American Splendor is a series of autobiographical comic books and graphic novels written by Harvey Pekar and drawn by a variety of artists. It was adapted into a movie in 2003. Pekar was one of the first writers to believe that everyday real life could be a viable topic for comic books, traditionally the province of fantasy-adventure and other genre stories. He began his series in 1976 while working as a file clerk at a Veteran's Administration hospital in Cleveland, Ohio. Being unable to draw himself, he recruited his friend and underground comics artist Robert Crumb to help create a comics series based on Pekar's own life.
Over the next couple of years, politicians will have to perform a difficult policy U-turn; for, in the long term, they need flexible labour markets. That will mean abolishing job-subsidy programmes, taking away protected workers’ privileges and making it easier for businesses to restructure by laying people off. Countries such as Japan, with two-tier workforces in which an army of temporary workers with few protections toil alongside mollycoddled folk with many, will need to narrow that disparity by making the latter easier to fire.
