One of Harvey Pekar’s Final Interviews Released Online [Audio]

Almost two years after his death, audio from what may be the final interview from comics icon Harvey Pekar has appeared online. Conducted over Skype as part of a series of interviews about the creative process for TrickCoin, the newly released conversation gives an insight into Pekar's prolific workflow up until a month before he passed.

The first seven minutes of Pekar's conversation with Frank Young have been released online by TrickCoin's Jim Gill, who explained that the conversation -- in which Pekar comes across as humble and charming as he did in his work, if slightly more polite and less misanthropic -- was recorded as part of a series of articles about the processes of comic creators. Among the talking points are Pekar's approach to breakdowns, self-editing, collaborating with artists and his sources of inspiration. He can also be heard telling his wife Joyce Brabner that he has to take a break from cleaning their house to take the interview call, which plays out much like a scene from American Splendor.

Pekar -- whose American Splendor featured his autobiographical stories as illustrated by an army of artists including Robert Crumb, Spain Rodriguez, Dean Haspiel, Gilbert Hernandez and even Alan Moore -- died on July 12, 2010 from an accidental overdose of antidepressants. He was working right up until his death, with projects released posthumously including Huntington, West Virginia, a book about his experiences promoting the 2003 movie version of American Splendor, and Harvey and Joyce's Big Book of Marriage, co-written by Brabner.