Jeff “Jahfurry” Newelt announced today that SMITH Magazine will be doing online, every-other-week Harvey Pekar comics, titled The Pekar Project. I never thought I’d see the day that Pekar would even know how to access the Internet, but it looks like today is that day. From the announcement, courtesy of the good Sir Mr. Newelt:
We’re starting the series off with a single story illustrated by newcomer Tara Seibel. Tara is a new also-Cleveland-based collaborator of Harvey’s; she has a totally unique avant-garde design/color driven style that Harvey is having a ball writing stories for. This first one is an illustrated phone call between Harvey and his pal / collaborator underground comix legend Robert Crumb! –Lots of imagery to play with there, so Tara goes to town. To get the site rolling we started off with the classic Pekar/Crumb teamup with a new twist (drawn by Tara) and the next installment will be four short stories, one illustrated by each of the four Pekar Project artists.
The Pekar Project is new comics every other week, and on the “non-comics” weeks we’re going to have heavy-duty blog features, like new interviews with Harvey, unseen behind-the-scenes art from Harvey’s collaborators, essays by Harvey himself, interviews with the artists, profiles / exclusive excerpts of upcoming Pekar books, etc.
Newelt goes on to mention that the American Splendor creator will actually be on TWITTER. I think Hell has officially frozen over, because that is LITERALLY something I thought I’d never see happen.
The first webcomic hit the intertubes this morning. Drawn by Cleveland local Tara Seibel, this story chronicles Harvey and longtime Splendor collaborator Robert Crumb talking art in general. According to the comic, Harvey was contracted to write the Libretto for “Leave Me Alone!” the jazz opera by Dan Plonsey, and he didn’t know the first thing about it, so he talked to Crumb. The conversation between the two was recorded and played during the opera, and reproduced for us by Smith.
I have to say that my Pekar addiction can be fulfilled on a regular basis is just a fantastic way to start off the week.
