Synopses & Reviews
It was the year of Desert Storm that Harvey Pekar and his wife, Joyce Brabner, discovered Harvey had cancer. Pekar, a man who has made a profession out of chronicling the Kafkaesque absurdities of an ordinary life — if any life is ordinary — suddenly found himself incapacitated. But he had a better-than-average chance to beat cancer and he took it — kicking, screaming and complaining all the way. The Pekar/Brabner coalition draws upon this and other trials to paint a portrait of a man beset with fears real and imagined — who survives. Our Cancer Year, Pekar and Brabner's first book-length comic, is the most human of stories. It is a true and unflinching account of two people battling cancer. But it is also a record of what happened to seven teenagers — young activists from Cambodia and the Middle East, friends of Joyce's — and two difficult adults, as Operation Desert Shield turned into Operation Desert Storm.
Review
"This is the most impressive nonfiction graphic novel since Art Spiegelman's Maus....Stack's fluid line and strong compositional skills...do much to grab and hold us.... Few prose-only cancer survivors' accounts are as good." Booklist
About the Author
Harvey Pekar (1939 - 2010) was an American underground comic book writer, music critic and media personality, best known for his autobiographical American Splendor comic series, illustrated by artists such as Robert Crumb, Frank Stack, and Joe Sacco.In 2003, the series inspired a critically acclaimed film adaptation of the same name. He lived in Cleveland Heights, Ohio with his wife, Joyce Brabner and their foster daughter Danielle.
Joyce Brabner is a writer of political comics and a sometime collaborator with her late husband Harvey Pekar. Brabner is also a liberal social activist, living in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.