I was in the airport bookstore, looking for something to pass the time on the plane with. Sure, I had brought some things to read and had my iPod all charged up, but sometimes I like to treat myself to the simple extravagance of a brand-new book.

The typical half-dozen options presented themselves to me and I wasn't overwhelmed by any of them (having finally learned my lesson of not reading Murakami when I want to feel happy anytime during the next few days) until I walked past the counter. A collected volume of American Splendor caught my eye.

I had been only vaguely familiar with the comic before the movie came out. The movie sounded intriguing, and got reviews at least as positive as Crumb, which I enjoyed. After hearing a Fresh Air interview or two I thought the movie sounded very interesting, although I wanted to read the comics at some point. Here was my opportunity! It was also exciting just to see a comic getting such nice placement in a general bookstore.

The book (and movie) used the tagline "Ordinary Life is Pretty Complex Stuff" which is an interesting mix of a concept that wants to be profound expressed in particularly mundane, unrefined language. Which seemed to be consistent with my expectation of the comic - an examination of an ordinary person's life, paying attention to the everyday details that are usually overlooked by people telling stories.

This volume collects two prior collected editions of American Splendor, with art by various artists. The collection is entirely short stories, with a few recurring characters and themes but no real overall structure. Because life doesn't have an overall structure, right?

Most of the stories are scenes from Harvey's life, although a few are retellings of other people's stories as told (or overheard) to Harvey. Few of the stories seem to take advantage of the medium, and a few pages are entirely shots of Harvey with no backgrounds. Monologues are really difficult to make into exciting comics, I guess.

After reading through more and more of the stories, though, I realized that it wasn't really the artists fault - it was frequently the content of the monologues that made the story uninteresting. Often Mr. Pekar seems to feel the need to end the story by explaining his purpose in writing it. "I hope that men and women who have been in positions like mine realize that they're not alone and take some comfort from it" or "So I sublimated by writing this story... That's about what I can do when things bother me - write stories about them..."

The scenes where we get to see the actual conversations between Harvey and his friends are often interesting, almost like eavesdropping. But it is difficult to give yourself over to the story when the narrator talks to the reader in this way.

If the author wants to break the typical narrative convention of showing us what happens so we can make our own conclusions and instead wants to tell us what we should be taking away from the story they need to have a significant enough message to overcome the discomfort the reader feels. I felt like few of the stories in this collection overcame that problem, which gave the book a slightly preachy quality.

I can see why the comic was something that people wanted to turn into a movie, though, because it does contain so many interesting little interactions between people, the kinds of scenes that movies include to make them feel real, or to give the characters more depth. (The "Big Mac" scene in Pulp Fiction being a classic recent example) Lots of the scenes from his workplace caught my attention in this way.

I don't think these scenes add up to making this a really classic comic, however. It has historical significance for helping people to broaden their ideas about what can be done in comic form (for better or worse!) and is an entertaining read for the most part, but it is not the first autobiographical comic I would recommend to most people.