The loss of Harvey Pekar in 2010 was an enormous blow to the comic community. Not the mainstream (i.e superhero) community, but the self-publishing and independent scene. Pekar was one of the grandfathers of the self-published, biographical comic industry (and there have been many, many followers in that path) and his loss was profound. Since Pekar never really retired from comics, there were several books in flight when he died. The first posthumous book released was Harvey Pekar’s Cleveland. Part biography, part history Harvey Pekar waxes on about the city he lived in and loved and does it in a way that only Harvey Pekar could have.

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The Flashmob Fridays blog takes a look at the upcoming Harvey Pekar book: Harvey Pekar’s Cleveland.

What I believe is the final completed work by the late author Harvey Pekar is now available, an expansive memoir that also performs about half of the time as a history of Cleveland, Ohio. The so-called navel-gazing, emo, whiny autobiographical comics of the ‘80s and ‘90s were never as large in number as detractors claimed, but what there were always found an antidote in Pekar’s comics, which addressed disease, relationship and work problems with either a crusty humor or resolve, a get-it-out-and-over-with quality that Pekar brings to this finale project.

 H/T Comics Worth Reading

The Quitter by Harvey Pekar is probably as close to an autobiography as we have for Harvey Pekar. That’s kind of strange to say about a person who made their name writing a autobiographical comic book featuring stories from his life, but The Quitter lays out his early life for all to see in typical Pekar fashion. It’s American Splendor in a novel length story and it’s wonderful.

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Our Cancer Year by Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner is a novel length slice of life book that Harvey Pekar is famous for. This revolves around the year that Harvey had cancer (NOTE: He did have another flare up after he retired that wasn’t as bad as this one). Spoiler: He survived. At the same time as Harvey’s cancer was the first Gulf War and Joyce (a peace activist) was working with teenage peace activists from around the world. So how was cancer?

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American Splendor: The Life and Times of Harvey Pekar is a good starting point for anyone who’s interested in what Harvey Pekar did. Many people have seen that Harvey Pekar died this weekend, but might not be familiar with his work. A really good way to find out who Harvey Pekar really was is to watch the American Splendor Movie. This book was released around the same time as this movie to capture the momentum, which is why it has the movie cover. But who is Harvey Pekar.

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