Harvey Pekar, a fairly miserable and obsessive fellow who works as a file clerk in a Veterans’ Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio, is the creation of Harvey Pekar, a writer who sets out to chronicle his everyday life in comic form, recruiting artist Robert Crumb and others to illustrate anecdotes about the cranky hero’s mundane, frustrating life. Eventually, the irregularly-published comic book – and its several sequels (Our Cancer Year, Our Movie Year, The Quitter) – made Pekar a fringe celeb, better-known for his fractious, controversial appearances on The David Letterman Show until the film adaptation brought attention to his ongoing comics. Besides covering his courtships, marriage, illnesses, career reversals and brushes with fame, Pekar has opened up the comic to chronicle the lives of his friends.

FIRST APPEARED IN AMERICAN SPLENDOR # 1 (1976)
CREATED BY HARVEY PEKAR AND ROBERT CRUMB