Monday, December 27, 2004
EGA got me "Our Cancer Year" by Joyce Brabner, Harvey Pekar,and Frank Stack for Christmas. I've been a fan of "American Splendor" for years, and, of course, I loved the movie. This is a different sort of work for Pekar, however. First and foremost, it is a collaboration, and the voice is really two voices. It is also the longest project he has produced-- rather than a collection of interconnected stories, this has the feel of a story that was composed with the intention of having a novelistic scope. Part of the way that this is accomplished is to reference Brabner's work and involvement with refugee children, and Operation Desert Storm, bringing the outside world into what Pekar usually portrays as a more contained universe. The fact that only one artist illustrates this book also gives it a unity that "American Splendor" doesn't typically possess. The effect is interesting: in some ways it softens Pekar-- he comes off here as less of a wiseass, and more like a borderline compulsive personality. Although "American Splendor" has always been notable for its candor, "Our Cancer Year" is less guarded that anything else I've seen from him.
The story is well told, and emotionally involving, and Stack's art is particularly well suited to it. I want to see the movie again, now, but I am more convinced than ever that Pekar's best outlet is his own chosen medium-- he is a remarkable artist, and this is something that I think gets overlooked by reason of the fact that he has chosen to make his subject his ordinary seeming life. There are a lot of books about surviving cancer, but this one is accessible in a way that a lot of the other sorts of things I've read are not.
The story is well told, and emotionally involving, and Stack's art is particularly well suited to it. I want to see the movie again, now, but I am more convinced than ever that Pekar's best outlet is his own chosen medium-- he is a remarkable artist, and this is something that I think gets overlooked by reason of the fact that he has chosen to make his subject his ordinary seeming life. There are a lot of books about surviving cancer, but this one is accessible in a way that a lot of the other sorts of things I've read are not.
// posted by Bill @ 10:51 AM 
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