Rick Parker illustrates the Pekar Project family

This Saturday & Sunday 11/7 & 11/8, Harvey Pekar makes a rare convention appearance, at KING CON BROOKLYN with the full Pekar Project “band” including artists Tara Seibel, Rick Parker, Sean Pryor, Joseph Remnant. On Saturday, Harvey takes the stage for a discussion with the team. Harvey & the artists will also be doing signings on both days, and the artists will draw FREE Harvey Heads all weekend at the Pekar Project table. Available at King Con will be Royal Flush 6 with a story by Harvey & Sean Pryor as well as a new mini-comic by Tara Seibel including solo as well as Pekar Project work. Read the rest of this entry »

From ROYAL FLUSH Book 6

“Let’s send Harvey some metal and punk CDs to review! That’ll get a rise outta him,” schemed Royal Flush Magazine editor-in-chief Josh Bernstein and I, hoping to fulfill the fantasy of Flush illustrator and major Harvey Head (not to be confused with the Harvey Heads) Sean Pryor, who was rearin’ to draw a Pekar story. So Harvey wrote a script about his relationship to rock and as you can see in the comic below, Sean slaughtered it eight ways to Albuquerque. When Harvey got the pencils from Sean, he was so energized by the dynamic draftsmanship we immediately drafted him into the Pekar Project, for which he’s drawn two stories to date, “Searchin’” and “Jungle Music.”

Big thanks to Royal Flush Magazine for providing the Pekar Project with an exclusive online presentation of the full 4-page“Gauntlet of Rock,” comic written by Harvey Pekar & drawn by Sean Pryor. The story appears in glorious full color print in the new Royal Flush Book 6 which is a maximalist melange of rock, art, humor, pop culture & comics and is on sale now. Read the full comic after the break:

Read the rest of this entry »

Michael Malice by Sean Pryor

When people ask me why Harvey Pekar wrote a book about me, my answer depends on my mood that day. If I’m glib, I tell them it’s because “he finally met a Jew with a more negative outlook than his own.” If I’m feeling smarmy, I say “it’s about growing up with a famous dad.” (“Who was your dad?” “Count Chocula.”) And if I’m being pretentious, I explain, “It’s the story of a boy who thought he was better than everyone else—and was.” Should I ever experience a fourth mood, I suppose I’d need a fourth answer—but those three have been adequate for the 3 years since Ego & Hubris: The Michael Malice Story.
Read the rest of this entry »

Jeff Smith

To toast Harvey’s 70th birthday, the Pekar Project posse blew the horn to assemble a surprise gallery of freshly-drawn Harvey Heads. Our magic number was, naturally, 70, but so many artists heeded the call that we’re now at 90+ noggins—and the heads keep rolling in. Stroll through this illustrated salute to a beloved American original, and join us in wishing Harvey Pekar a very happy birthday. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo by Brian Heater

On Friday October 2, the full Pekar Project “band” + special extended-Pekarverse guests “genuine nerd” Toby Radloff and “piece of work” Michael Malice assembled in Cleveland for the launch of the Pekar Project exhibition at The Pennello Gallery and to toast Harvey’s 70th birthday (October 8). Brian Heater of The Daily Crosshatch shows and tells all with aplomb in his recap of that that evening, as well as the next day’s Harvey-guided Cleveland tour. Below is one of many videos shot by Bryan. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo by Seth Kushner

On February 17, 2009, Harvey Pekar made a rare NYC appearance, jam-packing the YIVO Institute for Jewish Studies amphitheater for an interview conducted by comics scholar Danny Fingeroth. To properly document our man and produce some future Pekar Project special goodies, SMITH brought two ringers backstage pre-show, the kookycool Josh McCutchen who covers NYC events on his eponymously named internet TV show and master portrait photographer Seth Kushner.
Read the rest of this entry »

This week, the Pekar Project presents three new Harvey Pekar stories: “Legendary Vienna,” a lecture on Austria-Hungarian Jewish geography Crumbishly illustrated by Joseph Remnant and guest-starring yours truly as the lectured one; “Da Vinci for Dummies” a DIS-sertation on the Mona Lisa jazzily-drawn and impressionisticaly-colored by Tara Seibel; and “Zen Comics” a goofy epiphony extra-crisply rendered by Rick Parker. Read the rest of this entry »

Duke Ellington by Tara Seibel

In addition to writing comics, Harvey’s been a jazz critic since 1959 starting with The Jazz Review, which was his “favorite jazz magazine of all time and short-lived.” He’s also written hundreds of articles for Jazz Times, DownBeat, The Village Voice, as well as liner notes for Verve and other labels. Here, for The Pekar Project’s first special feature (comics run every other Monday with “extra” in between) Harvey offers his list of “a top ten, not the top ten” jazz innovators, his reasons for choosing them, and an album recommendation. As a bonus, Tara Seibel and Sean Pryor, two Pekar Project artists, drew portraits just for this piece. Read the rest of this entry »

Hi. My name is Tara Seibel and I bet you’re wondering how I wound up working with Harvey. My husband spotted an ad in the Cleveland Plain Dealer that Harvey Pekar was going to be speaking at Lakeland College about The Quitter, his new graphic novel. When I got there, all seats were taken except for the one next to Harvey so I asked if I could sit next to him. He said “Sure, take a seat.” I started to chat his head off and even made our man chuckle. I think he was impressed with how much I knew about him and American Splendor. He asked where I live and what I do, so I told him I was an illustrator who just moved back into town from Chicago. He said, “Oh yeah? I could take a look at your work and maybe hook you up.” So he wrote his number on a copy of a Funny Times paper and told me to call him.
Read the rest of this entry »