Comments on: The Bat Segundo Show #40

By: Interview with Dean Haspiel : Edward Champion’s Reluctant Habits

Interview with Dean Haspiel : Edward Champion’s Reluctant Habits — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:10:27 +0000

[...] (I think of the mice snorting coke at the bar, which is something of a nod to Spiegelman.) Or, like your work with Harvey Pekar, did he defer most of this to you? Was Mr. Ames’s continued proximity to your drawing table [...]

By: Edward Champion’s Return of the Reluctant » Are Harvey Pekar’s Recent Volumes Too Peripherally Focused?

Sun, 01 Jul 2007 20:43:23 +0000

[...] While there exists plenty of evidence to confirm Ulin’s point about Pekar writing “work for hire” (Pekar intimated this during a 2006 appearance on The Bat Segundo Show), I don’t think these circumstances translate into an automatic critical condemnation of Pekar’s material. Ulin not only ignored 2005’s The Quitter, an inarguably raw and mature portrait of a younger Pekar developing some of his anger while being tormented on the Cleveland streets, but he failed to cite specifics about why he feels Ego & Hubris and Macedonia are lesser works. Ulin may very well prefer Pekar to his peripheral subjects. But if this is the case, why not simply state this? [...]

By: Edward Champion’s Return of the Reluctant » 75 Books, Books #49-54

Edward Champion’s Return of the Reluctant » 75 Books, Books #49-54 — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 01:14:17 +0000

[...] Book #51 was Harvey Pekar’s Our Cancer Year. Yes, I realize there’s a lot of Pekar on this list. But if I was going to talk with the man himself, I wanted to be expertly prepared. As it so happens, I hadn’t read Pekar’s Harvey Award-winning graphic novel and was touched by Pekar’s honesty in describing his testicular cancer, the hospital treatment that pulverized his physical form, and the despondent person he turned into as he wondered whether he would continue to live. Our Cancer Year was a major turning point for Pekar as an author (and I should note that this was cowritten by his wife, Joyce Brabner), demonstrating that Pekar’s concentration on the quotidian was even more poignant when juxtaposed against a mortal illness. For those who feel that the American Splendor movie sufficiently captured Pekar’s battle with cancer, I urge you to go directly to this volume and get the real story. (Podcast with Pekar and Haspiel.) [...]

By: Edward Champion’s Return of the Reluctant » 75 Books, Books #43-48

Edward Champion’s Return of the Reluctant » 75 Books, Books #43-48 — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 23:54:19 +0000

[...] Book #43 was Harvey Pekar’s The Quitter. As Pekar keeps a great prolificity in his post-retirement years, it’s been fascinating to see him investigating millieus other than the immediately contemporary and the immediately personal. In The Quitter, a book chronicling Pekar’s boyhood, there is no madeliene tea per se, but there are certainly specific incidents, presented without adornment, which explain a good deal about Pekar’s rage and misanthropy. The book’s unflinching attitude towards 1950s racism and Pekar’s efforts to fit in are puncutated by Dean Haspiel’s sharp lines and the book’s careful attention to period detail. Pekar’s no hero, nor should he be, but he’s certainly an interesting and misunderstood figure, a flawed everyman who remains as important a fixture in comic books as superheroes. (Podcast with Pekar and Haspiel.) [...]