Showing posts with label Harvey Pekar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Harvey Pekar. Show all posts
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Signed copies of Harvey Pekar: Conversations for sale at Big Planet Comics
I signed a few copies of Harvey Pekar: Conversations that are for sale at Big Planet Comics in the Bethesda and Georgetown stores. It would make a lovely Christmas present!
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Birthdays, birthdays
Harvey Pekar and Richard Thompson were both born today, supposedly years apart although I don't believe they've ever been seen together and never appear to be online at the same time. Happy birthday, gents!(that's Richard signing his book at the Crafty Bastards fair. Pekar was nowhere to be seen, you'll note)
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Much shorter Harvey Pekar biography
In spite of the evidence piling up, this isn't really a blog devoted to Harvey Pekar. I did run across something to mention today though. I've got a 248 page book devoted to Harvey out now as you're well aware, but, quoting from SMITH Magazine, in "Short memoirs: Six little words can be revealing," By Doug Mason, Knoxville News Sentinel Sunday, September 28, 2008, Harvey pretty much summed up the whole thing: "Fight, work, persevere - gain slight notoriety."
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Pekar book available in this month's Previews
In case you do all your comics shopping at a comics store through Diamond's Previews, here's the ad.Oddly enough, I ordered nothing beyond my usual pull list out of the December Previews. Given that I spent $250.00 at Big Planet at lunchtime today, this doesn't bode well for the comics industry.
Some nice stuff was out today though - Moomin vol. 3, the 2nd Aya book, Garry Trudeau by Soper, Terry and the Pirates vol. 4, Derf's Trailer Parks, Sub-Mariner Marvel Masterworks... one can see where the money goes.
Friday, September 19, 2008
An embarrassingly positive Pekar review...
...sure Mike Everleth's in the book, but you can trust his opinion. He's only got five pages and the book's more than 200!
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Harvey Pekar: Conversations Errata #1
Hopefully not in a series, but probably. Print this out and put it in the book.
On page xv, in the Chronology, under 1989 - "American Splendor: Bedtime Stories comic book published by Dark Horse." This actually occurred in 2000.
I regret the error.
On page xv, in the Chronology, under 1989 - "American Splendor: Bedtime Stories comic book published by Dark Horse." This actually occurred in 2000.
I regret the error.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Editor and Publisher on local cartoonists
Dave Astor's got a few articles on local guys. It's good to hear that Richard's got 200 papers - now he can't afford not to do the strip:
One Year and 200 Newspapers for Popular 'Cul de Sac' Comic
By E&P Staff
Published: September 10, 2008 3:32 PM ET
Obama Uses the Anti-McCain Words of a Tom Toles Cartoon
By E&P Staff
Published: September 09, 2008 4:56 PM ET
New Harvey Pekar Book Is Edited by ComicsDC Blogger Mike Rhode
By Dave Astor
Published: September 08, 2008 11:11 AM ET
One Year and 200 Newspapers for Popular 'Cul de Sac' Comic
By E&P Staff
Published: September 10, 2008 3:32 PM ET
Obama Uses the Anti-McCain Words of a Tom Toles Cartoon
By E&P Staff
Published: September 09, 2008 4:56 PM ET
New Harvey Pekar Book Is Edited by ComicsDC Blogger Mike Rhode
By Dave Astor
Published: September 08, 2008 11:11 AM ET
Saturday, September 06, 2008
A fourth Harvey Pekar article that didn't make the book
I had thought I convinced them to leave this one in Harvey Pekar: Conversations (available now for purchase), darn it. This one is Harvey interviewing himself in his comic book. The odd typesetting is an attempt to replicate the way it was printed originally. This is amusing because Harvey talks about never working for DC, but 20 years later they were his publisher.
Oh well. Print it out and tuck it in after Mike Barson's interview from Heavy Metal.
The Situation as of 9-20-85
From American Splendor #11, 1986. Reprinted with permission of Harvey Pekar.
To what extent were you involved in the production of the stage version of American Splendor?
Not at all. See- here's what happened. My wife you know knows the Bishops (Conrad Bishop is the Independent Eye's artistic director). The way she knew them—she used to work in the Delaware state prison system, and they did some programs together there for the inmates. And so when we got married, she sent them copies of my books, uh, you know and Conrad liked the stuff, and he thought he would possibly like to make a stage production out of it. So I talked to Conrad about it, and we seemed to be in general agreement about how to handle the material. And so, you know, really I had — I don't think I have anything to lose by him doing it, and possibly something to gain, so I said, "Sure. Why not?" That's how I became involved.
Why did you start the book, American Splendor?
Well, simply because it was just too difficult to get published in those days on a regular basis any place. And I had ideas that I didn't want to sit around for 25 years before I saw it in print. So I, uh, I just, uh, I mean I-I don’t known if you’ve ever read my books, but, uh—
(Interviewer): Uh, no, but I just bought some. I can’t find them in this area…
The once-a-year thing was just a matter of—that's about how long it takes to get the stories. It's a 60-page book, and that's about how 'long it takes to get the stuff illustrated. That's one reason. Another reason is I'm currently losing money on the book and have been on every issue, and I couldn't you know I can – I couldn’t — sustain the losses. I can recover from losses on one book a year, but I couldn't do it for two books. So there's a couple of practical reasons. You know, it just evolved, it just sort of evolved out of these circumstances and became a once-a-year book.
When I did the first one, I had no idea if or when the second one would be coming out, or even if I would call it another name instead of American Splendor. But the title--I don't know--I like it and people liked it, and so I just kept.it, and I just kept calling it number two and number three and stuff like that.
Have you had any offers from the big comic companies like DC or Marvel, or if you would get such an offer, would you consider it, considering that their product is mainly superheroes?
First of all, do you know I'm getting a contract, that I've signed a contract with Doubleday to get a 160-page trade paperback book, an anthology of stories from the first through the ninth book, that'll be coming out in April?
As far as the Marvel and DC thing, you realize how unlikely it is that they would offer me anything. It's almost like totally—I don't know—I've had contact. I haven't asked anybody there to do anything for me, but I've had contact with a few people at both companies. I mean, it's out of the question. They know my work, and some of the people over there--maybe a lot of them for all I know—liked it, but it's like asking some publisher that puts out these gothic romances to put out my comic books. I mean, it's like, yeah, they're books, they're both books, but there's a big difference between a plumbing textbook and a book of poetry.
And I think Marvel and DC--their comics are a lot more commercial than maybe you'd like to get into.
Yeah. Well, I mean it’s just –it’s much—you know – it’s true what I used to say – “form.” As a – uh – as a, as a, you know what I mean—My book is a comic book in form but not in content, and that means a typical comic book in form but not in content. In other words, by that I mean that the book is—I use balloons and panels and stuff, but as I said in the interview in The Comics Journal, people have traditionally used comics in a very limited way, when there's no reason for that. So when people think of comic books, they just think of like maybe a few genres actually, instead of when you say a novel, you want to know what kind of a novel. There arc all kinds of different novels. But when people say, "comic books," they think about some costumed superhero or maybe a talking duck or- something. But there's not really much variety in straight comics, and alternative comics are not easy to find or anything.
It's conceivable that what happened to comics could've happened to any art form; that is, if the people who employ the art form had just only wanted to do one thing. But in movies, at first the stuff they did was confined to rather narrow limits, but then eventually, guys were making movies about just about every subject and doing all kinds of things and affiliated with all kinds of artistic schools. If they had just stayed with, say, cowboy movies and slapstick comedies and something like that, the people would probably think movies are junk.
Do you think the play will help the sales of the book? Do you think it's good publicity?
It certainly won't hurt it. I mean, of course, I mean obviously you see an example here – you bought some books. But I mean as far as whether this will be just a local-uh-I mean, you know - you - you know, the book, I mean. The play got some very nice reviews in the morning and afternoon papers here, so that might stimulate some local interest in Lancaster, but Lancaster's not—this is not a real large theater, and Lancaster's not a real big community. So even if they like me a lot here-and I appreciate it if they do—it's not going to make a big impact on my standard of living or anything like that. But on the other hand, if it's a big Broadway hit or something like that, obviously it would help. You've just got to more or less use a rule of reason to think about the question. If it's a big national hit or something like that, it helps you, you know. But it's okay. It's great. I've been having a good time out here, and I've been treated very, very well, and I've been out here just today and yesterday, but I've had a great time, and that's worth it.
