American Splendor
We watched a good chunk of American Splendor in class today. Your thoughts so far? Why is Harvey Pekar relevant subject matter for a comic book? For a film?
posted by Trevor Dodge @ 1:23 PM
Virtual think & type-out-loud space for Literature Seminar: Illuminated Manuscripts
posted by Trevor Dodge @ 1:23 PM
3 Comments:
At 5:25 PM,
Anonymous said…
he's all of us in one way or another. it brings the 'hero' to the mundane, over-looked aspects in each of us. harvey taps into the parts that make us up -mostly the not so great ones and basically brings to light that 'it is what it is...'
--addressing loneliness, human connection (or lack there of), working a job that you hate or that doesn't interest you in any way other than finding entertainment in the personalities of your co-workers stuck in the same dead end, and mostly just getting through life's day to day existence -that can be incredibly tedious and frustrating if continued living in the vacuum. (which we all do...by the way)
oh yeah, this is stephanie party
At 4:47 PM,
Anonymous said…
Mcloud introduced the concept concept of using iconic images to urge the reader to put his or her self in the position of the character; this technique requires the use of an aesthetically ambiguous character (ie. the stick figure). American Splendor, the comic or the movie, takes a different approach. Rather than using the stick figure in all of us to pull us into the story, it uses the Harvey Pekar that resides somewhere in each of us.
Part of what makes a successful movie or comic is its ability to draw the viewers out of their own reality and into another one, this doesn't stop at creating another reality for the viewer to experience, but to create some link, some frame of reference for the viewers to attach themselves to. In fact, American Spleandor does very little in the way of creating a new and interesting reality, what it does is apply a new frame of reference for us to look through and something, whether it is sympathy, humor or our urge to express our inner cynic begs us to use it.
At 9:30 PM,
Anonymous said…
I think that part of what's interesting about Harvey is his total shamelessness--his life is nothing like the lives of most comic heroes, but he records and shares it, in one issue after another. And it's so well accepted because it's so truthful. Everyone can identify with Harvey in some way because his reality is not so far off from our own. Most of us, though, would have a hard time exposing ourselves with as much honesty.
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