mirren_pekar.jpg
Classy lady!

Helen also commented on the late Harvey Pekar by wearing a shirt with his name. “It was a great graphic artist and I want to salute him today,” she said.

1 COMMENT

  1. Ohh I could be really pedantic here and say that Harvey Pekar never actually drew anything, and so wasn’t technically a “graphic artist” but more of a “graphic novelist” — but I won’t.

  2. Ah, but you did. But everyone is thinking it anyway. And it’s Helen’s good intentions that count in the end. :)

  3. And the “it”, well, okay, Pekar was a “he”.

    But Mirren is so well known and well spoken that her well meaning comment in itself probably caused a surge in sales of Pekar’s books to the general public.

  4. I think her manager handed her the shirt and said, “Here…put this on. These people will eat it up.”. Sort of a geek cred thing. She obviously knew nothing about Pekar and his work. And WTF? “It”?

  5. Geek cred:
    * Voice of “Deep Thought” in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
    * Red (based on a GN)
    * Inkheart
    * The Twilight Zone (“Dead Woman’s Shoes)
    * 2010
    * Excalibur (nominated for a Saturn)

    (And as a film geek, she’s in two amazing casts: Caligula, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.)

  6. Which makes her wearing of a Pekar shirt all the more unnecessary. Really….does it seem like she’s familiar with the guy’s work? If she was, she’d know he wasn’t a “graphic artist”.

    Speaking of graphic artists, I can tell you one did NOT design that Pekar shirt. Comic Sans wouldn’t be used for a garage sale sign, much less a tribute/memorial piece.

  7. No, I don’t think it was calculated. I think it was more a spur of the moment thing (possibly a manager) who said “here, wear this”. It just seems silly for someone of her stature memorializing someone whose work she’s obviously not that familiar with.

  8. From Starpulse.com:
    “Mirren even sported comic related wardrobe. She wore a T-shirt in tribute of the late Harvey Pekar, author of American Splendor. She designed the shirt herself online and had it made for the convention.

    “I’m wearing a t-shirt in [tribute] to Harvey Pekar who I thought was a great, great artist. I thought it was all about comic book heroes and boys kind of stuff. He revealed the fact that a graphic novel could be as deep, complex, personal and psychological as any other work of art: novel, movie, painting, anything. So I think that this world, I think it’s really exciting to see it burgeoning and expanding and changing as it goes into a real total art form. I think we’re at a very exciting point in the whole era, the whole ether, the whole development of comic books. I’m fascinated to see where it’s going to be in another 20 years.””

  9. I stand corrected! Thanks for the additional info, Torsten. She obviously IS a fan….though I still wonder why she characterized him as a graphic artist.

    That also explains the use of Comic Sans!

  10. I’m assuming she just meant it in terms of an artist using a graphical medium. The phrasing is a bit off, clearly.