I'm not concerned about money that much, because I've got a steady job. I can live on the income. I'm not that greedy, you know. It just so happens that what I want can be purchased for relatively little money. What I want is a lot of books right now.
Is there a particular reason why you do the books autobiographically?
Yeah, there's a reason why I'm dealing with them autobiographically, because what I want to do is write about everyday experience, and I think that everday experience has a huge effect on people—the accumulation of everyday experience. Everyday experience has been ignored by far too many writers, and I wanted to write things that people could identify with, write about experiences that people could say, "Oh yeah, I knew that kind of guy," or "I went through that." I didn't want to write about generic experiences. I wanted to write about particular experiences, and I can write about because I think if you write about the particular rather than the general, it's much more specific, much more believable. So if you write stuff that's true, as accurate as possible, I think -- my work, anyway — has a chance to have much more impact on people.
When people invent fictional characters, I mean they're not really fictional, in a sense. There have been any number of novels, I suppose, that have been written where most of the material has been factual, except the names have been changed. But maybe a person's been a compilation, a character of a novel's been a compilation, of two people that a guy knew, and maybe he's fit the parts together badly, so that the character's implausible. I don't have to run that kind of risk doing the kind of thing I'm doing. So that's my rationale.
Obviously, not everybody thinks like me. Obviously, there are all sorts of different ways to write good stories, good novels, but I give you the reasons for why I do what I'm doing. This is the method I've evolved. In order to attain my goals, I employ autobiographical writing, and the reason that I employ autobiographical writing is –you know – I gave you the reasons – you know – it’s you know – so that – you know - it would be easier to identify with, so it would have a greater impact on people, stuff like that. Other people—I don't know. I can't speak for any other writer. I just speak for myself. I haven't talked to other guys about why they do this or don’t do that.
Oh well. Print it out and tuck it in after Mike Barson's interview from Heavy Metal.
The Situation as of 9-20-85
From American Splendor #11, 1986. Reprinted with permission of Harvey Pekar.
To what extent were you involved in the production of the stage version of American Splendor?
Not at all. See- here's what happened. My wife you know knows the Bishops (Conrad Bishop is the Independent Eye's artistic director). The way she knew them—she used to work in the Delaware state prison system, and they did some programs together there for the inmates. And so when we got married, she sent them copies of my books, uh, you know and Conrad liked the stuff, and he thought he would possibly like to make a stage production out of it. So I talked to Conrad about it, and we seemed to be in general agreement about how to handle the material. And so, you know, really I had — I don't think I have anything to lose by him doing it, and possibly something to gain, so I said, "Sure. Why not?" That's how I became involved.
Why did you start the book, American Splendor?
Well, simply because it was just too difficult to get published in those days on a regular basis any place. And I had ideas that I didn't want to sit around for 25 years before I saw it in print. So I, uh, I just, uh, I mean I-I don’t known if you’ve ever read my books, but, uh—
(Interviewer): Uh, no, but I just bought some. I can’t find them in this area…
The once-a-year thing was just a matter of—that's about how long it takes to get the stories. It's a 60-page book, and that's about how 'long it takes to get the stuff illustrated. That's one reason. Another reason is I'm currently losing money on the book and have been on every issue, and I couldn't you know I can – I couldn’t — sustain the losses. I can recover from losses on one book a year, but I couldn't do it for two books. So there's a couple of practical reasons. You know, it just evolved, it just sort of evolved out of these circumstances and became a once-a-year book.
When I did the first one, I had no idea if or when the second one would be coming out, or even if I would call it another name instead of American Splendor. But the title--I don't know--I like it and people liked it, and so I just kept.it, and I just kept calling it number two and number three and stuff like that.
Have you had any offers from the big comic companies like DC or Marvel, or if you would get such an offer, would you consider it, considering that their product is mainly superheroes?
First of all, do you know I'm getting a contract, that I've signed a contract with Doubleday to get a 160-page trade paperback book, an anthology of stories from the first through the ninth book, that'll be coming out in April?
As far as the Marvel and DC thing, you realize how unlikely it is that they would offer me anything. It's almost like totally—I don't know—I've had contact. I haven't asked anybody there to do anything for me, but I've had contact with a few people at both companies. I mean, it's out of the question. They know my work, and some of the people over there--maybe a lot of them for all I know—liked it, but it's like asking some publisher that puts out these gothic romances to put out my comic books. I mean, it's like, yeah, they're books, they're both books, but there's a big difference between a plumbing textbook and a book of poetry.
And I think Marvel and DC--their comics are a lot more commercial than maybe you'd like to get into.
Yeah. Well, I mean it’s just –it’s much—you know – it’s true what I used to say – “form.” As a – uh – as a, as a, you know what I mean—My book is a comic book in form but not in content, and that means a typical comic book in form but not in content. In other words, by that I mean that the book is—I use balloons and panels and stuff, but as I said in the interview in The Comics Journal, people have traditionally used comics in a very limited way, when there's no reason for that. So when people think of comic books, they just think of like maybe a few genres actually, instead of when you say a novel, you want to know what kind of a novel. There arc all kinds of different novels. But when people say, "comic books," they think about some costumed superhero or maybe a talking duck or- something. But there's not really much variety in straight comics, and alternative comics are not easy to find or anything.
It's conceivable that what happened to comics could've happened to any art form; that is, if the people who employ the art form had just only wanted to do one thing. But in movies, at first the stuff they did was confined to rather narrow limits, but then eventually, guys were making movies about just about every subject and doing all kinds of things and affiliated with all kinds of artistic schools. If they had just stayed with, say, cowboy movies and slapstick comedies and something like that, the people would probably think movies are junk.
Do you think the play will help the sales of the book? Do you think it's good publicity?
It certainly won't hurt it. I mean, of course, I mean obviously you see an example here – you bought some books. But I mean as far as whether this will be just a local-uh-I mean, you know - you - you know, the book, I mean. The play got some very nice reviews in the morning and afternoon papers here, so that might stimulate some local interest in Lancaster, but Lancaster's not—this is not a real large theater, and Lancaster's not a real big community. So even if they like me a lot here-and I appreciate it if they do—it's not going to make a big impact on my standard of living or anything like that. But on the other hand, if it's a big Broadway hit or something like that, obviously it would help. You've just got to more or less use a rule of reason to think about the question. If it's a big national hit or something like that, it helps you, you know. But it's okay. It's great. I've been having a good time out here, and I've been treated very, very well, and I've been out here just today and yesterday, but I've had a great time, and that's worth it.
I'm not concerned about money that much, because I've got a steady job. I can live on the income. I'm not that greedy, you know. It just so happens that what I want can be purchased for relatively little money. What I want is a lot of books right now.
Is there a particular reason why you do the books autobiographically?
Yeah, there's a reason why I'm dealing with them autobiographically, because what I want to do is write about everyday experience, and I think that everday experience has a huge effect on people—the accumulation of everyday experience. Everyday experience has been ignored by far too many writers, and I wanted to write things that people could identify with, write about experiences that people could say, "Oh yeah, I knew that kind of guy," or "I went through that." I didn't want to write about generic experiences. I wanted to write about particular experiences, and I can write about because I think if you write about the particular rather than the general, it's much more specific, much more believable. So if you write stuff that's true, as accurate as possible, I think -- my work, anyway — has a chance to have much more impact on people.
When people invent fictional characters, I mean they're not really fictional, in a sense. There have been any number of novels, I suppose, that have been written where most of the material has been factual, except the names have been changed. But maybe a person's been a compilation, a character of a novel's been a compilation, of two people that a guy knew, and maybe he's fit the parts together badly, so that the character's implausible. I don't have to run that kind of risk doing the kind of thing I'm doing. So that's my rationale.
