I didn't see this coming at all. Harvey Pekar - author of American Splendor - has died. It was a unique comic which deliberately chronicled the mundane aspects of life.
He reached a wider audience through the American Splendor movie in 2003. In June this year, Dougie Anderson wrote an article showing how a non-comics reader came to appreciate Pekar's work. Have a read here.To get an idea of where Pekar was coming from, here is an interview from April 2010.
His influence on comics is profound, if subtle. Pekar was never shouting, and he could all too easily be overlooked, or disregarded after one reading. The effect of his stories has been cumulative - his tenacity meant that he amassed a sizeable body of work that did shape what succeeding generations of cartoonists thought was possible.
The world of comics is a poorer place now he's gone.
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