American Splendor: The Life and Times of Harvey Pekar back

Choice selection of shorts that inspired the film. Harvey works as a hospital file clerk and writes these scripts for others to illustrate. It's the small pieces of life shown here that attracted one of his biggest fans and greatest collaborators, Robert Crumb. When Crumb draws Harv, you get the best of both of them. Midway through, from 1983, there's 'American Splendor Assaults The Media' with a classic Crumb page up front. Grimy walls, stained, ripped t-shirt, sweating brow and a huge speech balloon. From the off you've got a sense of claustrophobia, both in the dark room we're shown a section of and the way the speech (the rant) takes up most of the panel. Harv's hand clutches his chest and he's leaning forward, both intimate and panicked. The next three pages have awkward, angular panels, again showing the frustration involved with trying to get his work to a larger audience, dealing with the mass media and realising that some opportunities pass you by.

The art isn't all up to that quality but the writing is. Excellent stuff.