A Quote by Harvey Pekar

Things improved a little bit in the '80s; there was kind of a revival of alternative comics, but then they went downhill in the '90s. — © Harvey Pekar
Things improved a little bit in the '80s; there was kind of a revival of alternative comics, but then they went downhill in the '90s.
I started off at the high level, in the slick magazines, but they didn't use my name, they used house names. Anyway, then I went downhill to the pulps, then downhill further to the comics.
The '90s were a party, I mean definitely maybe not for the grunge movement, but people were partying harder in the '90s than they were in the '80s. The '90s was Ecstasy, the '80s was yuppies. There was that whole Ecstasy culture. People were having a pretty good time in the '90s.
Right from the outset, the prevailing mindset in British comics fandom was a radical and progressive one. We were all proto-hippies, and we all thought that comics would be greatly improved if everything was a bit psychedelic like Jim Steranko.
I’ve always thought that if comics are a part of pop culture [then] they should reflect pop culture, but a lot of the time comics, superhero comics especially, just feed on themselves. For me, comics should take from every bit of pop culture that they can; they’ve got the same DNA as music and film and TV and fashion and all of these things.
I think you do have to attend to the sort of core values of film, which is that the audience wants to have a relationship with the characters, they want to understand what's going on there. There are certain things that comics can have a little bit more freedom in then when you're asking an audience to engage in it as a piece of cinema, but I do feel like the canvas is much bigger and wider and that we're being invited and frankly challenged to take risks, to be a little bit different. And that's fun, that's exciting.
And about in the late '80s, I got kind of burned out a little bit.
I think you always take away a little bit of a character with you, and it kinda like hangs on you for a bit, and then as time kind of goes and wears off a little bit.
Comedy clubs were something that came to pass in the '80s, but toward the end of that, in the early '90s, people started doing comedy again in alternative spaces.
Comics shouldn't be 'tools' for anyone's agenda except for the characters. And I am speaking only of super hero action comics. I love many of the alternative comics that are like journalistic stories. Documentary comics, a mix of reportage and fiction. Those are just great.
I was born in the late '50s, was a child of the '60s, then the '70s, then the '80s, then the '90s, and I have mental fingers in all those pies.
There's reality shows and things like that and I think 'Parenthood's kind of a throwback to what we used to have back in the '70s, '80s and '90s. People want to see this again, and I feel like it's just a solid, good show.
There's reality shows and things like that and I think 'Parenthood''s kind of a throwback to what we used to have back in the '70s, '80s and '90s. People want to see this again, and I feel like it's just a solid, good show.
I'd say that 98 percent of the bands we've played with through the years have either broken up or are stuck in some kind of '80s revival now.
The 24-hour news cycle is kind of insatiable. Players in the '80s and '90s didn't have to deal with that scrutiny.
I was in band that played mostly covers for a while, and the bands that we would cover were, like, the alternative rock bands of that day: we did a Jane's Addiction song and a Faith No More song. All the kind of alternative radio of that time, the late '80s, basically.
In the '90s, I kind of put aside all those things I loved in the '80s and I got really into watching foreign films and art films and stuff like that, and sort of soaking those up.
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