Harvey Pekar, best known for his autobiographical American Splendor comic book series, has opted to record the story of someone else for his latest work, Macedonia. Illustrated by artist Ed Piskor, Macedonia is a nonfiction account of Heather Roberson, a college student and peace studies major, who travels to Macedonia to learn how the country managed to avoid the violent ethnic conflict that plagues the other successor countries to Yugoslavia.
Villard Books, a Random House imprint, will publish Macedonia as a trade paperback original in July.
"I didn't know too much about Macedonia," Harvey Pekar, now 67, admitted in a phone interview with PW Comics Week. "It's never gotten any kind of attention in the news. Heather brought me up to speed about what's going on there right now." What's most notable about the country is what didn't happen there: civil war.
"Very few people know about Macedonia and how a war was prevented from starting. I guess because war is so much easier to report on," acknowledges Roberson, now a New York City-based adviser to war prevention NGOs in Macedonia. "I want to raise awareness about this success."
Bordering well-publicized conflicts in Kosovo and Bosnia, Macedonia was able to quietly avoid war, despite a long history of ethnic discord, through the intervention of the United Nations. How and why that happened gave Roberson, a peace studies major at the University of California at Berkeley (and also credited as Pekar's co-writer), the inspiration for her senior thesis and for the graphic nonfiction work that followed. The story unfolds as Roberson leaves America to study the complex web of national and international interventions that calmed the fires of ethnic conflict in Macedonia.
While detailing the rich (and often bloody) historical record of the region, the 160-page black and white work of graphic nonfiction also highlights the difficulties a young American woman has traveling abroad. While avoiding outright conflict, Macedonia is still a society crisscrossed by barely concealed ethnic animosity and suspicions. Roberson is routinely warned not to visit parts of the country (she goes anyway) and is occasionally accused of being a spy. Young and attractive, she is also harassed by young men as she travels, very often to comedic effect.
The book project grew out of a chance encounter in Columbia, Mo., while Pekar was promoting the critically acclaimed film American Splendor, based on his life and comic book series. While there, Pekar met Heather Roberson, and they agreed to collaborate on a nonfiction comics work based on her travels exploring the roots of peace in Macedonia.
Describing the process of writing, Pekar said, "Normally when I write about somebody, I have to interview them, and it takes a while." Roberson greatly assisted the effort by handing over an extensive pile of notes amassed during her trip. "She was very easy to work with, and we're still friends," Pekar said. Roberson was also generous in her praise of Pekar. "It was one of the best working relationships I've ever had," she said.
Pekar's initial interviews gave way to follow-up phone calls, then his preliminary sketches were created and submitted to Pekar's editor Chris Schluep. Once a page passed muster, the sketches were passed on to artist Ed Piskor. A young cartoonist operating out of Pittsburgh, Piskor has worked with Pekar before on stories for American Splendor.
Roberson said she hoped that people who read the book will learn "there are ways to prevent war and conflict without violence. It's completely possible." Pekar had much to say about the creative possibilities of using comics to examine the roots of war and peace. "If wars are averted, nobody seems to give a damn," said Pekar. "In this book, I'm really interested in expanding the boundaries of comics to deal with the issue of war, or the lack of war, in a different way."
