Cleveland’s Not-So-Super Hero
- 4 days ago
- 6 min read
Written by Kylee Herrick
Cleveland’s history with the cranky file clerk who called the city home and subsequently transformed the comic narrative.
“Harvey Pekar? That doesn’t sound like a superhero to me.” (“American Splendor,” 2003)
This past summer, Cleveland celebrated as James Gunn’s film, “Superman,” hit theaters and plastered the city on television screens and IMAX theaters. The so-called “Mistake by the Lake” was finally able to bring its superhero back home and see him in recognizable Cleveland locations such as Progressive Field and The Arcade.
But as the days become shorter and the weather more dreary, the realist, anti-Hollywood version of the city appears. So too does Cleveland’s hero, or antihero, and 1970s underground comic king: Harvey Pekar.
Pekar’s life experiences living in Cleveland are well-documented within his famous, autobiographical comic, “American Splendor.” The uglier side of Cleveland – the side not so much like Metropolis – is the city Harvey Pekar manifested in the pages of countless comic books.
The comic series began when Pekar introduced the idea to famous underground comix pioneer, Robert Crumb. Pekar had spent years lulling on the concept of documenting his rather absurd and pessimistic slice of life stories – with Crumb being the one to encourage the pursuit.
Starting in 1976, "American Splendor” would follow Pekar across the neighborhoods of Cleveland. The short stories encapsulated his journeys through multiple marriages, his job as a file clerk, his taste for jazz, and his many anxieties, thoughts and concerns.
If there was one quality to be known about Pekar, it was his brutal honesty and willingness to show the “ugly” facets of life.
Over time, Pekar collected several more artists to provide illustrations for his stories, with an issue coming out around May each year.
In 1986, the publishing company, Doubleday, would create a compiled novel of material from the first ten issues, titled "American Splendor: The Life and Times of Harvey Pekar.” This caused “American Splendor” to rise in prominence and reach a wider audience.
“American Splendor” would be self-published until 1993, notably around the time Pekar was diagnosed with lymphoma.
This was certainly not a step backward for Pekar and the comic series, which was now being published by Dark Horse Comics. After several more issues, themed issues, and collections, a film adaptation began filming in late 2001.
The film, aptly titled “American Splendor,” was written and directed by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini and premiered to wider audiences in 2003.
Berman and Pulcini made the decision to incorporate traditional, fictional storytelling with interviews and interactions with the real-life counterparts of the characters in Pekar’s life. The result was award-nominated acting from stars Paul Giamatti and Hope Davis intertwined with narrative elements from Pekar and those close to him, such as his wife, Joyce Brabner, and his nerdy co-worker, Toby Radloff.
“American Splendor” (2003) was entirely shot in Cleveland and Lakewood, creating an immersive, dismal atmosphere that places the audience within the same neighborhoods which initially birthed “American Splendor.”
The film is directly molded by the comics from which it takes its inspiration, basing its plot off of both “American Splendor” and “Our Cancer Year,” a graphic novel created by Pekar and Brabner that chronicles the trials and tribulations of Pekar’s cancer treatment.
It was received by audiences with high praise, winning the Grand Jury Prize for Dramatic Film at the Sundance Film Festival in 2003, Best Adapted Screenplay by the Writers Guild of America, amongst many other awards.
Never before had Cleveland dominated the big screen. Even the holiday classic, “A Christmas Story,” had not entirely been shot in Cleveland.
A major part of Cleveland State University’s Film & Media Arts program is ensuring that students understand the rich history of film.
“American Splendor” (2003) is one such feature that film students are introduced to, being that it is a paramount aspect of Cleveland’s history as well as the film industry as a whole.
James Denny, a professor in the School of Film & Media Arts, has been including the feature in his own film history curriculum for years.
“It is really uniquely structured,” Denny said. “It's one of the reasons I show it, it's part narrative film, but also part documentary in a way, because it literally cuts to the real Harvey Pekar and back to the actors.”
Denny says that the “magic of movies” are the intricate choices that the film crew makes in order to communicate the world that they want you to see. He believes that Berman and Pulcini achieved this with “American Splendor” (2003) to envelop the viewer within the atmosphere of Cleveland’s East Side in the 1970s.
“Everything fits into this kind of dismal look at this guy who feels pretty dismal,” Denny said. “It sets the tone. It's his character and how he sees the world. It's his lens that we're looking through.”
Cleveland serves as a hub for major films, as its diverse and often historical architecture allows for it to transform into entirely different worlds.
“If you say it's the surface of Mars and you show people a thing of sand, [they] say ‘oh it's the surface of Mars,’” Denny explained. “They've got no idea.”
But tax incentives – or lack thereof – have prevented studios from utilizing Cleveland as a filming location in the past. This has caused productions for certain films to migrate to other cities such as Detroit or Chicago.
“The tax incentives are really a key to trying to keep films here.” Denny said.
Professor Michael Suglio, a film production instructor at CSU, has a strong appreciation for “American Splendor” (2003) and believes it played a major role in Ohio exploring the possibility of a tax incentive to bring more films to Cleveland.
“A few years after ‘American Splendor’ filmed in Cleveland, ‘Spider-Man 3' was shot here, which started the superhero trend of films to be shot in Cleveland.” Suglio said.
Suglio and Denny have strong personal connections to “American Splendor,” forming a deep adoration that only grew stronger as they entered the film industry.
“I knew one of the artists (that worked on the comic), he ran the comic book store in my neighborhood when I was a kid,” Denny remarked, referring to artist Gary Dumm.
Denny’s brother also had an experience in which he, while working at the Cedar Lee Theatre in Cleveland Heights, would meet the real Toby Radloff.
Radloff had gone to the theater several times to watch “American Splendor” (2003) – a testament to the film’s impact.
Suglio’s relationship to the film emerged at an early age.
“I was still in high school when the film was released and I don’t believe the importance of the film hit me at the time,” Suglio said. “It was a few years later that I viewed it on DVD and I was immediately fascinated with Pekar’s life and began reading his comics.”
But it is not simply their personal biases which lead Suglio and Denny to celebrate the film and its legacy.
They believe that telling an inherently Cleveland story of a real, native Clevelander is what makes “American Splendor” (2003) a film that deserves remembrance and recognition.
“It celebrates a true Cleveland artist,” Suglio said. “Pekar was born and died in (this) city and made a big impact on the art of comics.”
A year after the film was released, Pekar published a graphic novel, “American Splendor: Our Movie Year.” The novel served as a memoir, documenting his twelve-month rollercoaster of clerk to red carpet superstar.
Pekar continued to write several spinoff autobiographies, personal essays, and co-edited works alongside other authors. In 2010, in collaboration with the online magazine, “Smith,” Pekar created the webcomic “The Pekar Project.”
His cancer unfortunately attacked him for a third time, and on July 12, 2010, Harvey Pekar passed away in his Cleveland Heights home.
What Pekar would leave behind is an unforgettable mountain of work which inspired artists and writers that believed in the importance of what he had carved out of the comic world. He was the first of his kind, creating a space where the average person could tell their story, regardless if they had laser eyes or super strength.
According to Denny, Pekar’s grave in Lakeview Cemetery remains decorated with heaps of colorful pens left by his devoted fans and thankful Cleveland citizens.