I guess I'm way off the Radar for never seeing this before but, Last night I watched American Splendor the partly fictional mostly True life story of Harvey Pekar. I thought it was great, I love how he narrated the movie himself & had parts in it. The sad ending was that this American Comic Icon was pretty broke his whole life & had to retire as a VA Clerk.

What I'm actually getting to here is, I went to you tube & watched all the Live Letterman's with Harvey on them. These two tear into each other nonstop on 5+ episodes over the years. Was any of this real? Was Harvey really that off or was it a gimmick like the old Kaufman sketches. I'm kinda hoping it was mostly real because I love that version of Harvey Pekar.

right after that movie came out a cartoonist friend of mine went on a HUGE Harvey Pekar kick. from what we could figure out those Letterman appearances weren't a bit. reading up on them, Dave usually said things like "i love the guy but no one can get under your skin quite like Harvey Pekar". seems like it was a typical love/ hate scene where Dave really appreciated and admired the guy's work but found his personality kind of prickly

-josh

Harvey refers to some of these episodes in his comics, as well. I got the impression that, at least at first, he was playing a character when he went on the show, but after a while, wanted to accomplish more with his appearances, which is where all the sparks flew.

If you haven't read them, I really recommend the American Splendor books - there's some amazing material in there. Our local library carries a bunch, but my wife and I had to buy our own copies after returning them.

Sounds good, after watching that Movie Ive really been craving the books. I want to know whats in them & what made this guy tick. How did the most mundane, negative, boring guy become a comic character? Its great!