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55-427: The For Beginners series was launched in the mid-1970s, but became out of print and often unavailable after the 2001 death of co-founder and publisher Glenn Thompson . In 2007, a consortium of investors revived the series, reprinted back issues, and promised to publish between six and nine new issues each year. The current publisher is Dawn Reshen-Doty. The company began as Writers and Readers Publishing Cooperative ,

110-539: A London, England -based publisher founded in 1974 by Glenn Thompson , his then-wife Sian Williams, Richard Appignanesi , Lisa Appignanesi , John Berger , Arnold Wesker , and Chris Searle . A publishing cooperative, the founders of Writers and Readers shared the work and the profits. (The Cooperative also operated a London bookshop at 144 Camden High Street until the mid-1980s.) The For Beginners series has its origins in two Spanish-language books, Cuba para principiantes (1960) and Marx para principiantes (1972) by

165-584: A jazz opera for which he wrote the libretto . Leave Me Alone! featured music by Dan Plonsey and was co-produced by Real Time Opera and Oberlin College , premiering at Finney Chapel on January 31, 2009. In 2009, Pekar was featured in The Cartoonist , a documentary film on the life and work of Jeff Smith , creator of Bone . Shortly before 1 a.m. on July 12, 2010, Pekar's wife found Pekar dead in their Cleveland Heights, Ohio, home. No immediate cause

220-434: A shill for General Electric and Letterman promised never to invite Pekar back on the show. Despite the ban, more than four years later Pekar appeared on Late Night again — on April 20, 1993, and he made a final appearance on Late Show with David Letterman on May 16, 1994. After Pekar's death, Letterman reflected in 2017 that... "He was great.... He would just go after stuff. He ... would go after me, he would go after

275-526: A social worker in the East London borough of Hackney . In 1970, he began a community-based bookshop, with his first wife Margaret Gosley, and a publishing and social services cooperative called Centerprise , which operated until 2012. The first publication by Centerprise was a book of poetry by a 12-year-old boy named Vivian Usherwood, which sold 18,000 copies. Thompson worked for Penguin Education for

330-425: A decade to do so: "I theorized for maybe ten years about doing comics." Pekar's influences from the literary world included James Joyce , Arthur Miller , George Ade , Henry Roth , and Daniel Fuchs . Around 1972, Pekar laid out some stories with crude stick figures and showed them to Crumb and another artist, Robert Armstrong . Impressed, they both offered to illustrate. Pekar & Crumb's one-pager "Crazy Ed"

385-531: A guest appearance on Late Night with David Letterman on October 15, 1986. Pekar was invited back repeatedly and made five more appearances in quick succession. These appearances became notable for the increasing hostility and verbal altercations between Pekar and Letterman , particularly on the subject of General Electric 's ownership of NBC. The most heated of these was in the August 31, 1988, episode of Late Night , in which Pekar accused Letterman of appearing to be

440-584: A history of the Beat Generation , including Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg , illustrated by Ed Piskor. In May 2009 he published Studs Terkel's Working: A Graphic Adaptation . In 2010, Pekar started the webcomic The Pekar Project with the online magazine Smith . In 2011, Abrams Comicarts published Yiddishkeit , co-edited by Pekar with Paul Buhle and Hershl Hartman. The book depicts aspects of Yiddish language and culture. Artists in this anthology include many of Pekar's previous collaborators. Pekar

495-538: A mate, having a place to live, finding a creative outlet. Life is a war of attrition . You have to stay active on all fronts. It's one thing after another. I've tried to control a chaotic universe. And it's a losing battle. But I can't let go. I've tried, but I can't." Among the awards given to Pekar for his work were the Inkpot Award , the American Book Award , a Harvey Award , and his posthumous induction into

550-520: A number of biographies. The first of these, American Splendor: Unsung Hero (Dark Horse Comics, 2003), illustrated by David Collier , documented the Vietnam War experience of Robert McNeill, one of Pekar's African-American coworkers at Cleveland's VA hospital. Stories from the American Splendor comics have been collected in many books and anthologies. A film adaptation of American Splendor

