Experience the heartwarming all-American story of a crank and his comic book.
What’s a file clerk from Cleveland doing with an Oscar nomination? How did a movie about Harvey Pekar win the Grand Jury Prize at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival? The story begins in 1976, when Harvey began publishing his autobiographical, slice-of-downtrodden-life comic book series American Splendor, illustrated by a who’s who of underground comic artists, including R. Crumb, Kevin Brown, Greg Budgett, Sean Carroll, Sue Cavey, Gary Dumm, Val Mayerik, and Gerry Shamray. After self-publishing American Splendor for nearly two decades under less than splendid conditions (and racking impressive accolades in the process), Harvey finally got a break when Dark Horse Comics took over the publication in the early 1990s. It was an opportunity for Harvey to reach a wider audience–which, as it turned out, included a few Hollywood types, too. (Who knew?) But that’s another story. . . .
Now we are happy to bring you the Best of American Splendor, a collection of some of Harvey’s greatest work. Harvey Pekar has been compared to Theodore Dreiser, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Lenny Bruce, but this collection is a true American original. Just like Harvey.

The inspiration for the award-winning movie
from HBO Films and Fine Line Features
AMERICAN SPLENDOR
The Life and Times of Harvey Pekar
Two classic comic anthologies in one volume
Stories by Harvey Pekar
Introduction by R. Crumb
Art by Kevin Brown, Gregory Budgett, Sean Carroll, Sue Cavey, R. Crumb, Gary Dumm, Val Mayerik, and Gerry Shamray
The classic collection of the comics that inspired the movie American Splendor , winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival
American Splendor is the world’s first literary comic book. Cleveland native Harvey Pekar is a true American original. A V.A. hospital file clerk and comic book writer, Harvey chronicles the ordinary and mundane in stories both funny and touching. His dead-on eye for the frustrations and minutiae of the workaday world mix in a delicate balance with his insight into personal relationships. Pekar has been compared to Dreiser, Dostoevsky, and Lenny Bruce. But he is truly more than all of them—he is himself.
“Mr. Pekar has . . . proven that comics can address the ambiguities of daily living, that like the finest fiction, they can hold a mirror up to life.”
— The New York Times
“[Pekar] has a vision that makes daily city life—a ride on the bus, a run-in with a boss, or simply buying bread—dramatic.”
— Chicago Sun-Times
“Simply stated, American Splendor is the most superb literary endeavor to come off the streets of Cleveland in decades.”
— The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)
“Mr. Pekar lets all of life flood into his panels: the humdrum and the heroic, the gritty and the grand.”
— The New York Times Book Review

In "The Beats: A Graphic History", those who were mad to live come back to life through artwork as pulsating vibrant as the movement itself. Told by Harvey Pekar and his frequent artistic collaborator Ed Piskor, and by a range of artists and writers, including feminist comic creator Trina Robbins and "Mad" magazine artist Peter Kuper, "The Beats" takes us on a wild tour. From the Benzedrine-fueled antics of Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs to the painting sessions of Jay DeFeo's dishevelled studio, from the jazz hipsters to beatnik chicks, from Chicago's beatnik bistro to San Francisco's famed City Lights bookstore, we see the storied era in all its incarnations.

The winner of the American Book Award for The New American Splendor Anthology offers an intimate account--with his wife--about their battle with cancer and ultimate survival presented in the form of a book-length comic. Original. Tour. IP.