Obviously, not everybody thinks like me. Obviously, there are all sorts of different ways to write good stories, good novels, but I give you the reasons for why I do what I'm doing. This is the method I've evolved. In order to attain my goals, I employ autobiographical writing, and the reason that I employ autobiographical writing is –you know – I gave you the reasons – you know – it’s you know – so that – you know - it would be easier to identify with, so it would have a greater impact on people, stuff like that. Other people—I don't know. I can't speak for any other writer. I just speak for myself. I haven't talked to other guys about why they do this or don’t do that.
Friday, September 05, 2008
Harvey Pekar book is in my hand
Metaphorically at least. A box of them - 10 author copies - showed up in the mail today. It finally exists and I can move on. Well, I have to move some of them too - buy it here. But secondly....!
Thanks to the generosity of the Press, which donated two copies, Harvey's going to sign both copies and mail them back to me and I'll sign and bring them to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund table for auction at the Small Press Expo in North (hah!) Besthesda this fall. This whole project started when Harvey was at the SPX and they needed someone to interview him, and that person turned out to be me. So I'll pay the CBLDF back a little bit with these books.
That'll be the super-collectible edition, limited to two.
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
3rd Harvey Pekar article on his life, and the movie thereof
Here's the 3rd piece that got dropped from Harvey Pekar: Conversations for not being a conversation, except for between Harvey and his readers. The book's available now at UPM's site, even if Amazon's saying it's not ready.
My Film Future: Movie producers are not flooding me with projects
Harvey Pekar / 2004
From Cleveland Free Times, January 21, 2004. Reprinted with permission of Harvey Pekar.
I'm getting kind of tired of writing about my movie experiences, but if that's what the editors want from me, I don't see how I can refuse them. Now I'm told a lot of people want to know what it's like going from a nobody to the protagonist of a successful film. It's happened to others before me, I guess, but I would think each would've reacted differently. For me the movies were basically a one-shot opportunity to make some extra money.
I'm pleased that American Splendor turned out as well as it did, but I would've gladly signed up with filmmakers I did not believe were particularly competent if the monetary compensation was right. See, I'm not a moviemaker. Yes, the American Splendor film was based on my comic book stories and dialogue, and to that extent I guess my American Splendor comics had something to do with the film's success.
But I had very little to do with coming up with the style that directors Bob Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman created to make the film. No one was consulting with me about how to cast American Splendor, or which stories to base it on. And with good reason — I had virtually no experience in the film business on the one hand, and, on the other, producer Ted Hope put together a cast and crew that were highly competent — a group of all-stars. I was gonna tell them their business? Forget it! They knew what they were doing already.
Now that the movie's been made, I don't find a bunch of producers flocking to me to try to involve me in this or that film project. What would I have to offer them? My wife kidded me about being a has-been as far as movies are concerned, and I guess she's right. There's no place for me to go in the film business. American Splendor covered my life from when I was a little kid 'til I reached the age of 62. There's not much left to make a sequel about.
I never got too excited about the success of American Splendor because I figured it was, as I mentioned earlier, a one-shot deal. It'd be different if I had a bunch of film scripts lying around to produce after American Splendor , but I don't. I'm very grateful to be the object of praise and flattery, even if I don't really deserve it, but I'm not going to get my head turned by it so that I'll be riding for a fall.
I do face a daunting challenge, though, and that's how to increase the sales of my books, which I intend to continue to write. For one thing, the comic book industry is in terrible shape right now. Sales are down and they've been heading in that direction for some time.
For another, although I'm proud of my work in the comic-book area, and have been called an innovative and influential writer, sales of my own books have never been that hot, even when the rest of the industry was in fine condition. I was paid $17 a page for the last three comics I had published before the movie came out, to give you an idea of the amount of commercial success I'd attained.
Now I go back to my publisher after American Splendor has gotten awards at Sundance, Cannes and other places, and won the top prize for best film of 2003 by the National Society of Film Critics, to see what I'm offered for my next book. It turns out I'm offered $44 a page, or less than I received for the first book I did for him. So how much good did the American Splendor movie do me in my chosen profession — comic book writing? Not a lot, in view of the lack of interest that comic book producers are currently showing in my works.
There may be some signs of hope for me in the comic book biz, however. For one thing, my next comic stories are going to be printed in trade paperback, not the old pamphlet form. People who like my work best seem to be general readers who, unlike comic book fans, can't find my stuff in comic book stores or, in fact, don't even know such stores exist. Traditional comic book (super hero) fans have never had much enthusiasm for my work. They like escapist stuff. So if my books are released in trade paperback form, they may appear in places like Barnes & Noble and Borders, where general readers could find them.
I've already written a number of new stories for my new book and have lined up several top-notch artists to illustrate them. They're willing to do so even though they're not going to get much money either. It's nice to know that there are some talented people out there who're willing to work with me even though there's not much money in it for them.
So I'm busily preparing my next comic book opus, with some pleasure and plenty of apprehension. We'll see how things progress.
My Film Future: Movie producers are not flooding me with projects
Harvey Pekar / 2004
From Cleveland Free Times, January 21, 2004. Reprinted with permission of Harvey Pekar.
I'm getting kind of tired of writing about my movie experiences, but if that's what the editors want from me, I don't see how I can refuse them. Now I'm told a lot of people want to know what it's like going from a nobody to the protagonist of a successful film. It's happened to others before me, I guess, but I would think each would've reacted differently. For me the movies were basically a one-shot opportunity to make some extra money.
I'm pleased that American Splendor turned out as well as it did, but I would've gladly signed up with filmmakers I did not believe were particularly competent if the monetary compensation was right. See, I'm not a moviemaker. Yes, the American Splendor film was based on my comic book stories and dialogue, and to that extent I guess my American Splendor comics had something to do with the film's success.
But I had very little to do with coming up with the style that directors Bob Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman created to make the film. No one was consulting with me about how to cast American Splendor, or which stories to base it on. And with good reason — I had virtually no experience in the film business on the one hand, and, on the other, producer Ted Hope put together a cast and crew that were highly competent — a group of all-stars. I was gonna tell them their business? Forget it! They knew what they were doing already.
Now that the movie's been made, I don't find a bunch of producers flocking to me to try to involve me in this or that film project. What would I have to offer them? My wife kidded me about being a has-been as far as movies are concerned, and I guess she's right. There's no place for me to go in the film business. American Splendor covered my life from when I was a little kid 'til I reached the age of 62. There's not much left to make a sequel about.
I never got too excited about the success of American Splendor because I figured it was, as I mentioned earlier, a one-shot deal. It'd be different if I had a bunch of film scripts lying around to produce after American Splendor , but I don't. I'm very grateful to be the object of praise and flattery, even if I don't really deserve it, but I'm not going to get my head turned by it so that I'll be riding for a fall.
I do face a daunting challenge, though, and that's how to increase the sales of my books, which I intend to continue to write. For one thing, the comic book industry is in terrible shape right now. Sales are down and they've been heading in that direction for some time.
For another, although I'm proud of my work in the comic-book area, and have been called an innovative and influential writer, sales of my own books have never been that hot, even when the rest of the industry was in fine condition. I was paid $17 a page for the last three comics I had published before the movie came out, to give you an idea of the amount of commercial success I'd attained.
Now I go back to my publisher after American Splendor has gotten awards at Sundance, Cannes and other places, and won the top prize for best film of 2003 by the National Society of Film Critics, to see what I'm offered for my next book. It turns out I'm offered $44 a page, or less than I received for the first book I did for him. So how much good did the American Splendor movie do me in my chosen profession — comic book writing? Not a lot, in view of the lack of interest that comic book producers are currently showing in my works.
There may be some signs of hope for me in the comic book biz, however. For one thing, my next comic stories are going to be printed in trade paperback, not the old pamphlet form. People who like my work best seem to be general readers who, unlike comic book fans, can't find my stuff in comic book stores or, in fact, don't even know such stores exist. Traditional comic book (super hero) fans have never had much enthusiasm for my work. They like escapist stuff. So if my books are released in trade paperback form, they may appear in places like Barnes & Noble and Borders, where general readers could find them.
I've already written a number of new stories for my new book and have lined up several top-notch artists to illustrate them. They're willing to do so even though they're not going to get much money either. It's nice to know that there are some talented people out there who're willing to work with me even though there's not much money in it for them.
So I'm busily preparing my next comic book opus, with some pleasure and plenty of apprehension. We'll see how things progress.
