Harvey Pekar, an American writer of nonfiction comics, died on Monday July 12, 2010, aged 70. Pekar achieved fame with his American Splendor comics series, which he started in 1975.

In spite of his faith in the collaborative storytelling power of comic books, Pekar was not afraid of trying out other channels of expression, including television, the opera and the web. He remained critical of American corporate culture until the end.

Here, I offer an appraisal of Pekar’s work at Nieman Storyboard, a Project of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.