According to a report in Cleveland’s Plains Dealer, Harvey Pekar–the alt-comics icon best known for his graphic novels Our Cancer Year and the docudrama-inspiring American Splendor–was found dead of unknown causes this morning. His longtime wife, Joyce Brabner, discovered Pekar’s body at around 1 a.m. in their Cleveland Heights home. He was 70.
Since details of Pekar’s death are slim at the moment, The Onion‘s A.V. Club shared some of the following classic TV/film clips as a tribute to his work and, well, his genuine brand of not-giving-a-shit what people think about him or his views, even if that person is David Letterman. While the Late Night host doesn’t appreciate Pekar’s prickly opinion of NBC’s parent company, General Electric (“You are terribly impolite,” he says in one interview from 1987), we can certainly appreciate the blunt honesty of one of Cleveland’s most beloved curmudgeons.