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Pekar-saturated book now available!
Harvey Pekar: Conversations LIVES!
I got a laconic email from the master of marketing at the University Press of Mississippi today:
Books are in the warehouse and shipping.
The link to purchase is now live on our website.
So, go buy twenty-five years of Harvey Pekar reflecting on his life and career. Read about his triumph and tragedy. Marvel at his fortitude. 'Nuff said (for now).
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Another Harvey Pekar article
Here's another one that was struck from the book. It's another on Pekar's relationship with Letterman, this time after he had cancer and just before Our Cancer Year about to come out.
Harvey Pekar / Letterman
By Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner / 1994
From alt.fan.letterman, June 3, 1994. Reprinted with permission of Harvey Pekar.
As promised: Harvey wrote the following article for the Boston Herald. I'm posting my own notes, too. -- Joyce
On the Late Show With David Letterman
by Harvey Pekar
Yeah, that was me you saw on David Letterman's May 16 show, announcing to a guy I work with that he owed me ten bucks for mentioning his name on national TV, telling Dave I was getting twenty five more for wearing a T-shirt with a Cleveland Free Times logo on it. Nickel and diming, but it adds up.
I've made a cottage industry out of Dave's program-- appearing on it eight times, six during a two year period, then writing about my experiences for various newspapers. For this I've received, by my standards, decent money. My standards are those of someone who has been a file clerk for the Cleveland VA hospital since 1966.
Steve O'Donnell, once Letterman's head writer and another Clevelander, got me on Late Night in October 1986, because he liked my autobiographical comic book series American Splendor.
I did a self-parody of a working stiff on the show and Dave was so impressed that he had me on again in January, March, July and November of 1987, and, after a six month's writers' strike, August of 1988. However, our relationship soured.
Dave was happy to have me come on like a rust belt "dese an' doser" but I tired of it and brought politics into the act by talking about the conflict of interest involved in the chronically corrupt and extremely powerful General Electric corporation's ownership of NBC, Letterman's employer at the time. GE has been convicted numerous times of violating anti-trust laws. They get caught, pay the fine and do it again, a profitable policy.
They are also a huge arms manufacturer and, by owning NBC, are in a position to influence public opinion regarding weapons sales. Obviously, they shouldn't be allowed to own a major TV news source.
When GE was being sued for over a billion dollars in 1987 by three Ohio utility companies for selling them a nuclear reactor GE's own engineers and scientists considered defective, NBC didn't mention the story for months, and then only under pressure, and they didn't pursue it.
Meanwhile, I saw Dave making personal cracks about Robert Wright, the GE-installed NBC president, and thought he'd dig it if I joined in the fun by bringing up GE's long criminal record. Was I ever wrong.
The first time I mentioned the issue Dave switched to a commercial, after which he brought someone else on. When I wouldn't stop ragging on GE during a July '87 show, we got into a spirited on the air argument, which, however, the audience enjoyed.
As far as I'm concerned that should be enough for Dave. He considers Late Night/Late Show (the CBS version) a comedy program in a talk show format. We got laughs while we were squabbling about GE, but he still wasn't satisfied. He only wants light weight comedy and avoids serious political or social issues like the plague (AIDS, for example, is never mentioned).
Dave is bright and talented, but seriously interested in nothing but beating Jay Leno in the ratings. He deserves a kick in the butt for his anti-intellectualism. Make anything but a quick reference to a heavy issue and he's nervous. "This isn't Meet the Press," Letterman staffers tell you. "Don't stay on any subject too long, don't get serious about anything."
Dave is so contradictory. He makes all this money but lives modestly and could get along with far less. Money is just a success symbol to him. He despises show biz phoniness and stupidity, but interviews vacuous movie and TV stars night after night so that he can appear on Time Magazine covers. It's hard to believe he doesn't realize that having the most popular late night talk show means nothing if it stinks. Does he really believe he's doing anything creative by interviewing talentless celebrities, being increasingly nice to people he doesn't respect so he can please his closer-to-prime time audience?
Disgusted with the scene, I decided to end my TV career by goading Dave into a nasty argument during his August, '88 show. It was so ugly I figured I would never be asked back. Amazingly, a year later, his people invited me to return. I refused. The next year they asked again, but that's when I was a cancer patient undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatments. I couldn't have gone back if I'd wanted.
In early 1993, in remission for some time, I was offered another invitation. They were paying $600, covering airfare for two, a limo and our hotel costs. This was too good to be ignored so I made an appearance, got some laughs and went home.
The show is still nowhere. Occasionally, I've seen Letterman do fine satire, but that's pretty much behind him now that he's trying to impress Peoria.
Dave raps with giddy stars and starlets five nights a week, gets in his car and races home, dodging fans. But, I'll take his money. What else is he good for?
Here's Joyce's version of the same event...
We don't watch Letterman unless Harvey's on the show. Someone usually tapes it for us at home. We sometimes stay up to watch Harvey when we're in New York and the show is aired later that same night. Doing LS/DL is a lot like being 11 years old and visiting relatives you don't care to know once or twice each year. One meets vaguely familiar people who ask the same questions and say the same things. You have nothing in common but, on the way over, you've been drilled in what/what not to talk about.
You show up because they always hand out money and terrible gifts that can be brought back to the store. For some reason, there is also a pumped and primed audience-- we always hear them practice laughing—but it's all over in only a few minutes and you don't have to swallow meatloaf and mashed potatoes.
Instead of exchanging ugly shirts and sweaters for department store refunds, Harvey collects bags full of whatever books and CDs people send Letterman and unloads them at used book and record stores for extra cash.
Sometimes Joyce trades DL merchandise, weird souvenirs, backstage passes or tickets for computer supplies and materials needed by the kids she's writing her own comic books with, usually by chatting up alt.fan.letterman readers on Usenet. Harvey writes about Letterman in his own autobiographical comic book series American Splendor, so he always has something to promote on the show-- a comic book about the last show. I forget what you call that kind of self-contained economic system. Maybe it's just plain television.
We used to think the Letterman show was a talk show, until its various producers explained "It's a comedy show that looks like a talk show. No one talks." We're not supposed to tell you which casual throwaway lines, lightning quick put downs, leading questions, canny insights and spontaneous discussions were mapped out ahead of time on those blue index cards Dave holds. Afterwards, the cards are carefully collected and unused banter gets stored by writers for later use.
Every so often Harvey and Dave say something unexpected to each other. That's called "a real moment" and often excites sophisticated people with lots of excuses for watching the show, as in "I only turned it on because Harvey..." After the show, everyone's a critic, evenly divided between those certain Harvey missed some wonderful opportunity to talk about comics as an adult art form-- or his chance to promote tourism in and around the city of Cleveland (where we live)-- and those who see Harvey as ugly little David up against smugly mugging Goliath. Or Mammon.
It's nothing more than meatloaf and potatos, served up by someone we think really does read Harvey's comics, since they made such a big deal about it last time: "Dave wants his own copy. He's decided to hold the comic book on camera." There's not much they can talk (not talk) about. Letterman knows Harvey's been sidelined by cancer and reconstructive surgery but that's not to be mentioned at the table.
"It bums people out," we're told. "Not when people tell the truth," we argue, convinced there's at least one guy out there going through chemotherapy with a really bad attitude, scared he won't get well because he hasn't turned his non-Hodgkins lymphoma into an opportunity for personal growth. On TV we're shown serene "before" pictures of Jackie O.
Harvey's scowling face is what "after" that same cancer sometimes looks like-- ragged hairline, bushy eyebrows and all. It grows back, you see. Not everyone dies.
Who's scamming who? LS/DL wanted Harvey to be red-faced and rude, to add a touch of color to beige and blonde Heather Locklear. If she didn't show, Harvey expected to be bumped. I'm Harvey's entourage. His wife.
So, they sat me next to 5 women, all wearing the same perfectly bleached and bell shaped hairdo and anxiously watching HL on the monitor backstage. One turned and trilled to the rest "Her makeup looks so good!" Then, all the Heathers sighed.
