American Splendor

Trick or treat.

Well, look at this.

All the superheroes on our porch.

Ain't that cute?

We got Superman here, and Batman...

and his sidekick Robin.

The Green Lantern.

And what about you, young man?

-What about what?

-Who are you supposed to be?

-l'm Harvey Pekar.

-Pecker.

Harvey Pekar?

That doesn't sound like a superhero to me.

l ain't no superhero, lady.

l'm Just a kid

from the neighborhood, all right?

Forget this!

Why does everybody have to be so stupid?

Okay, this guy here, he's our man.

Okay, this guy here, he's our man.

All grown up and going nowhere.

Always a pretty scholarly cat.

He never got much of a formal education.

For the most part, he's lived

in sh*t neighborhoods, held sh*t jobs...

and is now knee-deep

into a disastrous second marriage.

So if you're the kind of person

looking for romance or escapism...

or some fantasy figure to save the day,

guess what?

-You got the wrong movie.

-That's great.

So now you got four takes. You ought

to be able to patch one together from there.

Right? Let's go to the next one, all right?

Hold on a second.

Do you want some water or something?

-No, l got lots of orange.

-Do you like orange soda?

Yeah, orange is all right.

All right, let's go to the next sequence.

Did you actually read the script?

No. A little bit.

just to check the construction.

You know, how the piece was constructed.

l didn't read it word for word.

Do you feel weird saying this stuff?

No, l don't feel weird saying it.

l don't know how long

my voice is going to hold out.

Doc, you gotta help me, man.

My old lady's dumping me

'cause l can't talk.

She says l'm a social embarrassment.

Now that she's got a PhD,

she's some hot-sh*t academic star...

and l'm nothing but a file clerk.

Me being a file clerk was fine when l was

signing the damn checks for tuition.

Harvey, stop talking, please, and open wide.

l started worrying

my voice would never come back.

Say ''Aah,'' Mr. Pekar.

lt's torture, l'm telling you.

What? ls it bad, Doc?

lt's not good.

lt's cancer.

First l got marital problems, and now

you're telling me l got throat cancer.

-For Christ's sake, man.

-Harvey, calm down, it's not cancer.

You have a nodule on your vocal cords,

probably from screaming and yelling.

lf you don't give it a rest,

you're gonna lose your voice completely.

Okay. But for how long?

-A few months.

-Months?

-Hey, come on, what is this?

-Exactly what it looks like.

What do you mean?

You mean you're dumping me? For what?

This plebeian lifestyle...

Just isn't working for me anymore, okay?

l gotta get out of here before l kill myself.

just listen to what l have to say, okay?

Don't go.

l need you, baby.

Please don't go, okay?

Here's our man.

Yeah, all right, here's me.

Or the guy playing me anyway,

though he don't look nothing like me.

But whatever.

So it's a few months later, and I'm working

my flunky file clerk gig at the VA hospital.

My voice still ain't back yet.

Thank you, Harvey, dear.

Things seem like they can't get any worse.

''Plebeian''?

Where the hell did she get that sh*t, man?

''Avoid the reeking herd

''Shun the polluted flock

''Live like that stoic bird

''The eagle of the rock''

-Hey, Mr. Boats.

-You know what that means, son?

Yeah, it's from an Elinor Hoyt Wylie poem.

lt means.... Excuse me.

lt means stay away from the crowds

of common, ordinary people...

-and do your own thing.

-No.

lt means don't compromise yourself

for women. lt ain't gonna do you no good.

Get away from them as soon as you can.

l ain't got no woman now.

-l'm living like the stoic bird, man.

-lt's the only way to live, son.

Look at that fool there.

Probably listening to that loud rock stuff.

junk, it's all Junk.

l don't know. l mean...

rock music's got some good qualities.

lt isn't Jazz or nothing, but you know....

Say, when are you gonna bring me in

some of those good records?

-Some Nat King Cole with strings.

-l don't got any of that, Mr. Boats.

Yeah, you got that.

You're keeping them at home, though.

You won't turn loose the good stuff.

You Just sell the Junk.

l keep the stuff l wanna keep.

l sold a lot of good material

by people that he didn't like.

Mr. Boats didn't like any blues

or anything like that.

He played classical violin.

l started record collecting

when l was 15 or 16 years old.

l started getting interested in Jazz.

Prior to that, l collected comic books.

l was always a collector.

I admit to having

an obsessive-compulsive quality in me.

It's like The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

or something.

You go to thrift shops

and you go to the garage sales...

because you think you're gonna find

something that's real rare.

And most of time, it's a total waste of time,

but once in a while...

you'll come up with something

that'll whet your appetite.

In the early '60s...

I was with some buddies at a junk sale,

looking for some choice sides...

when I met this shy, retiring cat

from philadelphia named Bob Crumb.

You know the guy.

Fritz the Cat, Mr. Natural and all.

They made a movie about him, too.

jay McShann.

Come on, Harv, you gonna buy that,

or what?

l don't know, Marty,

it's got a lamination crack.

A quarter.

Maybe l could talk it down.

-You are one cheap bastard, Harvey.

-l know l'm tight, man.

l live on a government wage.

You collect jay McShann, man?

-Yeah, man, how about you?

-Yeah.

But most of my records are back in Philly.

Harvey, meet my buddy, Bob Crumb.

He Just moved to town.

He's an artist

with the American Greeting Card Company.

You should see his comics, Harv.

They're out of sight.

l'm into comics myself.

So Crumb showed me this comic book novel

he was working on..

Big Yum Yum Book.

I'd never seen anything like it.

This is terrific. l really dig your work, man.

This peter Wheat book is by Walt Kelly.

lt's pretty rare.

-Yeah? Can l get good bread for it?

-Not yet.

Let's get back to your book.

What are you gonna do with it?

l haven't really thought about it.

lt's Just an exercise.

No, man. lt's more than Just an exercise.

lt's breaking ground, man.

There's some wild sh*t in here, Bob.

You're spitting on me, Harvey.

Crumb and I hung out a lot back then.

We had records and comics in common.

Check it out, man.

Pretty scary.

You don't know the half of it, man.

Eventually, people got hip

to Crumb's artwork...

and he started hanging out

with the bohemian crowd.

After a while, he got sick of greeting cards

and moved away to San Francisco...

where he got the whole underground

comic scene off the ground.

He'd come back to Cleveland

every few years...

and people would treat him like a celebrity.

Once, he came to visit

when I was feeling real bad.

It was right after my wife left me.

She got so mean to me at the end...

like l tried to keep her captive

or anything like that.

l don't know, man.

But don't think

l'm buying any of this growth crap, man.

Everybody's always talking about

how bad experiences cause you to grow...

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