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Title: The Quitter
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| CONSUMER ADVICE |
Parents, there is some street-fighting violence and some sexual innuendo, and believe me, there are better comic book memoirs than this. Stick to Persepolis and Maus. For people who liked Persepolis and Maus, I would say don’t bother with this one. It’s not terrible, but it just isn’t a story. Action fans, there are some fight scenes, but they are hampered by unnecessary captions and are all in grey tone. Like my advice to Persepolis and Maus fans, don’t bother. . |
I have no idea how to start this review. I thought up several beginnings- oh, wait. I have one. There was once a PVP comic strip where Skull, a troll, was asking a guy named Brent to look at his comics. Brent said, “You suck,” and suggested that Skull try to become an underground comic book artist instead of trying to go mainstream. (Scott Kurtz, the author of PVP, was making a derogatory statement about underground comics.) The Quitter isn’t as bad as Skull’s attempt at comics, but it makes you wonder if this book is just trying to jump on the boat with the other great comic book memoirs. Everyone’s life is interesting, but you can write your autobiography any time in prose. The difference is whether you can make your life appear interesting enough on paper to keep the readers hooked. The best autobiographies that I have read (Stephen King’s On Writing and Yo-Yo Strings by Jerry Spinelli) not only talk about fascinating events in the authors’ lives, but also have exciting writing styles and paces that keep you reading. With comics it’s the same. You have to actually tell a story; otherwise readers get disinterested.
You also have to have an art style that complements the story. Maus had the Jewish people as mice, Polish people as pigs, and Nazis as cats, which was a GREAT visual reference. Persepolis had a cartoon appearance that, although not downplaying the depressing elements of the story, managed to convey the correct balance of humor, shock, and melancholy of Marjane Satrapi’s life. Technically, however, the artwork in The Quitter isn’t bad. It has detailed backgrounds, good character designs, and well-choreographed art scenes. But it only illustrates the story and, in my opinion, showing the protagonist grow from a young boy to an old man should have more transition than it did. It didn’t help that there was a lot of grey tone that makes you wonder if the story was in color to begin with. What was the point of the grey tone? Was it to show how depressing and dull life is? Was it to distort the vision of the reader? If it was the latter, then at least I know that I’m not the only one who sometimes couldn’t tell girls apart at least.
Whose life is the focus of The Quitter anyway? I’ve never heard of him, but his name is Harvey Pekar, author of the American Splendor comics. I haven’t even heard of American Splendor, so I had no idea why this guy was choosing to write about himself. But honestly, he’s not one of the greatest people judging from his autobiography, nor the most interesting even though he’s done interesting things. Like I said, a good autobiography needs good execution. Pekar used to be the only white kid in a black neighborhood, which resulted in the reverse of racial dynamics that we Americans believe the sixties to have had. Yet while I was reading this I was thinking, “Big whoop. What do you want, an apology?” The grey tones only dull the action. And yes, there is action or at the least a well-intended attempt at it. Pekar was trying to build a career in street fighting after quitting sports while he was still a teenager. BOOORING. Even stuff like blood seems to only be there for props. Apparently he didn’t let the action dictate those scenes and instead gave blow-by-blow accounts of the fights in captions. The only part I can remember as particularly interesting was why Harvey quit sports. He made it on the football team, but he never actually played because his coach was also his chemistry teacher and knew that he goofed off. I could relate to that. I also was fascinated by his career as a jazz reviewer. But these were two scenes out of the whole book.
My biggest complaint, however, is that we don’t really get to know about the world that Pekar lived in. Not about his neighborhood, per se, but more about his family and his friends as well as the politics of the world. Granted, Stephen King didn’t talk about his personal involvement in antiwar protest when he was in college as a school newspaper columnist, but he had an excuse because that part of his book was supposed to show how he was growing into his role as a writer. Also, he DID write about his mother Ruth as well as his genius brother Dave. We got an idea at the least of what they were like. In The Quitter we can only trust the captions to tell us about Harvey Pekar’s family. Even when they do get dialog they seem to be coming from the author’s mouth than from their own. I’m not going to even bother making the comparisons to Persepolis and Maus. If the comparisons haven’t bored you by now, then it will sooner or later.
Pekar also doesn’t show himself as one of the most likable guys in the world; in fact, he seems like an insecure loser who can’t do anything constructive in life without quitting once it gets hard. Case in point: he talks of how he enrolled in a college, but dropped out his second year because he got a C+ in one class where it was mainly memorization. If I had known him them, I’d have brought him to a school counselor or a therapist who would give him a discount for one session. But here I’m not going to let him cry on my shoulder. He can do that with his wife and kids. If Stephen King can make himself seem sympathetic even though he became an alcoholic and a druggie for several years while getting famous, then it should be no trouble for Pekar. There’s a balance between an unlikable person and a perfect angel. How can Pekar not find it? I’m not in a bad mood. This is my true opinion. How come Pekar skims over the finer details of his life? How come he doesn’t go into his friendship with the famous Robert Crumb, or of his writing American Splendor? Actually, how come he skims over that whole part of his life while writing that? He only talks about how the fame shocked him. How come he never talked about what he saw in his wife other than a good body in order to date her? Or about his daughters? If these details are too personal, then why he is writing this comic book in the first place? What is his point? Did Vertigo just come up to him and say, “Gee, Harvey, we hear you’re a great comic book writer. Why don’t you tell us a little about yourself? It’ll help pay your bills”? If they did, then I’m not surprised. I could write a better memoir than this and I haven’t been published yet!
Actually, why did Vertigo decide to publish The Quitter? I find it odd. Consider that Vertigo’s the branch of DC Comics that published Sandman and Watchmen. Since when did DC get interested in comic book memoirs? Was it they who thought they could make a profit out of yet another comic autobiography that’s supposed to be a masterpiece? Probably. But why did they choose Vertigo? Sure, they don’t have war comics anymore or a division of realistic comics in their company, but I’m sure it wouldn’t have been a trouble to just label it DC. Random House publishes novels, yet it distributed Persepolis under its name. This graphic novel gives a bad name to the distributor of DC’s classic fantasy stories. Right now I’m going to look at the grading system of the site and see what grade would fit best. Hmm, better skip the first page, that’s all A’s and B’s. Previously I was considering a C-, but honestly, there’s nothing worth reading in here. I’m going to have to go with D+. I mean, come on. How hard can it be to write about your own life and make it interesting? It’s like even Pekar was bored with his life and himself. My advice is “Dude, get a life. And while you’re at it, write about yourself. What I mean by ‘write about yourself’ is that you actually do something that is meaningful to you can convey your feelings in a way that they connect to the reader.”
- -Review By Jaya Lakshmi - -