605-646: A statue of Pekar was installed at the Cleveland Heights-University Heights Library, a place he visited almost daily. On July 25, 2015, the city of Cleveland Heights, Ohio dedicated the corner of Northwest Coventry Road and Euclid Heights Boulevard to the life and legacy of Harvey Pekar. This area is now known as Harvey Pekar Park. Notable exchange in The Comics Journal between Pekar and critic R. Fiore on such topics as literary realism , Pekar's comics, Art Spiegelman 's Maus ,

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660-455: A time, and then, in 1976, with his second wife Sian Williams, and like-minded friends John Berger , Lisa Appignanesi , Richard Appignanesi , Arnold Wesker and Chris Searle , Thompson founded the Writers and Readers Cooperative to publish books, with authors including Tony Medina , Suheir Hammad , Safiya Henderson-Holmes , and Asha Bandele, as well as Huey P. Newton . Until the mid-1980s,

715-487: A year. He worked odd jobs before he was hired as file clerk at the Veterans Administration Hospital in 1965. He held this job after becoming famous, refusing all promotions, until he retired in 2001. Pekar was married three times. He was married from 1960 to 1972 to his first wife, Karen Delaney. According to fellow cartoonist R. Crumb , who knew the couple socially, "She left him.... She took all

770-543: A young girl, Danielle Batone, when she was nine years old. Danielle became the couple's foster daughter and eventually became a recurring character in American Splendor as well. Pekar lived in Cleveland Heights , Ohio, with Brabner and Batone. Pekar's friendship with Robert Crumb led to the creation of the self-published, autobiographical comic book series American Splendor . Crumb and Pekar became friends through their shared love of jazz records. It took Pekar

825-499: Is unbalanced — that, while some Poles are seen as helping Jews, they are often shown doing so for self-serving reasons. From 1986 to 1990, Pekar had a regular column in the comics anthology Weirdo called "Harvey Sez," in which he wrote about the contemporary comics scene. He reviewed literary fiction in the Review of Contemporary Fiction . Pekar won awards for his essays broadcast on public radio . Pekar's comic book success led to

880-910: The 2003 Cannes Film Festival , the film received the FIPRESCI critics award. American Splendor was given the Guardian New Directors Award at the 2003 Edinburgh International Film Festival . It was also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the 2003 Academy Awards . Pekar wrote about the effects of the film in American Splendor: Our Movie Year . On October 5, 2005, the DC Comics imprint Vertigo published Pekar's autobiographical hardcover The Quitter , with artwork by Dean Haspiel . The book detailed Pekar's early years. In 2006, Ballantine / Random House published his biography Ego & Hubris: The Michael Malice Story about

935-556: The Eisner Award Hall of Fame . Harvey Pekar and his younger brother Allen were born in Cleveland , Ohio, to a Jewish family. Their parents were Saul and Dora Pekar, immigrants from Białystok , Poland. Saul Pekar was a Talmudic scholar who owned a grocery store on Kinsman Avenue, with the family living above the store. Although Pekar said he wasn't close to his parents due to their dissimilar backgrounds and because they worked all

990-616: The For Beginners series, in several cases commissioning new authors to create replacement books for those being published in Britain. This led to a number of examples where the two ranges were publishing two different books on the same subject. Thompson died of cancer in London on September 7, 2001; by the time of his death, the company had published more than forty For Beginners titles. Several years after Thompson's death, investors decided to buy

1045-490: The cooperative sold U.S. rights to part of the For Beginners series to Pantheon Books . The cooperative officially disbanded in 1984. Following this rift, in 1987 Thompson took over as sole publisher and moved back to his hometown of New York City to establish a legal foothold and prevent any further unauthorized distribution of titles. Based in Harlem , the company was known as Writers and Readers Publishing, Inc. (In moving

1100-502: The "brutally frank autobiographical style of Henry Miller ," American Splendor documented Pekar's daily life in the aging neighborhoods of his native Cleveland. Pekar and his work came to greater prominence in 1986 when Doubleday collected much of the material from the first ten issues in American Splendor: The Life and Times of Harvey Pekar , which was positively reviewed by, among others, The New York Times . (1986

