Harvey Pekar is nobody special. He works as a filer. He has trouble with girls. And with expressing himself. He gets cancer. Oh, and he writes comic books. Not the dashing fantasy comic books we read
as kids, or the edgy comic books we read as adults. Rather, he writes about… himself. His daily life. His rants, his pet peeves, his failures, his
(few) successes.
Why would someone write about their own
dull, everyday existence? Well, it’s
what Harvey knows. And shouldn’t he have
an outlet? Shouldn’t he be able to
express himself? Isn’t that what
millions of blogs on the internet provide?
And Harvey was moderately successful. He’d never compete with Batman, but he didn’t
do too badly. And some consider his
comics, especially the ones that he wrote with his wife about his struggle with
cancer, to be art.
And why shouldn’t they be? In a sense, shouldn’t every life be made into
a movie, or turned into a novel or made into a concept album? Every life has its mysteries and it’s
connection with the common person. Every
life is unique and the same. Every life has its moments of hilarity and of
tragedy. Every life has the potential
of being powerful, communicate deep messages and being a moral tale. If Harvey could take his life and turn it
into art, then more power to him. And
why shouldn’t the rest of us?
Live art and turn that life into art you
share with others.
Fun Fact: After the film was released, Harvey wrote another comic book called American Splendor: Our Movie Year. Interesting follow up to the movie about how an average guy can get lost in the whirlwind that is movie marketing.
No comments:
Post a Comment