I just happen to be perusing my bookshelf this morning and came across this title by the inimitable Harvey Pekar:
Written in 2012, this graphic novel is a very honest, conflicted rumination from a writer whose grew up in a working-class Jewish family in Ohio, learned Yiddish as his first language, and was raised by a father who was a Talmudic scholar. JT Waldman, the artist, lived in Israel for several years. Together, they take a very close and unflinching look at the history and their place within it. I’d recommend this book to any comic lovers looking to see how a true legend in the field confronts a very personal and controversial subject. What I remember being so striking were the levels of compassion and curiosity that Pekar was able to achieve in a genre that at the time could be quite sensational, lurid, and vacuous.
I think it’s putting it lightly to say that Pekar changed the game. The comic memoir / autobiographical graphic novel, these genres would not be the same without American Splendor, not to mention the 53 other works(!) published in his lifetime and posthumously.
If you’ve read this graphic novel, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. Are there other works by Pekar that you’d recommend?
Because it’s so good, and we’re on the subject, I have to quote Letterman’s 2017 reflection on the writer:
He was great.... He would just go after stuff. He ... would go after me, he would go after the network, he would go after everything, in a very committed way. It wasn’t a gag, it wasn’t an act, he would really go to work on you.... [Pekar] was anti-establishment in a way that you don’t see guys like that anymore. And that used to really upset me, because I just thought 'Come on Harvey, don’t do this to us, just play the game, blah blah blah blah.'... I’m a completely different person now. And I would be so much more better equipped to view the immediate surroundings of that show now, than I was [then].... Now, jeez, I wish I could have had Harvey on every night.
-David Letterman, Late Night, 2017
Does America still have artists like Harvey Pekar? Can we? How many “radical,” “anti-establishment” writers can you name that are publishing today?
And before we move on, I have to share this find, which I think I picked up at Pegasus on Shattuck Ave. in Berkeley a few years ago:
And can you imagine my surprise when I opened to the first page and found this:
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So….why Hell?
I’ve been asking myself this question all week. I’ve been avoiding writing about it, but I think it’s important to question my motives. After all, even Dante’s Divine Comedy can get a little tiresome as you wade through all the names of guys Dante had a problem with. And while I’m certainly no Dante, I’ve got a whole planet full of axes to grind. Schadenfreude is one thing, publishing an epic poem where you place your detractors in very specific circles of Hell, suffering very specific and sadistic forms of punishment…that’s a bit of a red flag.
(In case you forgot the circles of Hell, they are: 1. Limbo 2. Lust 3. Gluttony 4. Greed 5. Anger 6. Heresy 7. Violence 8. Fraud 9. Treachery)
It’s worth mentioning that Dante was exiled from Florence, and in 1329, a really bitter Cardinal, Bertrand du Pouget, tried to have his bones burnt at the stake for his heretical writing.
In the cold light of the 19th century, Florence kind of regretted exiling Dante and asked very nicely to get his bones back. Ravenna came back with a firm “go fuck yourself,” even going so far as to hide his remains in the walls of a monastery. Clout-chasers that they were, Florence still built a cenotaph (an empty tomb) in the Basilica di Santa Croce, which has been called “hopelessly old-fashioned.” I have to believe Dante is laughing it up in his own private corner of Hell. Maybe our friend Skingirl will run into him down there, who knows?
D.M., stop avoiding the question. Why are you writing about Hell?
Well, I grew up going to a Catholic church/school called St. John the Baptist (Remember the eccentric dude that got his head chopped off by Herod for calling out some of his fuckery? The Bible has some pretty metal stories mixed in with all the bullshit.) From the moment I could think for myself, all I saw was hypocrisy, fear-mongering, prejudice, and control. It was a great education in the true purpose of religion. I’m grateful, and perhaps just a little bitter.
The idea of “Hell” has always been very interesting to me. As a tool of indoctrination, as a threat, as a creative exploration of crime and punishment. The priest who baptized me, along with several other priests at that church, were child molesters, true villains who genuinely deserve eternal punishment and shame (not to mention the nuns, cardinals, and popes who covered for them). It goes far beyond irony when the moral police who governed your childhood turn out to be the real monsters. Turns out a year in jail and 400 hours of community service is sufficient penance. To think, I was forced to confess my sins to pieces of shit like that.
So I wanted to explore my Hell. To explore that sadistic impulse to torture and punish that really is an all-too human, and fundamentally useless vice. What does it mean to “punish”? What good does it do? What does “eternal punishment” look like? And how do the people performing this ritual of chastisement feel about it? Certainly some humanity is robbed from the people our society tasks with “dealing with” criminality. And also….who gets to say what good and evil are? We were taught masturbation, premarital sex, and divorce were mortal sins. And yet….the ten commandments make no mention of child abuse, slavery, animal abuse, and plenty of other things we might all agree are fundamentally evil acts.
So what is the purpose of Hell? I’d argue that, just like religion, it serves many purposes to many people in many contexts. Most of them based in control and greed.
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Keep it copacetic, D.M. Sayres
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