OPINION
July 19, 2010
What's behind the veil Re "French National Assembly approves ban on face veils," July 14 A recent Pew survey reported that more than 60% of Europeans favor the ban on full-face veils and only 28% of Americans do. This indicates to me that Europeans have a better appreciation for the ideal of true liberty for all individuals, an ideal for which our forefathers and mothers fought: the freedom to pursue self-chosen goals in life. Can a person whose face is always hidden in public realistically run for public office, be hired as a physician or as a schoolteacher, or serve in the military?
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
July 13, 2010 | By Reed Johnson, Los Angeles Times
Harvey Pekar, the Cleveland comic book author who made prickly honesty about everyday life into an artistic credo and whose outward aspect of dour dishevelment masked a passionate, elegant intellect, has died. He was 70. Pekar was found dead early Monday by his wife, writer Joyce Brabner, at home in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, said Powell Caesar, a spokesman for the Cuyahoga County coroner's office. An autopsy will be conducted to determine cause of death. Best known for his sporadic, dyspeptic and largely autobiographical comic series "American Splendor," which started in 1976 and later inspired a feature film, Pekar forged a distinct authorial voice — and a popular persona — that fused caustic and frequently self-lacerating wit, Rust Belt stoicism, casual bohemianism and shrewd observations about quotidian human existence.
ENTERTAINMENT
July 13, 2010 | By David Ulin, Los Angeles Times Book Critic
Here's a phrase you don't often hear in regard to Harvey Pekar: role model. And yet, it seems an apt description of the iconoclastic comics genius, who was found dead early Monday at age 70 in his Cleveland Heights, Ohio, home. Think about it — a longtime VA hospital file clerk with no ability to draw, Pekar essentially reinvented himself, in his 30s, as the creator of "American Splendor," perhaps the greatest of all the underground comics. It is difficult to imagine the subsequent history of the form without its influence.
ENTERTAINMENT
April 22, 2010
With all due respect to Superman, "Titans of the Graphic Novel" features two authors who have shown that comic books are a fertile medium for introspection and autobiography: Harvey Pekar, who for decades has chronicled his mundane adventures in "American Splendor," and Alison Bechdel, the creator of the illustrated memoir "Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic." UCLA's Royce Hall, 340 Royce Drive, Westwood. 8 p.m. Fri. $24-$48. (310) 825-4401. http://www.uclalive.org.
BOOKS
October 15, 2006 | R. Sikoryak, R. Sikoryak's cartoons have appeared in Drawn & Quarterly, Nickelodeon Magazine and on "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart."
[Note: Review presented as a comic strip. See archived page for full content. Text of comic strip not included here.]
BOOKS
November 20, 2005 | David L. Ulin, David L. Ulin is book editor of The Times.
----- The Contract With God Trilogy Life on Dropsie Avenue Will Eisner W.W. Norton: 498 pp., $35 ----- The Quitter Harvey Pekar Art by Dean Haspiel DC/Vertigo: unpaged, $19.99 ONE of the most interesting developments in contemporary literature is the emergence of comics as a confessional medium, a mirror for the examined life. It's a shift that has its roots in the underground comics of the 1960s; R.