In the history of phenomenal movies, from the thriller Jaws, to the sci-fi epic Star Wars, American Splendor is in my opinion, one of the greatest movies in the history film. It tells the tale of one of comics best underground writers. His name was Harvey Pekar. He was one of America's great underdogs, who decided to tell his tale in comic book form. And if you are paying attention, then you would note that I've been using past tense. I regret to tell you that Harvey Pekar, a guy you wouldn't want to meet in a bad mood, passed away several years ago. But although he is gone, people still laugh at his cynical humor in the hit comic: American Splendor. The movie documents the time in his life when he decided to begin making a comic book about his life. I would recommend this movie to fans of the American Splendor comic book series. Tomorrow: A review of Batman Year one.
I went to high school in Cleveland when the AMERICAN SPLENDOR magazine first came out. It was an odd magazine. Some of the art was great and some of it was pretty bad. One of the artists, Gary Dumm I think, would hang out at Tony Isabella's comics shop in downtown Cleveland. I never met Harvey Pekar, to my regret. The movie is quite good and odd -- what with the blurring of the real people and the actors playing them. The film is well structured. Like his comics, the movie SPLENDOR revels in the lovely individual quirks in people, letting us know that we're better with nerds than without! An appropriate sentiment, especially for this blog!
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