Autobiographical comics emerged out of the tradition of underground comix in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s (Beaty 144). Since that time the number and variety of autobiographical comics has grown steadily and they have become increasingly available at both mainstream book and comic retailers (Jacobs 75). The underground comix movement was born out of the larger countercultural movement of the 1960s (Lopes 62). These comics often appeared in university humour magazines and countercultural newspapers: those that appeared in comic book form did not attempt to compete with traditional comic books. They could not be found on the newsstand but rather in alternative bookstores and record shops (Duncan & Smith 52). These comic books were often politically charged and dealt with issues of sex and drug abuse that mainstream publishers were either unable or unwilling to touch. These comic books were aimed firmly at an audience that had grown up reading traditional mainstream comic books as children but had to a certain degree outgrown them (52). Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary by Justin Green was published in 1972 and is widely regarded as the first autobiographical comic (213). Harvey Pekar’s series American Splendor first appeared as a self-published work in 1976 (Petersen 220). While Pekar was not the first to produce an autobiographical comic he was one of the most famous and prolific writers in the medium. Pekar worked as a file clerk at a veteran’s hospital in Cleveland, Ohio and would probably never have published with out the aid of his friend Robert Crumb (220). Robert Crumb, better known as R. Crumb, was an illustrator that gained notoriety during the 1960s for his work in the underground comix movement (Gabilliet 95). Crumb and Pekar’s friendship grew into a working relationship in which Pekar wrote the dialogue for his comics while Crumb illustrated them (95). American Splendor was key in the emergence of autobiography as a subject in comics and significant in the emergence of literary comics as a whole (Beaty, 144). Pekar’s focus on realism was a major departure from the usually fantastic subject matter of comics, as was his assertion of a personal voice as an author (144). Pekar was the subject of his own work and he was responsible for all of the literary aspects of American Splendor but he was never responsible for the illustration of his comics, which was initially handled by Crumb but was later done by a host of other illustrators. This brings up important issues of authorship in a medium which is at least as much visual as it is literary (Bredehoft, 98). Autobiographical comics also produce interesting questions about the difference between the visual and literary representations of their characters (Jacobs, 75). American Splendor was published infrequently between 1976 and 1993 with Pekar producing numerous other one shot titles afterwards until his death in 2010 at the age of 70. He described his work as “an autobiography written as it is happening” (“Harvey Pekar”). Pekar’s work was aimed at a different readership than both mainstream and underground works: it was far more literary and less focused on adventure or humour. It aimed instead to produce a sense of authenticity (Kersulov, 2). By focusing on the realities of everyday life Pekar aimed to reach a much different audience that had different expectations from his work than what is normally conceived of a mainstream comic book audience, yet by using the medium of comic books, Pekar was able to tap into the well of memory and nostalgia that comic books produce in adults (Groensteen, 40).
Works Cited
Beaty, Bart. Unpopular Culture: Transforming the European Comic Book in the 1990s. Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press, 2007. Print.
Bredehoft, Thomas A. “Style, Voice, and Authorship in Harvey Pekar’s (Auto) (Bio) Graphical Comics.” College Literature Vol. 38, Number 3, Summer (2011): 97-110. Print.
Duncan, Randy, and Matthew J. Smith. The Power of Comics: History, Form & Culture. New York, London: Continuum, 2009. Print.
Gabilliet, Jean-Paul. Of Comics and Men: A Cultural History of American Comic Books. Trans. Bart Beaty and Nick Nguyen. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2005. Print.
Groensteen, Thierry. “Why are Comics Still in Search of Cultural Legitimization?” Comics & Culture: Analytical and Theoretical Approaches to Comics. Ed. Anne Magnussen and Hans-Christian Christiansen. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, University of Copenhagen, 2000. 29-41. Print.
“Harvey Pekar.” Obituaries. The Telegraph, 2010. Web. 5 Mar. 2012.
Jacobs, Dale. “Multimodal Constructions of Self: Autobiographical Comics and the Case of Joe Matt’s Peepshow.” Biography Vol. 31, Number 1, Winter (2008): 74-84. Print.
Kersulov, Michael. “Emotion in the Gutter: The Three Layers of Text in the Autobiographical Graphic Novel.” University of Central Missouri, 2007. United States — Missouri: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT). Web. 6 Mar. 2012.
Lopes, Paul. Demanding Respect. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2009. Print.
Petersen, Robert S. Comics, Manga, and Graphic Novels: A History of Graphic Narratives. Santa Barbara, Denver, Oxford: Praeger, 2011. Print.