Harvey Pekar

Underground comic book writer Harvey Pekar and his wife Joyce Brabner. In 1976 Pekar published the first in a series of comic books about his mundane life as a veterans hospital clerk and record collector in Cleveland. It was called American Splendor, and he has continued to publish them since. In 1987 one of them earned him an American Book Award. Now he is the subject of the new film American Splendor which won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival.

An anthology of the self-published comic book series has just been released by Doubleday. Pekar's joins Fresh Air's Terry Gross to talk about writing, jazz criticism, and the changing landscape of comic books.