by Mike Rhode
October 8th is the birthday of the two cartoonists I'm most closely
professionally associated with... and they've both passed away. Bah.
But I'm glad to have known both Richard Thompson (1957-2016) and Harvey Pekar (1939-2010), even if it was for too short a time.
I was reminded of this odd coincidence today when Amy Thompson returned
Richard's copy of the book I'd edited about Pekar to me. Talk about
regifting...
I met Harvey in 2005 when I
was called in to substitute as an interviewer for him when he was the
guest of honor at the Small Press Expo. We did 2 panels together
(including Ed Piskor's first con appearance!). I offered up the
interviews to Tom Inge for his Conversations with cartoonists series at
University Press of Mississippi. Instead of passing them along to
someone else, he had me do the book which appeared as Harvey Pekar: Conversations.
I'm sure it's their lowest seller in the series, which would probably
give Harvey some type of odd satisfaction, while also pissing him off. (By the way, Harvey picked that cover photo.)
One
lesson to draw from this might be to not let me do a book about you. I
can't argue with that. But rather I'd like you to think about these two
cartoonists and their works. In some ways, they couldn't be more different.
Richard was a cartoonist- word and pictures always went together for him, and he struggled to do one without the other, which is why Cul de Sac didn't survive him, even with Stacy Curtis doing excellent art, and it's why a strip written by Richard and drawn by Bill Watterson never made it past gestation.
Harvey, on the other hand, was a writer. He worked with whomever he could afford, beginning at the top with Robert Crumb due to their friendship. Harvey was a self-publisher of American Splendor for a long, long time, before some of the major publishers picked it up for a few issues before passing it back to him. Richard, as far as I can tell, always worked for a publisher, even if it was his high school yearbook, or a science fiction fanzine, until he settled into long time freelance relationships with the Washington Post and US News & World Report among others.
But what both Richard and Harvey had in common was stubbornness and a belief in their own work. Both kept plugging away, until a brass ring appeared - like Andrews McMeel's syndicating Cul de Sac, or the excellent American Splendor movie. Sometimes that stubbornness worked against them though - I saw New Yorker cover editor Francoise Mouly practically begging Richard to do a piece for her, but he never did. And he didn't start his strip when he was first asked by the Post, but waited about a decade before beginning it. Similarly, Harvey had a regular appearance on David Letterman, but he burned up that lifeline by criticizing Letterman's corporate owners that actually aired the show.
So ... they were artists and had what is sometimes offhandedly described as an artistic temperament. They could drive me crazy at time, but Harvey always would get in the phrase, "Let me know if I can do something for you... within reason," when we chatted, and Richard was always willing to hang out, or pass along a recommendation or gift a piece of art he'd drawn. I miss them both, even moreso as the days get shorter.
People say
that as long as you're remembered, part of you is still alive (or
something like that), but that's a bit of cold comfort. Still, reading
either of them will warm you up and bring a bit of spark and joie de vivre
into your life. And who doesn't need that in 2020?
