American Splendor: Unsung Hero [Paperback]

Harvey Pekar (Author), David Collier (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2, 2003

Few authors are able to capture an honest snapshot of everyday life the way Harvey Pekar can. From ruminations on jazz musicians to back problems and traffic tickets, Pekar writes in a clear, unsentimental voice that not only explores the mundane, but celebrates it as well. This time out, Pekar focuses his sharp literary eye on Robert McNeill, an ordinary man who's lived an extraordinary life. McNeill recounts his time spent as a G.I. in Vietnam, on a tour through that surreal and horrific landscape that even now, thirty years later, we're struggling to define. Unsung Hero is a tale of cynicism and endurance, tempered by McNeill's distinct sense of humor and Pekar's touching wit.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Pekar, the dean of autobiographical comics thanks to the long-running American Splendor, is no egoist. He is quite willing to tell someone else's good true story, as this corralling of three recent AS issues confirms. It consists of the Vietnam War recollections of Robert McNeill, one of Pekar's African American coworkers at Cleveland's VA hospital. With his parents' permission, optimistically granted because he was no star in high school, 17-year-old McNeill enlisted in the marines, which meant pretty much immediate service at the front in exchange for early discharge. He saw a lot of action, beginning stateside near Camp Pendleton in California, where crooks regarded young soldiers as disposable marks (a buddy of McNeill's was robbed and killed), but climaxing in several battles "in country." Moreover, there was racial tension in the ranks, and clumsy efforts to stifle black soldiers' solidarity. Glimpsed only while taking down or mutely reacting to McNeill's words, Pekar writes solely in his friend's voice. Collier's blunt-edged, heavy-figured drawing style--like but more massive than those of two of Pekar's preferred collaborators, R. Crumb and Frank Stack--suits McNeill's unpretentious narration about perfectly. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Paperback: 80 pages
• Publisher: Dark Horse (September 2, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1593070403
• ISBN-13: 978-1593070403
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 6.7 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,538,989 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A soldier's story, October 14, 2003

By 

Johnny Heering "trivia buff" (Bethel, CT United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: American Splendor: Unsung Hero (Paperback)

Harvey Pekar has done it again. He tells the story of Robert McNeill, who was a black teenaged Marine in Vietnam. Harvey uses McNeill's own words to convey the frequent horrors, and infrequent pleasures, of being in the Vietnam War. The story is ably illustrated by David Collier in stark black and white. Robert McNeill may have been just another marine, but Harvey Pekar has a gift for making ordinary life seem extraordinary, and he succeeds again here.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars excellent, June 8, 2007

By 

Red Eyes - See all my reviews

This review is from: American Splendor: Unsung Hero (Paperback)

Pekar's early work was outstanding -- and it is good to see that with writing like this, and "Ego and Hubris", he is seeking new ways of expressing his central ideas.

One of his central ideas is intense focus on the everyday, in a kind of Naturalist style, and now he is moving away from recording the inner/outer battles of HIS OWN day to day life -- and looking closer at those around him, other "ordinary" people with stories to tell, in a full length book format.

This is nothing new: Pekar always gave us short, anecdotal one page stories about his workmates -- This book and "Ego and Hubris" differ , however, in that the entire book is devoted to the insights, mistakes,wisdom, saintliness, "devilishness" and foolishness of others, not focussing on Pekar himself at all.

The everyday may be too humdrum, too mundane, too banal for many authors to even consider writing about -- but not for Pekar.

The struggles of every day life, its tragedies, wonders, great characters, annoying characters,high points and low points, are all the very stuff Pekar considers central to a kind of "enlightenment" about the human condition -- In Pekar's literary "universe", bearing with the banal acts as a kind of "opening of doors" to a deeper knowledge of self.

This book concentrates on the life of one of Harvey's workmates, who survived the Vietnam experience. Like many other "ordinary people", society has apparently, considered his experiences to be of little importance,to have little value to speak of.

These are the very people Pekar considers to have something important to say, and the book records the central character's struggles through high school years, onto his mistakes in love, and onto his experiences on the battle field.

A great book in the Chekovian tradition, with a little Raymond Carver influence too, perhaps.

Crumb and Pekar still rule the graphic novel field, as this book shows -- essential reading for readers of short stories and comics everywhere.

Comics have been in decline now for about a decade,recycling old ideas and packaging them as the new, often relying on poor,shallow stories, hiding behind attractive packaging and design.

In the face of such a decline,Harvey just gets better.

In my view, for the LONG TERM readers of Pekar this is a better purchase than "The Quitter", which recycles older ideas from his earlier works.