Being Heather is their job, just like being Dave is a job. Being Harvey Pekar, a very minor cult figure who writes himself into comics and sometimes turns up on TV is, well... Easy on the meatloaf. Who knows what that stuff is made of?
Harvey Pekar / Letterman
By Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner / 1994
From alt.fan.letterman, June 3, 1994. Reprinted with permission of Harvey Pekar.
As promised: Harvey wrote the following article for the Boston Herald. I'm posting my own notes, too. -- Joyce
On the Late Show With David Letterman
by Harvey Pekar
Yeah, that was me you saw on David Letterman's May 16 show, announcing to a guy I work with that he owed me ten bucks for mentioning his name on national TV, telling Dave I was getting twenty five more for wearing a T-shirt with a Cleveland Free Times logo on it. Nickel and diming, but it adds up.
I've made a cottage industry out of Dave's program-- appearing on it eight times, six during a two year period, then writing about my experiences for various newspapers. For this I've received, by my standards, decent money. My standards are those of someone who has been a file clerk for the Cleveland VA hospital since 1966.
Steve O'Donnell, once Letterman's head writer and another Clevelander, got me on Late Night in October 1986, because he liked my autobiographical comic book series American Splendor.
I did a self-parody of a working stiff on the show and Dave was so impressed that he had me on again in January, March, July and November of 1987, and, after a six month's writers' strike, August of 1988. However, our relationship soured.
Dave was happy to have me come on like a rust belt "dese an' doser" but I tired of it and brought politics into the act by talking about the conflict of interest involved in the chronically corrupt and extremely powerful General Electric corporation's ownership of NBC, Letterman's employer at the time. GE has been convicted numerous times of violating anti-trust laws. They get caught, pay the fine and do it again, a profitable policy.
They are also a huge arms manufacturer and, by owning NBC, are in a position to influence public opinion regarding weapons sales. Obviously, they shouldn't be allowed to own a major TV news source.
When GE was being sued for over a billion dollars in 1987 by three Ohio utility companies for selling them a nuclear reactor GE's own engineers and scientists considered defective, NBC didn't mention the story for months, and then only under pressure, and they didn't pursue it.
Meanwhile, I saw Dave making personal cracks about Robert Wright, the GE-installed NBC president, and thought he'd dig it if I joined in the fun by bringing up GE's long criminal record. Was I ever wrong.
The first time I mentioned the issue Dave switched to a commercial, after which he brought someone else on. When I wouldn't stop ragging on GE during a July '87 show, we got into a spirited on the air argument, which, however, the audience enjoyed.
As far as I'm concerned that should be enough for Dave. He considers Late Night/Late Show (the CBS version) a comedy program in a talk show format. We got laughs while we were squabbling about GE, but he still wasn't satisfied. He only wants light weight comedy and avoids serious political or social issues like the plague (AIDS, for example, is never mentioned).
Dave is bright and talented, but seriously interested in nothing but beating Jay Leno in the ratings. He deserves a kick in the butt for his anti-intellectualism. Make anything but a quick reference to a heavy issue and he's nervous. "This isn't Meet the Press," Letterman staffers tell you. "Don't stay on any subject too long, don't get serious about anything."
Dave is so contradictory. He makes all this money but lives modestly and could get along with far less. Money is just a success symbol to him. He despises show biz phoniness and stupidity, but interviews vacuous movie and TV stars night after night so that he can appear on Time Magazine covers. It's hard to believe he doesn't realize that having the most popular late night talk show means nothing if it stinks. Does he really believe he's doing anything creative by interviewing talentless celebrities, being increasingly nice to people he doesn't respect so he can please his closer-to-prime time audience?
Disgusted with the scene, I decided to end my TV career by goading Dave into a nasty argument during his August, '88 show. It was so ugly I figured I would never be asked back. Amazingly, a year later, his people invited me to return. I refused. The next year they asked again, but that's when I was a cancer patient undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatments. I couldn't have gone back if I'd wanted.
In early 1993, in remission for some time, I was offered another invitation. They were paying $600, covering airfare for two, a limo and our hotel costs. This was too good to be ignored so I made an appearance, got some laughs and went home.
The show is still nowhere. Occasionally, I've seen Letterman do fine satire, but that's pretty much behind him now that he's trying to impress Peoria.
Dave raps with giddy stars and starlets five nights a week, gets in his car and races home, dodging fans. But, I'll take his money. What else is he good for?
Here's Joyce's version of the same event...
We don't watch Letterman unless Harvey's on the show. Someone usually tapes it for us at home. We sometimes stay up to watch Harvey when we're in New York and the show is aired later that same night. Doing LS/DL is a lot like being 11 years old and visiting relatives you don't care to know once or twice each year. One meets vaguely familiar people who ask the same questions and say the same things. You have nothing in common but, on the way over, you've been drilled in what/what not to talk about.
You show up because they always hand out money and terrible gifts that can be brought back to the store. For some reason, there is also a pumped and primed audience-- we always hear them practice laughing—but it's all over in only a few minutes and you don't have to swallow meatloaf and mashed potatoes.
Instead of exchanging ugly shirts and sweaters for department store refunds, Harvey collects bags full of whatever books and CDs people send Letterman and unloads them at used book and record stores for extra cash.
Sometimes Joyce trades DL merchandise, weird souvenirs, backstage passes or tickets for computer supplies and materials needed by the kids she's writing her own comic books with, usually by chatting up alt.fan.letterman readers on Usenet. Harvey writes about Letterman in his own autobiographical comic book series American Splendor, so he always has something to promote on the show-- a comic book about the last show. I forget what you call that kind of self-contained economic system. Maybe it's just plain television.
We used to think the Letterman show was a talk show, until its various producers explained "It's a comedy show that looks like a talk show. No one talks." We're not supposed to tell you which casual throwaway lines, lightning quick put downs, leading questions, canny insights and spontaneous discussions were mapped out ahead of time on those blue index cards Dave holds. Afterwards, the cards are carefully collected and unused banter gets stored by writers for later use.
Every so often Harvey and Dave say something unexpected to each other. That's called "a real moment" and often excites sophisticated people with lots of excuses for watching the show, as in "I only turned it on because Harvey..." After the show, everyone's a critic, evenly divided between those certain Harvey missed some wonderful opportunity to talk about comics as an adult art form-- or his chance to promote tourism in and around the city of Cleveland (where we live)-- and those who see Harvey as ugly little David up against smugly mugging Goliath. Or Mammon.
It's nothing more than meatloaf and potatos, served up by someone we think really does read Harvey's comics, since they made such a big deal about it last time: "Dave wants his own copy. He's decided to hold the comic book on camera." There's not much they can talk (not talk) about. Letterman knows Harvey's been sidelined by cancer and reconstructive surgery but that's not to be mentioned at the table.
"It bums people out," we're told. "Not when people tell the truth," we argue, convinced there's at least one guy out there going through chemotherapy with a really bad attitude, scared he won't get well because he hasn't turned his non-Hodgkins lymphoma into an opportunity for personal growth. On TV we're shown serene "before" pictures of Jackie O.
Harvey's scowling face is what "after" that same cancer sometimes looks like-- ragged hairline, bushy eyebrows and all. It grows back, you see. Not everyone dies.
Who's scamming who? LS/DL wanted Harvey to be red-faced and rude, to add a touch of color to beige and blonde Heather Locklear. If she didn't show, Harvey expected to be bumped. I'm Harvey's entourage. His wife.
So, they sat me next to 5 women, all wearing the same perfectly bleached and bell shaped hairdo and anxiously watching HL on the monitor backstage. One turned and trilled to the rest "Her makeup looks so good!" Then, all the Heathers sighed.
Being Heather is their job, just like being Dave is a job. Being Harvey Pekar, a very minor cult figure who writes himself into comics and sometimes turns up on TV is, well... Easy on the meatloaf. Who knows what that stuff is made of?
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Suprise appearance by Pekar on NPR
Harvey speaks briefly in this "Remembering The Birth Of Superman," by Daniel Barnett,
National Public Radio's Weekend Edition Saturday, August 9, 2008.
National Public Radio's Weekend Edition Saturday, August 9, 2008.
