Harvey Pekar
A respectable-sized audience hasn't really been able to follow developments in jazz since the free jazz movement in the '60s. Some of them can't even get with John Coltrane. Audiences are diminishing more and more rapidly. Some of the top young musicians with something new to say can't get record companies to put out their stuff.
I was sort of on a mission with 'American Splendor.' I wanted to try to prove that comics could do things. I wanted to expand them beyond superheroes and talking animals. And I knew that was going to take a long time. But I just started writing an autobiography about my quotidian life.
I'm pretty aggressive, and maybe obnoxious, about trying to get work.
I'm from the beatnik generation, where everybody wanted to be a poet or writer or something. And at that time, I was a jazz critic, and I was always thinking, theorizing about what makes great art or what's important in art.
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 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 want to keep doing as much work as I can, and I want to keep the level high. I'm wondering if something is going to happen to me to screw it up.
Of course I don't think I have it made by any means. I'm too insecure, obsessive and paranoid for that.
It dawned on me that comics were not an intrinsically limited medium. There was a tremendous amount of things you could do in comics that you couldn't do in other art forms - but no one was doing it. I figured if I'd make a try at it, I'd at least be a footnote in history.
Ordinary life is pretty complex stuff.Collection: Writing
I'm sure someone out there has a workable solution. But what do I know? I make comic books and write about jazz. I do know the difference between right and wrong, though.Collection: Book
Comics are words and pictures. You can do anything with words and pictures.Collection: Can Do
I think that the so-called average person often exhibits a great deal of heroism in getting through an ordinary day . . .Collection: Thinking
Since about 1980 Kenny Werner has been one of jazz’s unsung heroesCollection: Hero
Am I a guy who writes about himself in a comic book, or am I just a character in that book? If I die, will that character keep going, or will he just fade away?Collection: Book
Life is about women, gigs, an' bein' creative.Collection: Creative
I realize that I'm pretty flawed, but you know - I haven't killed anybody yet.Collection: Realizing
Every ethnic group thinks they are the chosen ones.Collection: Thinking
I felt more alone that week than any. Sometimes I'd feel a body lying next to me like an amputee feels a phantom limb. All I did was think about Jennie Gerhardt and Alice Quinn and all the decades of people I had known. The more I thought, the more I felt like crying. Life seemed so sweet and so sad, and so hard to let go of in the end. But hey, man, every day is a brand new deal, right? Just keep on working and something's bound to turn up.Collection: Letting Go
When you're dead, it robs life of many of it's pleasuresCollection: Pleasure
And no business can possibly equate happy workers (community) with profit (effectiveness). Happy workers are much more productive workers and hence contribute to profit, but no organization is formed for the idea of pleasing its employees.Collection: Organization
I always wanted praise and I always wanted attention; I won't lie to you. I was a jazz critic and that wasn't good enough for me. I wanted people to write about me, not me about them. So I thought, What could I do? I can't sing, I can't dance, I can't act or anything like that. OK, I can write.Collection: Lying
I try and write the way things happen. I don't try and fulfill people's wishesCollection: Writing
I'd been familiar with comics, and I'd collected 'em when I was a kid, but after I got into junior high school, there wasn't much I was interested inCollection: School
It didnt take long to establish myself, as far as people thinking my work was good. They liked it from the start.Collection: Thinking
You do not pursue potential conflict unless you hold power over your foe.Collection: Over You
I don't think I made any really big mistakes; it's just that I chose something difficult to do. Looking back, I suppose I should be grateful that I got as far as I got.Collection: Mistake
People will believe absurd things - in the 19th century and now.Collection: Believe
Im pretty aggressive, and maybe obnoxious, about trying to get work.Collection: Trying
I wanted to write literature that pushed people into their lives rather than helping people escape from them.Collection: Writing
There was a survey done a few years ago that affected me greatly. it was discovered that intelligent people either estimate their intelligence accurately or slightly underestimate themselves, but stupid people overestimate their intelligence and by huge margins. (And these were things like straight up math tests, not controversial IQ tests.)Collection: Stupid
I just continue to be kind of disappointed that people don't realize that and try and diversify the kind of work they are doing in comics.Collection: People
I'm a guy that likes to sit in one placeCollection: Guy
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 friendsCollection: Light
It seemed to me you could do anything in comics. So I started doing my thing, which is mainly influenced by novelists, stand-up comedians, that sort of thingCollection: Comedian
I'm doing research for a large comic book on the Beat Generation guys - Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac and those guysCollection: Book
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 artistCollection: Fashion
I've probably had my day in the sun. I think I've influenced a lot of comic book writersCollection: Book
It's the stuff that happens right in front of your face when there's no routine and everything is unexpected. That's what I want to write about.Collection: Writing