American Splendor

This paper examines how the use of animation and comic book features are brought into the film, “American Splendor.”

This paper examines how this film uses an original mix of fiction and reality, which illuminates the life of comic book hero and everyman, Harvey Pekar. The paper also discusses the skill of an artist to communicate, focusing on the art of comics.
“How does an artist communicate? In the paintings of the great classical artists, the colors, expressions of their subject’s faces, and the surrounding activities all contributed to a mood and content of the times in which they wrote, as well as their own emotional connection to their painting. During the time of Michelangelo, when the human body was considered an art form his paintings and sculptured were created in fine detail, of beauty and specific realism. At the turn of the 20th century, Artists had a new idea, a new flavor to express in their work. The European art world had been dominated by the Michelangelo, his contemporaries, and his imitators for so long that public sentiment in the art world moved in new directions. In response to, or more aptly in reaction against, Claude Monet shoes a unique style, which communicated the beauty of the content, but in a swirl of dots and colors rather than smooth blended strokes. Impressionist art was suited for Monet, and he established his reputation by departing from the smooth colors blending and undetectable brush stroke of the Renaissance era.”