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• Actors: Paul Giamatti, Shari Springer Berman, Harvey Pekar, Chris Ambrose, Joey Krajcar.
• Format: AC-3, Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC.
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround), English (Dolby Digital 5.1). Subtitles: English, Spanish, French.
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only).
• Rated: R. Run Time: 101 minutes.

The inspiration for the award-winning movie
from HBO Films and Fine Line Features

AMERICAN SPLENDOR
The Life and Times of Harvey Pekar

Two classic comic anthologies in one volume

Stories by Harvey Pekar

Introduction by R. Crumb

Art by Kevin Brown, Gregory Budgett, Sean Carroll, Sue Cavey, R. Crumb, Gary Dumm, Val Mayerik, and Gerry Shamray

The classic collection of the comics that inspired the movie American Splendor, winner of the Gr! and Jury Prize at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival

American Splendor is the world’s first literary comic book. Cleveland native Harvey Pekar is a true American original. A V.A. hospital file clerk and comic book writer, Harvey chronicles the ordinary and mundane in stories both funny and touching. His dead-on eye for the frustrations and minutiae of the workaday world mix in a delicate balance with his insight into personal relationships. Pekar has been compared to Dreiser, Dostoevsky, and Lenny Bruce. But he is truly more than all of themâ€"he is himself.

“Mr. Pekar has . . . proven that comics can address the ambiguities of daily living, that like the finest fiction, they can hold a mirror up to life.”
â€"The New York Times

“[Pekar] has a vision that makes daily city lifeâ€"a ride on the bus, a run-in with a boss, or simply buying breadâ€"dramatic.”
â€"Chicago Sun-Times

“Simply stated, American S! plendor is the most superb literary endeavor to come off t! he stree ts of Cleveland in decades.”
â€"The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)

“Mr. Pekar lets all of life flood into his panels: the humdrum and the heroic, the gritty and the grand.”
â€"The New York Times Book Review
Based on the life and work of underground comic book writer Harvey Pekar- a prickly poet of the mundane who knows that all the strategizing in the world can't save a guy from picking the wrong supermarket checkout line.One of the most acclaimed films of 2003, American Splendor is also one of the most audaciously creative biographical movies ever made. Blending fact, fiction, and personal perspective from the comic books that inspired it, this marvelous portrait of Harvey Pekar--scowling curmudgeon, brow-beaten everyman, insightful chronicler of his own life, and frustrated file clerk at a Cleveland V.A. hospital--is an inspired amalgam of the media (comic books, TV, and film) that lifted Pekar from obscurity to the status of a pop! -cultural icon. As played by Paul Giamatti in a master-stroke of casting, we see Pekar and his understanding wife (played by Hope Davis) as underdogs in a world full of obstacles, yet also infused with subtle hope and (gasp!) heartwarming perseverance. We also see the real Pekar, and this multifaceted commingling of "reel" and "real" turns American Splendor into a uniquely cinematic celebration of Pekar's life and, by extension, the tenacity of an unlikely American hero. --Jeff Shannon

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