It's extremely seldom that anybody wants me to change what I've written about them. Generally I portray them in a good light, if they're friends.
— Harvey Pekar
It didn't take long to establish myself, as far as people thinking my work was good. They liked it from the start.
I'm a guy that likes to sit in one place.
I try and write the way things happen. I don't try and fulfill people's wishes.
I think the people who would be the least interested in my work would be people who read lots of comic books.
I met Robert Crumb in 1962; he lived in Cleveland for a while. I took a look at his stuff. Crumb was doing stuff beyond what other writers and artists were doing. It was a step beyond Mad.
I continue to be disappointed that people don't try and diversify the kind of work they are doing in comics.
American Splendor is just an ongoing journal. It's an ongoing autobiography. I started it when I was in my early 30s, and I just keep going.
It seemed to me you could do anything in comics. So I started doing my thing, which is mainly influenced by novelists, stand-up comedians, that sort of thing.
I've probably had my day in the sun. I think I've influenced a lot of comic book writers.
I'd been familiar with comics, and I'd collected 'em when I was a kid, but after I got into junior high school, there wasn't much I was interested in.
I thought I had a great opportunity when I started doing my comic book in 1972. I thought there was so much territory to work in.
I think comics have far more potential than a lot of people realize.
I don't write about certain arguments I have with my wife. I'd get my head torn off if wrote about certain things.
I came up with American Splendor. Some people think it's American Squalor.
It makes you feel good to know that there's other people afflicted like you.
I'm doing research for a large comic book on the Beat Generation guys - Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac and those guys.
I write scripts in storyboard fashion using stick figures, and thought balloons and word balloons and captions. Then I'll write descriptions of what scenes should look like and turn it over to the artist.
I think you can do anything with comics that you could do in just about any art form.
I really don't have a lot in common with the people who attend the Comic Con. It's like assuming that all people who write prose are the same.
I decided I was going to tell these stories. I went around and met Crumb. He was the cartoonist. I started realizing comics weren't just kid stuff.
Everybody's like everybody else, and everybody's different from everybody else.