Monday, August 04, 2008
Hoo-hah! Pekar book news and an unused piece by Harvey
My buddy John Lent, editor and publisher of the International Journal of Comic Art called today and told me he had my Harvey Pekar: Conversations book in his hand. I argued with him because the press just emailed me that it would be out in November. He insisted and eventually I conceded - he's got an advance uncorrected proof. Darn! A collectible I don't own!
Harvey's working with DC Comics now - the first miniseries American Splendor: Another Day was just collected and is some of his best stuff. Vol. 2 is out as individual comics, and you can find them on Amazon or at a local comic book store.
I called Harvey and let him know the book's becoming more real and also asked his permission to republish some of his stuff that the Press cut from the book on this blog. Here's a 1987 piece Harvey wrote about being interviewed by David Letterman. I didn't even try to get permission to use those interviews. It appears here courtesy of and copyright by Harvey Pekar. Print it out and put it in the appropriate place in the book, after the 1987 interview by Henry Allen of the Washington Post:
Late Night of the Soul with David Letterman
Harvey Pekar / 1987
From The Village Voice, August 25, 1987, pp. 45-46. Reprinted with permission of Harvey Pekar.
Compared to many artists I'm in good shape. I've got a civil service job in Cleveland that pays me enough to write and publish, without making compromises, a comic book called American Splendor. In April '86, Doubleday issued an anthology of my work and it received gratifying critical response. Then, last summer, an assistant producer from Late Night With David Letterman contacted me about making an appearance on the show. It turns out that Letterman's head writer is from Cleveland and had recommended me as a guest. I was scheduled for October 15 and told, "Above all, don't get too serious."
Trouble was, I'd never been on TV. I knew nothing about Letterman except that he was a renowned put-down artist, and had no idea what to expect. I figured it'd be a one-shot; I'd answer a few questions and go home. All I wanted to do was sell a few books and avoid embarrassment.
I guess I'm jaded—I live in Cleveland and I've seen it all—so I wasn't surprised when Letterman started asking me these dumb questions, like "How are things in Cleveland?" They were so silly I started giving him incredulous looks and ridiculing him, saying he was a show biz phony and complaining about the lousy money he paid ($100 for the first appearance). The audience ate it up. Here was this sour faced, sloppily dressed file clerk turning the tables on Mr. Condescending Wise Guy. Letterman, who's, off camera, a quiet, thoughtful man, held me over five minutes and publicly asked me to return.
They raised the amount I got for the next show to $490. That plus free plane rides and a hotel room for my wife and myself made doing Late Night again worthwhile. I wasn't selling out, was I? The thought bothered me, and, as my next appearance, on January 6, approached, I began to consider injecting some substance into my slapstick act. For some time, I'd been reading disturbing reports about the state of affairs at NBC, which, with the rest of RCA, had been purchased by General Electric in December '85. GE sent their man Robert Wright over to assume the NBC presidency in September '86. Wright quickly made his presence felt by cutting the budget 5 per cent, laying off around 300 people. In December there was another stunner: Wrright had issued a secret memo in which he advocated setting up a political action committee at NBC. "Employees who elect not to participate in a giving program should question their dedication to the company and their expectations," he'd written.
This looked like material for my next Letterman spot. After all, Dave was already making cutesy quips about Wright's mental capacities. I'd improve on his act. I'd dig up a lot of solid, hard formation on GE and spill it on the show. On top of that, I'd be cocky and funny. I'd offer Wright equal time, and challenge him to a debate for money, marbles, or chalk.
So I went to the library looking for dirt. It was all over the place. While researching a 1961 price-fixing conspiracy GE had been involved in, I found an article stating that the company had been convicted of antitrust violations in 29 of the previous 50 years. They were still doing questionable things in the '80s. I ran across articles with titles like "Defense Department Disqualifies GE From New Work," "GE Pleads Guilty to False Claims, Statements," and "Foul Play on a Mega-merger? (Inside Traders and the GE-RCA Deal)." Armed with this information, I'd square up in front of the TV cameras and take on the beast in its lair.
I talked about my GE-bashing ideas to a couple of Letterman staffers and they thought it would be okay, so I was surprised when head producer Barry Sand pleaded with me an hour before the show not to talk about GE. He said it would be inappropriate: "This isn't Meet the Press." Beyond that, he said he'd checked with the legal department and there might be dire consequences for me and members of the Letterman staff if I condemned GE in a serious way. I had trouble believing Sand, but I knew Wright could make it rough for him and his co-workers, whom I liked, so I decided to shelve my plans and do about what I'd done on my first show – mess around.
The January program was loose, a lot of fun. Letterman and I visited a Live at Five broadcast, which aired while we were on the set. I saw weatherman Al Roker, who'd previously worked in Cleveland, and got into a noisy discussion with him about the old days and great weathermen of the past. (Cleveland is a spawning ground for outstanding meteorologists of every description.) Once in a while, the camera would cut to guest Ruth Westheimer, who sat in the corner looking puzzled. Later in the segment, Letterman asked if I liked him and I replied, "Man, I don't even know you!"
Laughs came so easily that night! I felt pretty good about myself. But the next day I was embarrassed when a buddy asked, "Hey, big shot, I thought you were gonna talk about GE. What happened?" What happened was that I'd demonstrated I could get laughs by acting like "the lunatic from Cleveland." Was it possible to have a normal, interesting conversation on Late Night? The segment producer told me only celebrities could get away with it. Maybe not even celebrities. If Einstein returned from the other side with the answer to the origin of the universe and made his initial appearance on Late Night, Letterman would chide him about his baggy clothes.
Late Night would wind up a trap for me if I played along. I'd gotten indications that even Letterman, a quick-witted, perceptive guy but no intellectual, may be annoyed by the show's bright-eyed vacuousness. Once during a commercial he said to me, "Do you believe I get paid for this?" But the money's good, be gets a lot of days off, obviously likes doing comedy, and is good at it. Does anyone think he's going back to Ball State for his Ph.D. in meteorology?
Meanwhile, my life was beginning to change. A filmmaker offered me $1000 a day for a walk-on. A director wanted to dramatize some of my stories and have me act in the production. A TV producer pitched me to the Fox network as a talk show host. I told him I wasn't interested, I didn't want to waste my time in lightweight conversation with celebrities and live in a fishbowl. The producer laughed at me and went on negotiating. He set up a deal for me to go out to L.A. and do a couple of pilots for Fox. I said I still wasn't interested. He couldn't believe it. He got his friends and business associates to try to talk me into it. When I wouldn't change my mind, they couldn't believe it. Why do so many Americans think the greatest thing in the world is to be on TV, that the more people see you the better off you are?
But a little show biz doesn't represent a commitment, right? So I was going back on Late Night March 24. What would I talk about? You guessed it, GE! Was I obsessed? Well, yes and yes. Yes, I am obsessive. Yes, it's always worthwhile to focus the public's attention on outfits like GE. And yes, it's okay to bite the hand that holds out $490.
I devised a new strategy for the March 24 show. I'd begin my segment as usual, then craftily lead the conversation around to GE and explode. I wouldn't tell the producers my plan, so they couldn't stop me. It didn't work out too well. I opened with a strident pitch for my second Doubleday anthology, shouting, flapping my arms, waving off Letterman's attempt to stop me. I got some yuks, but it occurred to me that a lot of people thought I was a lunatic. Our conversation didn't flow, it ground along. I was depressed and Letterman seemed melancholy. Still, he was convulsing people with remarks like "Where'd you get those eyebrows? You look like Zero Mostel."
I was getting shakier and more frustrated by the minute. Then I remembered there was something bigger here than my ego; the world had to be saved from GE. "Stop your slide, man, dig in your heels and make your move." I mentioned that as youths Tom Brokaw, Robert Redford, and I had roamed the Pacific Northwest, rock climbing and white water rafting, then said, "Speaking of Tom, I hear he's upset about working at NBC News because there's a conflict of interest between them and GE. GE's the third largest defense contractor, you know." The crowd was silent, puzzled. Letterman shifted to a commercial.
