A Harvey Pekar one-pager, illustrated by Alan Moore.

 

Anthony Bourdain remembers Harvey Pekar (via @daveexmachina)

As Joseph Mitchell once owned New York and Zola owned Paris, Harvey Pekar owned not just Cleveland but all those places in the American Heartland where people wake up every day, go to work, do the best they can--and in spite of the vast and overwhelming forces that conspire to disappoint them--go on, try as best as possible to do right by the people around them, to attain that most difficult of ideals: to be "good" people.

"Our man" as Harvey often referred to himself in his work, was a good man. An important man. A "great American" is an expression that has been cheapened with over-use, but if these words ever meant anything, they surely describe Harvey Pekar.

He was great. He was American.

For him to have come from anywhere else would be unthinkable. He will be remembered. He will be missed.

 

RIP Harvey Pekar.

I'm always shook up and nervous and I've got the hospital record to prove it," he said that night. "I wake up every morning in a cold sweat, regardless of how well things went the day before. And put that I said that in a somewhat but not completely tongue-in-cheek way.