Sad to hear that Harvey Pekar has died. I first remember coming across him in the 'Harvey Sez' column in some reprints of Weirdo, when I was about fifteen or sixteen. Since then, I've read tons of his stuff (and taken in the excellent film of 'American Splendor' of course).
There's a real sea of autobiographical comics around, and the majority of them are introspective twaddle. Yet another illustration student talking about yet another unrequited crush? Boring.
Pekar could certainly be self-obsessed, but he was obsessed with the other characters in his life, too. It made you care, and it's what made his writing so interesting.
(c) elliot elam 2016. Except the bits that aren't mine, of course (usually the stuff in the 'images i like' section). All of that is copyright of the respective artists.