GE and NBC got plenty of attention this spring and summer. Its subsidiary, Kidder, Peabody, & Co., was fined $25.3 million for securities violations. In late May, the Cleveland Plain Dealer broke a story concerning three southern Ohio power companies suing GE for over $1 billion for selling them a defective nuclear reactor. GE had sold reactors of the same type, all with design flaws that made them unsafe, unreliable, and costly to operate, to other utility companies around the country. Billions of dollars have been spent trying to repair them and bring them up to standard, money that rate payers ultimately supply. Amazingly, it was discovered that GE had a report, compiled by their engineers in 1975, identifying the reactors' defects. GE executives decided to sell them anyway and let a purchasers/pay for most of the repairing and upgrading.
The GE reactor story is an important and ongoing story, yet NBC national news hadn't covered it by July 31, when I made my last appearance on Late Night. That reminded me of the congressional hearings that had been held in April, concerning problems inherent in TV networks being owned by conglomerates. Wright and NBC News chief Lawrence Grossman testified that GE couldn't possibly get away with forcing the network to alter the content of its news broadcasts. Any attempt to do so, they claimed, would result in an uproar so great that it as bound to fail.
I vowed to bring the subject up on my next appearance. What if I just jumped up and down and started yelling about GE without a lead-in? What could Letterman do, not ask me back? So what; I had a decent job, a place to stay. I had to do something constructive on TV, if not for the good of humanity then just to feel at peace with myself. Get the GE monkey off my back.
Before the show I ran into Letterman. We had a chat and he told me I had star potential, but during my last appearance we'd gotten bogged down in bickering. It was okay to insult him, since Late Night resembles professional wrestling, but if I did, the crowd would be on his side since it was his show.
I said, "Okay, but I want to talk about GE."
He said, "This isn't Meet the Press."
I insisted, so he finally agreed to let me do it if I didn’t stay on the subject too long. His bottom line was, “I’ll ask the questions, you answer ‘em."
Before the show, the segment producer came up to me with a list of eight questions. I noticed that GE was number seven and smelled a rat. So I went over to Letterman and asked him to move it to number two, so we could get it in.
The show starts. First is a harried zoo-keeper from Columbus who inadvertently loses track of some snakes and a hummingbird. Then Chris Elliott does a Marion Brando imitation. Next is a Gomer Pyle-type guy, supposedly doing a remote from Pittsburgh about an Arena Football game. Then I walk in, scowling. Letterman asks me about the TV talk show offer. I tell him I turned it down. "Why?" he asks. "Because," I tell him, "I been watching you up here." Hilarity breaks loose. The first five minutes are magic. During the commercial Letterman leans down and says, "perfect."
He isn't going to ask about GE. I've got to act alone. After the break I start shouting denunciations of GE. Letterman tries to interrupt. "Shaddup," I say, "I'm doing my thing."
Letterman complains that what I'm doing is inappropriate, that I, as a guest in his house, shouldn't be sneezing in the hors d'oeuvres. "Bullshit, where's the hors d'oeuvres," I say. The bit ends.
I'd wondered what would happen if I seriously bad-mouthed GE on NBC. Now I know. David Letterman can put down their lightbulbs, but I can't criticize their nuclear reactors.
There's plenty more to come in the book, and I'll have 2 more pieces Harvey wrote to post here in the next two months.
Harvey's working with DC Comics now - the first miniseries American Splendor: Another Day was just collected and is some of his best stuff. Vol. 2 is out as individual comics, and you can find them on Amazon or at a local comic book store.
I called Harvey and let him know the book's becoming more real and also asked his permission to republish some of his stuff that the Press cut from the book on this blog. Here's a 1987 piece Harvey wrote about being interviewed by David Letterman. I didn't even try to get permission to use those interviews. It appears here courtesy of and copyright by Harvey Pekar. Print it out and put it in the appropriate place in the book, after the 1987 interview by Henry Allen of the Washington Post:
Late Night of the Soul with David Letterman
Harvey Pekar / 1987
From The Village Voice, August 25, 1987, pp. 45-46. Reprinted with permission of Harvey Pekar.
Compared to many artists I'm in good shape. I've got a civil service job in Cleveland that pays me enough to write and publish, without making compromises, a comic book called American Splendor. In April '86, Doubleday issued an anthology of my work and it received gratifying critical response. Then, last summer, an assistant producer from Late Night With David Letterman contacted me about making an appearance on the show. It turns out that Letterman's head writer is from Cleveland and had recommended me as a guest. I was scheduled for October 15 and told, "Above all, don't get too serious."
Trouble was, I'd never been on TV. I knew nothing about Letterman except that he was a renowned put-down artist, and had no idea what to expect. I figured it'd be a one-shot; I'd answer a few questions and go home. All I wanted to do was sell a few books and avoid embarrassment.
I guess I'm jaded—I live in Cleveland and I've seen it all—so I wasn't surprised when Letterman started asking me these dumb questions, like "How are things in Cleveland?" They were so silly I started giving him incredulous looks and ridiculing him, saying he was a show biz phony and complaining about the lousy money he paid ($100 for the first appearance). The audience ate it up. Here was this sour faced, sloppily dressed file clerk turning the tables on Mr. Condescending Wise Guy. Letterman, who's, off camera, a quiet, thoughtful man, held me over five minutes and publicly asked me to return.
They raised the amount I got for the next show to $490. That plus free plane rides and a hotel room for my wife and myself made doing Late Night again worthwhile. I wasn't selling out, was I? The thought bothered me, and, as my next appearance, on January 6, approached, I began to consider injecting some substance into my slapstick act. For some time, I'd been reading disturbing reports about the state of affairs at NBC, which, with the rest of RCA, had been purchased by General Electric in December '85. GE sent their man Robert Wright over to assume the NBC presidency in September '86. Wright quickly made his presence felt by cutting the budget 5 per cent, laying off around 300 people. In December there was another stunner: Wrright had issued a secret memo in which he advocated setting up a political action committee at NBC. "Employees who elect not to participate in a giving program should question their dedication to the company and their expectations," he'd written.
This looked like material for my next Letterman spot. After all, Dave was already making cutesy quips about Wright's mental capacities. I'd improve on his act. I'd dig up a lot of solid, hard formation on GE and spill it on the show. On top of that, I'd be cocky and funny. I'd offer Wright equal time, and challenge him to a debate for money, marbles, or chalk.
So I went to the library looking for dirt. It was all over the place. While researching a 1961 price-fixing conspiracy GE had been involved in, I found an article stating that the company had been convicted of antitrust violations in 29 of the previous 50 years. They were still doing questionable things in the '80s. I ran across articles with titles like "Defense Department Disqualifies GE From New Work," "GE Pleads Guilty to False Claims, Statements," and "Foul Play on a Mega-merger? (Inside Traders and the GE-RCA Deal)." Armed with this information, I'd square up in front of the TV cameras and take on the beast in its lair.
I talked about my GE-bashing ideas to a couple of Letterman staffers and they thought it would be okay, so I was surprised when head producer Barry Sand pleaded with me an hour before the show not to talk about GE. He said it would be inappropriate: "This isn't Meet the Press." Beyond that, he said he'd checked with the legal department and there might be dire consequences for me and members of the Letterman staff if I condemned GE in a serious way. I had trouble believing Sand, but I knew Wright could make it rough for him and his co-workers, whom I liked, so I decided to shelve my plans and do about what I'd done on my first show – mess around.
The January program was loose, a lot of fun. Letterman and I visited a Live at Five broadcast, which aired while we were on the set. I saw weatherman Al Roker, who'd previously worked in Cleveland, and got into a noisy discussion with him about the old days and great weathermen of the past. (Cleveland is a spawning ground for outstanding meteorologists of every description.) Once in a while, the camera would cut to guest Ruth Westheimer, who sat in the corner looking puzzled. Later in the segment, Letterman asked if I liked him and I replied, "Man, I don't even know you!"
Laughs came so easily that night! I felt pretty good about myself. But the next day I was embarrassed when a buddy asked, "Hey, big shot, I thought you were gonna talk about GE. What happened?" What happened was that I'd demonstrated I could get laughs by acting like "the lunatic from Cleveland." Was it possible to have a normal, interesting conversation on Late Night? The segment producer told me only celebrities could get away with it. Maybe not even celebrities. If Einstein returned from the other side with the answer to the origin of the universe and made his initial appearance on Late Night, Letterman would chide him about his baggy clothes.