1155-532: The 2000s, he teamed regularly with artists Dean Haspiel and Josh Neufeld . Other cartoonists who worked with him include Jim Woodring , Chester Brown , Alison Bechdel , Gilbert Hernandez , Eddie Campbell , David Collier , Drew Friedman , Ho Che Anderson , Rick Geary , Ed Piskor , Hunt Emerson , Bob Fingerman , and Alex Wald; as well as such non-traditional illustrators as Pekar's wife, Joyce Brabner , and comics writer Alan Moore . In addition to his autobiographical work on American Splendor , Pekar wrote

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1210-461: The Cooperative also operated a London bookshop at 144 Camden High Street . Writers and Readers' most successful and long-lived publishing venture was the ...For Beginners series of documentary comic books on complex topics, starting with the first title, Cuba for Beginners and covering subjects from Freud and Marx to Elvis Presley and DNA . A rift in the Cooperative resulted from one of

1265-449: The Depths of Depression , as well as a collection of the webcomics that ran as a part of The Pekar Project . As of 2019, however, none of those projects have yet seen print. Working with illustrator Summer McClinton , Pekar, politically a leftist, also finished a book on American Marxist Louis Proyect tentatively called The Unrepentant Marxist , after Proyect's blog. In the works since 2008,

1320-509: The Mexican political cartoonist and writer Rius , pocket books that put their content over in a humorous comic book way but with a serious underlying purpose. An English-language version of the first book was published in 1970 by Leviathan Press of San Francisco and Pathfinder Press of New York, with no particularly great impact. However, when Richard Appignanesi published (and translated) the first English edition of Marx for Beginners (1976), it

1375-579: The age of 12, and left school when he was just turning 14, but he continued to educate himself by reading voraciously. He signed on to work on a freighter when he was 20, thus buying passage to North Africa . For the next few years, he travelled around North Africa, Europe , the Middle East , and South Asia . He worked for two years on an Israeli kibbutz . Arriving in England in 1968, Thompson leveraged his street kid background to get legal employment as

1430-410: The balance of his life, Thompson moved back and forth between New York City and London. For years, Thompson spent his time traveling between England and New York to manage the two companies. Thompson died of cancer in London on September 7, 2001, leaving three children and two grandchildren. In 2007, a consortium of investors revived the For Beginners series under the name For Beginners, LLC ;

1485-549: The book was to be published by Random House. After a conflict between Proyect and Joyce Brabner, Brabner announced that she would hold the book back indefinitely. In December 2010, the last story Pekar wrote, "Harvey Pekar Meets the Thing", in which Pekar has a conversation with Ben Grimm , was published in the Marvel Comics anthology Strange Tales II ; the story was illustrated by Ty Templeton . One of his final graphic memoirs

1540-489: The company to Harlem, Thompson’s goal was to stimulate a new Harlem Renaissance by creating an international publishing house there. He started two new publishing companies: The Harlem River Press , publishing children’s poetry, and Black Butterfly Children's Books , books for the inner-city child.) The London-based company, formally established in 1992, was known as Writers and Readers Limited . For years, Thompson spent his time traveling between England and New York to manage

1595-493: The few white children living there, Pekar was often beaten up. He later believed this instilled in him "a profound sense of inferiority." This experience, however, also taught him to become a "respected street scrapper." Pekar graduated from Shaker Heights High School in 1957. He then briefly served in the United States Navy . After being discharged he attended Case Western Reserve University , where he dropped out after

1650-593: The immediate surroundings of that show now, than I was [then].... Now, jeez, I wish I could have had Harvey on every night." Pekar appeared in Alan Zweig 's 2000 documentary film about record collecting, Vinyl . In August 2007, Pekar was featured on the Cleveland episode of Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations with host Anthony Bourdain . While there had been earlier American Splendor theater adaptations, in 2009, Pekar made his theatrical debut with Leave Me Alone! ,

1705-480: The life of Michael Malice , founding editor of Overheard in New York . In June 2007, Pekar collaborated with student Heather Roberson and artist Ed Piskor on the book Macedonia , which centers on Roberson's studies in that country . In January 2008 the biographical Students for a Democratic Society: A Graphic History was published by Hill & Wang . In March 2009, he published The Beats: A Graphic History ,

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1760-463: The members issuing the U.S. rights to several of the Beginners series to Pantheon Books , and the cooperative disbanded in 1984. Following this rift, in 1987 Thompson took over as sole publisher and moved back to his hometown of New York City to establish a legal foothold and prevent any further copyright infringement of titles; the U.S. imprint was known as Writers and Readers Publishing, Inc. , and

