Film Blog: American Splendor (2003)

American Splendor is an autobiographical comic by Harvey Pekar. He is often called described as the ‘poet laureate of Cleveland’ and for good reason. Pekar started writing comics in 1960s when comics were still uncool. And instead of writing about superheros, he captured mundane life in Cleveland and made it interesting. Other people describe him as being “the original blogger, before there was an Internet.” Aside from being the pre-blogger blogger, he was a jazz critic and file clerk, which, of course, made it into his comics. He died in 2010 at the age of 70.

Although American Splendor was first published in 1976, the film adaptation, American Splendor, didn’t follow until 2003.

If you’d like to read more about Harvey Pekar, I suggest looking at some of his comics we have here at the library.

• American Splendor: The Life and Times of Harvy Pekar (2003)
• The Best of American Splendor (2005)
• Ego & Hubris: The Michael Malice Story (2006)

As always, an American Splendor trailer is featured below for your review. Paul Giamatti does a great job as Harvey Pekar.

Harvey Pekar was also featured in Anthony Bourdain’s TV show No Reservations. If you’d like to see Pekar in action, take a look at the video below.