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Harvey Pekar Dies

Comic book writer was ‘poet laureate of Cleveland’

by
Marc Tracy
July 12, 2010
Pekar last year.(Chronicle-Telegram)
Pekar last year.(Chronicle-Telegram)

R.I.P. Harvey Pekar. The Jewish comic book writer whose autobiographical series, American Splendor, was made into a 2003 film starring Paul Giamatti, has died at 70. There are no details on the cause of death; Pekar was known to have suffered high blood pressure, prostate cancer, and other ailments.

In what was probably his final published work, at least while alive, Pekar and collaborator Tara Seibel wrote and drew a strip in the latest Jewish Review of Books.

Here is Pekar meeting television host Anthony Bourdain in what must be remembered as his natural habitat: A homely-but-charming, snowbound neighborhood of Cleveland.

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.