Late Night would wind up a trap for me if I played along. I'd gotten indications that even Letterman, a quick-witted, perceptive guy but no intellectual, may be annoyed by the show's bright-eyed vacuousness. Once during a commercial he said to me, "Do you believe I get paid for this?" But the money's good, be gets a lot of days off, obviously likes doing comedy, and is good at it. Does anyone think he's going back to Ball State for his Ph.D. in meteorology?
Meanwhile, my life was beginning to change. A filmmaker offered me $1000 a day for a walk-on. A director wanted to dramatize some of my stories and have me act in the production. A TV producer pitched me to the Fox network as a talk show host. I told him I wasn't interested, I didn't want to waste my time in lightweight conversation with celebrities and live in a fishbowl. The producer laughed at me and went on negotiating. He set up a deal for me to go out to L.A. and do a couple of pilots for Fox. I said I still wasn't interested. He couldn't believe it. He got his friends and business associates to try to talk me into it. When I wouldn't change my mind, they couldn't believe it. Why do so many Americans think the greatest thing in the world is to be on TV, that the more people see you the better off you are?
But a little show biz doesn't represent a commitment, right? So I was going back on Late Night March 24. What would I talk about? You guessed it, GE! Was I obsessed? Well, yes and yes. Yes, I am obsessive. Yes, it's always worthwhile to focus the public's attention on outfits like GE. And yes, it's okay to bite the hand that holds out $490.
I devised a new strategy for the March 24 show. I'd begin my segment as usual, then craftily lead the conversation around to GE and explode. I wouldn't tell the producers my plan, so they couldn't stop me. It didn't work out too well. I opened with a strident pitch for my second Doubleday anthology, shouting, flapping my arms, waving off Letterman's attempt to stop me. I got some yuks, but it occurred to me that a lot of people thought I was a lunatic. Our conversation didn't flow, it ground along. I was depressed and Letterman seemed melancholy. Still, he was convulsing people with remarks like "Where'd you get those eyebrows? You look like Zero Mostel."
I was getting shakier and more frustrated by the minute. Then I remembered there was something bigger here than my ego; the world had to be saved from GE. "Stop your slide, man, dig in your heels and make your move." I mentioned that as youths Tom Brokaw, Robert Redford, and I had roamed the Pacific Northwest, rock climbing and white water rafting, then said, "Speaking of Tom, I hear he's upset about working at NBC News because there's a conflict of interest between them and GE. GE's the third largest defense contractor, you know." The crowd was silent, puzzled. Letterman shifted to a commercial.
GE and NBC got plenty of attention this spring and summer. Its subsidiary, Kidder, Peabody, & Co., was fined $25.3 million for securities violations. In late May, the Cleveland Plain Dealer broke a story concerning three southern Ohio power companies suing GE for over $1 billion for selling them a defective nuclear reactor. GE had sold reactors of the same type, all with design flaws that made them unsafe, unreliable, and costly to operate, to other utility companies around the country. Billions of dollars have been spent trying to repair them and bring them up to standard, money that rate payers ultimately supply. Amazingly, it was discovered that GE had a report, compiled by their engineers in 1975, identifying the reactors' defects. GE executives decided to sell them anyway and let a purchasers/pay for most of the repairing and upgrading.
The GE reactor story is an important and ongoing story, yet NBC national news hadn't covered it by July 31, when I made my last appearance on Late Night. That reminded me of the congressional hearings that had been held in April, concerning problems inherent in TV networks being owned by conglomerates. Wright and NBC News chief Lawrence Grossman testified that GE couldn't possibly get away with forcing the network to alter the content of its news broadcasts. Any attempt to do so, they claimed, would result in an uproar so great that it as bound to fail.
I vowed to bring the subject up on my next appearance. What if I just jumped up and down and started yelling about GE without a lead-in? What could Letterman do, not ask me back? So what; I had a decent job, a place to stay. I had to do something constructive on TV, if not for the good of humanity then just to feel at peace with myself. Get the GE monkey off my back.
Before the show I ran into Letterman. We had a chat and he told me I had star potential, but during my last appearance we'd gotten bogged down in bickering. It was okay to insult him, since Late Night resembles professional wrestling, but if I did, the crowd would be on his side since it was his show.
I said, "Okay, but I want to talk about GE."
He said, "This isn't Meet the Press."
I insisted, so he finally agreed to let me do it if I didn’t stay on the subject too long. His bottom line was, “I’ll ask the questions, you answer ‘em."
Before the show, the segment producer came up to me with a list of eight questions. I noticed that GE was number seven and smelled a rat. So I went over to Letterman and asked him to move it to number two, so we could get it in.
The show starts. First is a harried zoo-keeper from Columbus who inadvertently loses track of some snakes and a hummingbird. Then Chris Elliott does a Marion Brando imitation. Next is a Gomer Pyle-type guy, supposedly doing a remote from Pittsburgh about an Arena Football game. Then I walk in, scowling. Letterman asks me about the TV talk show offer. I tell him I turned it down. "Why?" he asks. "Because," I tell him, "I been watching you up here." Hilarity breaks loose. The first five minutes are magic. During the commercial Letterman leans down and says, "perfect."
He isn't going to ask about GE. I've got to act alone. After the break I start shouting denunciations of GE. Letterman tries to interrupt. "Shaddup," I say, "I'm doing my thing."
Letterman complains that what I'm doing is inappropriate, that I, as a guest in his house, shouldn't be sneezing in the hors d'oeuvres. "Bullshit, where's the hors d'oeuvres," I say. The bit ends.
I'd wondered what would happen if I seriously bad-mouthed GE on NBC. Now I know. David Letterman can put down their lightbulbs, but I can't criticize their nuclear reactors.
There's plenty more to come in the book, and I'll have 2 more pieces Harvey wrote to post here in the next two months.
Saturday, August 02, 2008
University Press of Mississippi interview on comic book books
The University Press of Mississippi is publishing my Harvey Pekar: Conversations book, which should be available in November according to an email I got from them this week. Here's a good interview with the Press's recent editor: "The Rise of Comics Scholarship: the Role of University Press of Mississippi," by Jeet Heer, August 2, 2008. While I said above that the UPM is publishing "my book," I only did the Pekar book because of Tom Inge whose role at the Press is explained in this article. I offered an interview I did with Pekar to Inge for a book taht I thought somebody would be working on. Rather than taking the interview, he suggested that I do a whole book - showing a lot of faith in me that I hope I will have repaid.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
New online comic story by Harvey Pekar and Rick Veitch
My book collecting interviews from twenty years of Harvey's career should be out in a couple of months. In the meantime, here's a new story - Exclusive: A New Comic by Harvey Pekar and Rick Veitch. At some point, I heard that Veitch's family was from around here, and there's a Veitch street that intersects Columbia Pike in Arlington.
Friday, June 06, 2008
Harvey Pekar: Conversations just got a little more real
I just got a stack of these University Press of Mississippi Fall 2008 catalogues in the mail, which was a surprise, as they hadn't told me anything about them. And they came with two pages of instructions on how to promote one's book (namely Harvey Pekar: Conversations. Obviously I need practice). Like on the web and stuff. So read the description in the scan below and then call the toll-free number or log into Amazon and order copies for yourself and all your friends, please. Thank you very much.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
PSA for Harvey Pekar
Have you contacted Harvey Pekar recently about an exhibit in New York of his work? If so, he's lost your contact information and would like you to call him again. Feel free to repost this so it gets wider circulation, please. This has been a Pekar Service Announcement.
Besides that, he read me a couple of the short strips he's writing now. I had a total fanboy moment - Harvey Pekar's reading me his scripts and asking what I thought. For the record, I honestly liked them. Buy his new comic book from DC - it's excellent.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Pekar book status update
The page proofs came yesterday so now I've got a pile of reading and Randy Scott's got a lot of indexing to do for the book. We've got 3 weeks to get things turned around.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Progress on my Pekar book
I got a letter from the University Press of Mississippi today telling me that they'd be sending the page proofs soon! Whoo-hoo! And thanks to Randy Scott of Michigan State U's Comic Art Collection for doing the index for me.
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