HARVEY PEKAR

I thought I had a great opportunity when I started doing my comic book in 1972. I thought there was so much territory to work in.

I think you can find all the elements that you can find in great literature in mundane experiences.

I write about my life, choosing incidents that I think will be, for one reason or another, significant to people. Often because they may have experienced the same things.

I'm always shook up and nervous and I've got the hospital record to prove it.

It didn't take long to establish myself, as far as people thinking my work was good. They liked it from the start.

Cleveland has a very bad reputation, but there's a lot of stuff that's left over from when there were very wealthy people - the Art Museum and a world class symphony that's still world class.

I kept on buying records and listening to them. Finally, I was able to hear the relationship between the jazz improvisers' solos and the underlying structure that it's based on, the chord progression. That was pretty easy to do in the swing era, y'know, when jazz was, like, pop music, you know. It had made the charts and everything like that.

I'm trying to get every man involved in art, into experimental music, or painting, or novel-writing.

It's extremely seldom that anybody wants me to change what I've written about them. Generally I portray them in a good light, if they're friends.

Letterman... he got his problems. We don't get along too well.

I have to be a freelance writer for the rest of my life, unless I get some kind of real lucky break. But other than that, I'll always have to work. I always worry about whether my stuff is going to get over. Will they like this, will they like that?

Even a pretty traditional comic book writer can make valuable contributions to the Internet.

I continue to be disappointed that people don't try and diversify the kind of work they are doing in comics.

I write scripts in storyboard fashion using stick figures, and thought balloons and word balloons and captions. Then I'll write descriptions of what scenes should look like and turn it over to the artist.

There hasn't been enough change in comics to suit me. I don't know why exactly.

My work looks like a comic book in form, but it's not a typical comic book in content. I write autobiographical stuff.

I think the people who would be the least interested in my work would be people who read lots of comic books.

I worry about getting work, and then when I get it, I worry about doing it well. I don't want to just go through the motions and give people stuff. This stuff is really important to me.

I was influenced by autobiographical writers like Henry Miller, and I had actually done some autobiographical prose. But I just thought that comics were like virgin territory. There was so much to be done. It excited me. I couldn't draw very well. I could write scripts and storyboard style using stick figures and balloons and captions.

There's no limitation on comics, nothing. From a logical standpoint, how can there be a limitation on comics? You can use any word in the dictionary. You can put them in any order you want to. You can use a vast variety of illustrating styles. People could do all sorts of things.

I'm a guy that likes to sit in one place.

I've just been writing stuff down as it comes to me. I haven't thought, 'Let me write some major opus here.'

I met Robert Crumb in 1962; he lived in Cleveland for a while. I took a look at his stuff. Crumb was doing stuff beyond what other writers and artists were doing. It was a step beyond Mad.

I'm pretty aggressive, and maybe obnoxious, about trying to get work.

I try and write the way things happen. I don't try and fulfill people's wishes.