Harvey Lawrence Pekar (born October 8, 1939 in Cleveland, Ohio; pronounced /ˈpiːkɑr/) is an American underground comic book writer best known for his autobiographical American Splendor series . In 2003, the series inspired a critically acclaimed film adaptation of the same name . American Splendor has been illustrated over the years by some of comics' best talents . Pekar's most well-known and longest-running collaborators include Crumb, Gary Dumm, Greg Budgett, Spain Rodriguez, Joe Zabel, Gerry Shamray, Frank Stack, Mark Zingarelli, and Joe Sacco; while recent years have seen him repeatedly team up with artists like Dean Haspiel and Josh Neufeld . Other notable cartoonists who have worked with Pekar include Jim Woodring, Chester Brown, Alison Bechdel, Gilbert Hernandez, Eddie Campbell, David Collier, Drew Friedman, Ho Che Anderson, Rick Geary, Ed Piskor, Hunt Emerson, Bob Fingerman, and Alex Wald; as well as such unexpected illustrators as Pekar's wife Joyce Brabner and legendary comics writer Alan Moore . Still, Harvey loved collecting, and his interests turned to jazz . Through that obsession, he began writing as a critic in 1959, and among his fellow fans was a young Robert Crumb . The critically acclaimed film adaptation of American Splendor was released in 2003, directed by Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman . It featured Paul Giamatti as Pekar, as well as appearances by Pekar himself . Columnist Jaime Wolf wrote a laudatory review of the film in Slate, also drawing attention to formal parallels with Woody Allen's Annie Hall and other Allen films. Pekar wrote about the effects of the film in American Splendor: Our Movie Year. On October 5, 2005, the DC Comics imprint Vertigo released Pekar's autobiographical hardcover The Quitter, with artwork by Dean Haspiel. The book detailed Pekar's early years, and was created in part to reward Haspiel for his role in introducing Pekar to the producers who made the American Splendor movie.[citation needed] .