I don`t write about certain arguments I have with my wife. I`d get my head torn off if wrote about certain things.

I think the people who would be the least interested in my work would be people who read lots of comic books.

Letterman... he got his problems. We don`t get along too well.

Everybody`s like everybody else, and everybody`s different from everybody else.

I think you can do anything with comics that you could do in just about any art form.

I think comics have far more potential than a lot of people realize.

I`m doing research for a large comic book on the Beat Generation guys - Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac and those guys.

American Splendor is just an ongoing journal. It`s an ongoing autobiography. I started it when I was in my early 30s, and I just keep going.

The film`s success so far involves winning a couple of prizes at Cannes and Sundance, and getting some very nice reviews in newspapers and magazines. That hasn`t had a big impact on my life yet.

Things improved a little bit in the `80s; there was kind of a revival of alternative comics, but then they went downhill in the `90s.

I thought I had a great opportunity when I started doing my comic book in 1972. I thought there was so much territory to work in.

It makes you feel good to know that there`s other people afflicted like you.

I continue to be disappointed that people don`t try and diversify the kind of work they are doing in comics.