The first every man of the comic industry, Harvey Pekar grew up in Cleveland, Ohio and ultimately died in Cleveland all the while becoming the “poet laureate of Cleveland,” of the city in which he loved. While working as a file clerk at the Cleveland V.A. hospital, Harvey began working on what was to become “American Splendor”, the everyday life of the mundane and the detailed. He believed in the philosophy of “You can use pictures and words to create anything you want”. He met the “Grandfather of Underground Comics” R. Crumb in the late 1960’s and Crumb began illustrating Pekar’s works.
