Bob and Harv's Comics [Paperback]

Harvey Pekar (Author), Robert Crumb (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 5, 1996

Gathered here are the collected works of the titans of adults comics — legendary underground cartoonist R. Crumb and the "high priest of comic-book naturalism" (Newsweek) Harvey Pekar. The comic collision of these underground luminaries is funny, obsessive, ever-so-slightly neurotic, but always biting and honest.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Both Robert Crumb (Self-Loathing Comics), who defined the underground comics of the 1960s, and Harvey Pekar (Cancer Year), whose autobiographical comic (American Splendor) launched an entire movement in the 1980s, have transformed American alternative comics. Four Walls Eight Windows is releasing Bob & Harv's Comics, a collection of their pithy collaborations (Crumb illustrates Pekar's stories) that also shows how superbly suited they are to interpret each other's work.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Pekar's American Splendor is hands down the best adult comic book and maybe the best comic book, period, in the U.S. It is full of the adventures of Pekar himself--a genuine working-class intellectual, a clerk in a government hospital who on the side writes about jazz, the comics, and authors whose work deserves renewed attention. He writes and storyboards the stories and recruits professional comics artists to draw them. The most famous of these is his longtime friend, Robert Crumb, dean of the 1960s "underground" comics artists and subject of the extravagantly praised documentary film Crumb (1994). The touchstones for the formal qualities and attitudes of these cartoon-illustrated slices-of-life are the stories of such urban impressionists as Grace Paley and Meyer Liben and the films of the French new wave directors, especially Jean-Luc Godard and Eric Rohmer. Pekar and Crumb don't derive from those artists, however; they are their peers. Ray Olson

Product Details

• Paperback: 86 pages
• Publisher: Running Press (November 5, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568581017
• ISBN-13: 978-1568581019
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 0.4 x 10 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #988,974 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars American Splendor, Crumb style May 21, 2003

By Bob Cronin

Format:Paperback

While Harvey Pekar's work on his autobiographical comic "American Spendor" is always interesting, it's at it's best when he is working with his friend and collaborator Robert Crumb. The two met in Cleveland in the 1960's and have been working together and trading records ever since. American Splendor generally features multiple comic artists, but this collection is comprised entirely of stories illustrated by Crumb.

The stories are almost entirely about Pekar's everyday life, his trial and tribulations in Cleveland. He writes about eating dinner, losing a book, exchanges at work or at the market, freeloading friends... in fact, one of the most entertaining segments in this book is a series concerning Freddy, Harv's freeloading pal. The anger he provokes in the admitted cheapskate Pekar is hilarious. There are also several stories where Crumb himself figures as a main character. For those with an interest in Crumb's life and background, there is much to learn in these Harv and Bob stories.

Pekar is an important comic writer and "American Splendor" is definitely worth checking out. For the uninitiated, this book is a good place to start. Crumb has an excellent approach to the material and really brings it to life, giving us a real sense of the people and personalities at work here. His AS covers are also notable. American Splendor fans should realize that much, if not all, of this material appears elsewhere in The Complete Crumb Comics and in the now out-of-print American Splendor Anthologies. Of course, it all originally appeared in the American Splendor comic books, which Pekar self published annually since 1976 and can be difficult to find.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars The material is good, but you may have seen it before February 15, 2007

By A Reader from Chicago

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I am giving it three stars as a warning because of the fact that if you have "The New American Splendor Anthology" and "American Splendor: The Life and Times of Harvey Pekar" you will be wasting your money on this 86 pages of comics you have mostly seen before. And those other two are a much better deal for the money. This book is only good if you want a collection of exclusively Crumb's stuff. You can think of this as being Crumb's stuff drawn from those other two books. Get the other two books instead, unless you love Crumb and hate the other artists.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars H. Pekar + R. Crumb = Genius x 2 April 14, 2008

By Kerry Walters VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

There's simply no doubt that Harvey Pekar and Robert Crumb are two American geniuses. They've known one another since the early 1960s when they both lived in Cleveland. They have much in common: obsessive collectors, music lovers, misanthropes mellowed (to some extent) by age, dependent on strong wives. But they're also quite distinctive.

Pekar is the analyst of the everyday "outside" world. There's absolutely no one better at exploring the quirkiness, wonder, and occasional tragedy embedded in the quotidian. Like a Zen sage, Pekar has the vision to look at the same world the rest of us see and discern the significance that we miss.

Crumb, on the other hand, is the analyst of the "inside" world, that psychic realm that typically remains hidden, certainly from public view but frequently from private view as well, in which all our deepest fears, lusts, hopes, anxieties, and distorted self-images breed. Crumb peels back the protective layers to exhibit his interior, and in doing so invites us to peep at our own.

Pekar, a writer of insight and raw talent, can't draw. So he commissions artists to collaborate on his stories, and one of them is Crumb. This collection pulls together 31 stories put out by the Pekar/Crumb team between 1977 and 1987. They're brilliant.

The material includes 3 "Jack the Bellboy" stories--Jack is Harvey's alter ego. It also has the fantastic "Standing Behind Old Jewish Ladies in Supermarket Lines" story made famous by the "American Splendor" film. What the film doesn't show, however, is the ending to the story, in which Harvey is stunned by the gratuitous kindness of an Old Jewish Lady, causing him to come to a much wiser conclusion than the film allows him. There's the "Young Crumb Story," an account of the Cleveland friendship between Pekar and Crumb before Crumb went off to San Francisco and underground comix fame. Mr. Boats and the assorted street philosophers from the Cleveland VA Hospital make appearances in the collection (Crumb's visual depiction of Mr. Boats is my favorite of all the artists Pekar has had draw him). And for my money, the short vignette called "Mr. Lopes' Gift" reveals Pekar and Crumb at the height of their talents. Truly, it's incredible.

What we need is a book-length critical study of Pekar and Crumb that appreciates their genius. Whoever writes it will be grateful for this collection.