1815-553: The money out of their bank account and ran off.... Never heard from her again." His second wife was Helen Lark Hall, who appeared (as "Lark") in a number of early issues of American Splendor . They married in 1977. According to Crumb again (and as dramatized in the American Splendor film ), "...she was trying to have a career in academia and Harvey would embarrass her. They'd go to these academic cocktail parties and Harvey would deliberately antagonize these professors. He thought

1870-409: The most compelling and transformative series in the history of comics." In addition, Pekar was the first author to publicly distribute "memoir comic books." While it is common today for people to publicly write about their lives on blogs, social media platforms, and in graphic novels, "In the mid-seventies, Harvey Pekar was doing all this before it was ubiquitous and commercialized." In October 2012

1925-456: 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

1980-411: The new company has reprinted previous books in the series, and has promised to publish between six and nine new issues each year. Harvey Pekar Harvey Lawrence Pekar ( / ˈ p iː k ɑːr / ; October 8, 1939 – July 12, 2010) was an American underground comic book writer, music critic, and media personality, best known for his autobiographical American Splendor comic series. In 2003,

2035-449: The rights to the titles, creating For Beginners, LLC . In the summer of 2007 For Beginners LLC re-released twenty of the prior For Beginners titles and authorized the first new title, Dada and Surrealism For Beginners . In 2010, the company released FDR for Beginners by Paul Buhle and Sabrina Jones , with an afterword by Harvey Pekar . Glenn Thompson (publisher) Glenn Thompson (September 24, 1940 – September 7, 2001)

2090-402: The series inspired a well-received film adaptation of the same name. Frequently described as the "poet laureate of Cleveland", Pekar "helped change the appreciation for, and perceptions of, the graphic novel , the drawn memoir, the autobiographical comic narrative." Pekar described his work as "autobiography written as it's happening. The theme is about staying alive, getting a job, finding

2145-451: The time the disease was discovered, the couple was in the midst of buying a house (a tremendous worry to Pekar, who fretted about both the money and corruptions of bourgeois creature comforts)." After Pekar's recovery, he and Brabner collaborated on Our Cancer Year (released in 1994), a graphic novel account of that experience, as well as his harrowing yet successful treatment. Around this same time, Brabner and Pekar became guardians of

2200-412: The time, he still "marveled at how devoted they were to each other. They had so much love and admiration for one another." Pekar's first language as a child was Yiddish and he learned to read and appreciate novels in the language. Pekar said he did not have friends for the first few years of his life. The neighborhood he lived in had once been all white but became mostly black by the 1940s . One of

2255-535: The two companies. In 1992, Richard Appignanesi, who had been the first editor in London for the series and had also written several of the titles, co-created the new publisher Icon Books , under whose imprint he republished several of the For Beginner titles and continued to publish and expand a British version of the series called Introducing . Meanwhile, the New York-based Writers and Readers continued

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2310-450: The whole academia thing was bullshit. So he used to embarrass her and she'd become angry at him until finally she gave up on him." They divorced in 1981. Pekar's third wife, whom he married in 1984, was writer Joyce Brabner who became a regular character in American Splendor and to whom he remained married until his death. In 1990, as described by Publishers Weekly , "Pekar was diagnosed with lymphoma and needed chemotherapy . By

2365-509: The work of other comics creators. For instance, he famously saw Art Spiegelman 's use of animals in Maus as potentially reinforcing stereotypes. Pekar was also disdainful of Spiegelman's overwhelmingly negative portrayal of his father in Maus , calling him disingenuous and hypocritical for such a portrayal in a book that presents itself as objective. Pekar furthermore wrote that Maus ' portrayal of Poles

2420-561: Was "Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me" (2013) in which he explains how he lost his faith in the Jewish state. It was illustrated by JT Waldman and the epilogue was penned by his widow, Joyce Brabner . "I think probably the most important thing about American Splendor , in all its incarnations, is that there were very few people in the earlier days of comics prepared to put their work where their mouth was. Harvey believed there

