30 AMERICAN SPLENDOR
Letterman used him as a Rust Belt foil. Pekar used his appearances on Letterman’s
show as recurring stories in the comic book. Splendor became both more easily and
widely available when Doubleday collected issues into two books in 1986 and 1987.
Pekar won an American Book Award for the fi rst self-titled collection.
Pekar was diagnosed with cancer in November 1990, but recovered after a brutal
short course of chemotherapy. His and Joyce’s experiences coping with cancer became
the American Splendor original graphic novel, Our Cancer Year , illustrated by Frank
Stack and published in 1994. Our Cancer Year won the Harvey Award for Best Graphic
Album of Original Work in 1995. Pekar’s cancer forced him to consider alternatives to
self-publishing, and short-lived Tundra co-published American Splendor #16 as Pekar
recuperated.
Dark Horse Comics published Splendor from 1993 through 2002. Pekar stretched
his writing beyond his own life in these issues. American Splendor: Music Comics (1997)
reprinted Village Voice comic strips done with Joe Sacco. American Splendor: Transat-
lantic Comics (1998) was about a British fan of the comic, Colin Warneford, who has
Asperger’s Syndrome and drew the
story that Pekar wrote about him.
In his most ambitious work since
Our Cancer Year , Pekar worked
with artist David Collier to create
the three-issue American Splendor:
Unsung Hero (2002), based on
his co-worker Robert McNeill’s
experiences as a black Marine in
the Vietnam War.
Hollywood’s two-decade-long
fl irtation with Pekar came to frui-
tion in 2003 when HBO’s Ameri-
can Splendor movie (with Paul
Giamatti as Pekar) won awards
at fi lm festivals. Pekar and Gary
Dumm’s “My Movie Year” comic
strip appeared in Entertainment
We e k l y and forms the core of the
2004 Our Movie Year: American
Splendor collection. Artist Dean
Haspiel and Pekar published Th e
Quitter , the story of Pekar’s child-
hood, with DC Comics in 2005.
After the success of the movie,
Pekar began to spread beyond his
American Splendor brand, but DCA poster from the 2003 film American Splendor, showing
Paul Giamatti as Harvey Pekar, directed by Shari Springer
Berman and Robert Pulcini. Fine Line Features/Photofest