What is American Splendor?

From Stephanie Harrison's Introduction:  Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, the team who cowrote and codirected American Splendor (the film), were only vaguely familiar with Pekar's comics when they were approached about the project. When they settled down to read, the two became fascinated by the various artists' incarnations of Pekar and decided to use this shifting perspective as a device. The film intertwines Pekar as played by actor Paul Giamatti, Pekar as cartoon, Pekar as seen on David Letterman's talk show, and Pekar as himself. "It felt appropriate to call attention to the artifice of the filmmaking in American Splendor," Pulcuni says, "because it...[is] in spirit with the character and the rebellious nature of the comic book."

For your blog post please reflect on the filmmakers' approach and the self-reflexive nature of both texts.  How does the stylistic approach of the film (think cinematic tools, too) also help to explore the questions of identity that can be found in Pekar's writing?  Did they capture the "comic book style" in the film as well?  And what about this quote from Pekar himself: "I want to write literature that pushes people into their lives rather than helping them escape...I think the so-called average person often exhibits a great deal of heroism getting through an ordinary day, and yet the reading public takes this heroism for granted." Did you find a hero in Harvey? 

You don't need to answer all those questions - but please use them as jumping off points for your post.

As always a minimum of 300 words for your blog post, due Friday, March 9th.  Please also be sure to comment on TWO other blog posts (and yes, if you check the syllabus there is a min word count of 150 for comments, though I'd be okay with only 100 - I'm looking for QUALITY more than anything) by Tuesday, March 13.