2475-483: Was also the year Pekar began appearing on Late Night with David Letterman .) Pekar self-published 15 issues of American Splendor from 1976 to 1991 (issue #16 was co-published with Tundra Publishing ). Dark Horse Comics took on the publishing and distribution of Pekar's comics from 1993 to 2003. In 2006, Pekar released a four-issue American Splendor miniseries through the DC Comics imprint Vertigo Comics . This

2530-533: Was an American book publisher and activist. Born in Harlem, New York , he moved in 1968 to England, where he began a community-based bookshop called Centerprise in Hackney, East London , and went on to co-found in 1976 the Writers and Readers Cooperative , best known as publisher of the ...For Beginners series of documentary graphic nonfiction books. Glenn Thompson was born on September 24, 1940, to Clara Belle and George Joseph Thompson, in Harlem , New York. Glenn

2585-656: Was an assiduous record collector as well as a freelance book, comic, and jazz critic, writing mainly about significant figures from jazz's golden age but also championing out-of-mainstream artists such as Scott Fields , Fred Frith and Joe Maneri . He published his first criticism in The Jazz Review in 1959. Pekar wrote hundreds of articles for DownBeat , JazzTimes , The Village Voice , and The Austin Chronicle ; as well as liner notes for Verve Records and other labels. Pekar occasionally wrote criticism about

2640-428: Was based in Harlem . In moving the company to Harlem, his goal was to stimulate a new Harlem Renaissance by creating an international publishing house there. He started two new imprints: Harlem River Press , publishing children's poetry, and Black Butterfly Children's Books , books for the inner-city child. Thompson's London-based company, formally established in 1992, was known as Writers and Readers Limited . For

2695-606: Was collected in the American Splendor: Another Day paperback. In 2008 Vertigo released a second four-issue "season" of American Splendor that was later collected in the American Splendor: Another Dollar paperback. Pekar's best-known and longest-running collaborators include Crumb, Dumm, Budgett, Spain Rodriguez , Joe Zabel , Gerry Shamray , Frank Stack , Mark Zingarelli, and Joe Sacco . In

2750-631: Was determined. In October the Cuyahoga County coroner's office ruled it was an accidental overdose of antidepressants fluoxetine and bupropion . Pekar had been diagnosed with cancer for the third time and was about to undergo treatment. Pekar was interred at Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland. His headstone features one of his quotations as an epitaph: "Life is about women, gigs, an' bein' creative." Some Pekar works were to be released posthumously, including two collaborations with Joyce Brabner, The Big Book of Marriage and Harvey and Joyce Plumb

2805-469: Was no limit to how good comics could be. To chronicle his life from these tiny wonderful moments of magic and of heartbreak — and the most important thing was that he did it." Frequently described as the "poet laureate of Cleveland," Pekar "helped change the appreciation for, and perceptions of, the graphic novel, the drawn memoir, the autobiographical comic narrative." According to Los Angeles Times columnist David Ulin, American Splendor "remains one of

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2860-537: Was published as the back cover of Crumb's The People's Comics ( Golden Gate Publishing Company , 1972), becoming Pekar's first published work of comics. Including "Crazy Ed" and before the publication of American Splendor #1, Pekar wrote a number of other comic stories that were published in a variety of outlets: The first issue of Pekar's self-published American Splendor series appeared in May 1976, with stories illustrated by Crumb, Dumm, Budgett, and Brian Bram . Applying

2915-494: Was raised in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn . His mother died when he was 13 and shortly thereafter his truck-driver father left the family. Glenn and his younger brother Dennis Thompson (born 1942) were picked up by the welfare department and sent to a children's shelter. After only a couple of weeks Glenn was moved to another location and the brothers were separated. Thompson did not learn to read until

2970-542: Was released in 2003, directed by Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman . It starred Paul Giamatti as Pekar, as well as appearances by Pekar himself (and his wife Joyce, foster daughter Danielle, and co-worker Toby Radloff ). American Splendor won the Grand Jury Prize for Dramatic Film at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival , in addition to the award for Best Adapted Screenplay from the Writers Guild of America . At

3025-454: Was soon clear that the collective had a hit on their hands. With a successful format identified, further For Beginners titles soon began to appear. The line's most enduring titles, all published during this period, were Marx for Beginners (1976), Lenin for Beginners (1977), Freud for Beginners (1979), Einstein for Beginners (1979), and Darwin for Beginners (1982). In the early 1980s, questions of control arose after some members of

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