Pekar narrated the film and offers comments - as do his friends and family - in documentary footage shot in the studio and inserted into the film they also are portrayed by actors who sometimes appear alongside them. He began to vent his frustrations on paper and,developed a cult following, including Brabner, a comic-book store clerk who corresponded with him, visited him in Cleveland and stayed to marry him. Pekar was a file clerk at the Veterans Administration and a misanthrope, with plenty of opinions and observations but no way to express himself. In 2004, co-directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, turned Pekar''s work into the film 'American Splendor,' starring Paul Giamatti. It was an innovative hybrid of documentary and drama. When I talked to Pekar's wife Joyce Brabner, she was extremely bitter about the Letterman experience calling Pekar's visits to the show 'like spending time with an unpleasant relative who may leave you something.' See my 1994 interview with Brabner below, in connection with the release of 'Our Cancer Year,' a comic about Pekar's battle with cancer. I became aware of him because of his appearances on David Letterman's NBC show, during which the pair acted like two people who didn''t like each other. Apparently they weren't acting. I never met the curmudgeonly Cleveland comic book writer Harvey Pekar, but I had occasion to write about him.

Harvey pekar our cancer year