Ego and Hubris: The Michael Malice Story

Guest Review by Amber "glych" Greenlee

By: Harvey Pekar (story) and Gary Dumm (art) Publisher: Ballantine Books Price: $19.95 (USD) Purchase Here.

I like Harvey Pekar. Some people don't and I can appreciate that, but I like him. His comics were the first that felt like a letter to me. With descriptions and structure of thought. It's like looking through a window into his life with all the little annoyances and wonder that he perceives. He does perceive wonder, too, if you really read his work. It's hidden between the doubts and worries of an everyman put on paper. Ego and Hubris : The Michael Malice Story is one such book filled with both. It starts out on page one with Malice, an aquaintance of Pekar's, introducing himself which leads to an entire book that's a single monologue cataloging his life into little time frames. At first, Malice seems cocky, over confident and rude. He first describes a modest upbringing into a home of immigrants from Russia. Everything at first seemed normal here. Later on, though when describing his relationship with them, it gets twisted and strange. Part of me wonders if all of this is just some fabrication of this guy's imagination while another part of me is thrilled to see where it goes next.

Everything is like that in the book. All of Malice's descriptions, from the ignorant teachers he's met over a career of schooling to the two-faced co-workers he was fed up with, point the direction at the fault being someone elses. He barely takes credit for anything negative in his life that could ever possibly be his doing. At first, I hate this guy. I'm debating whether I want to just put down the book for a bit or keep reading since I'm still intrigued even if I am put off. But, no, I thought. I trust Harvey. So I continued.

My diligence paid off. Malice is a hard guy. He's hard to know, hard to impress, hard to out think (very high I.Q.) and hard towards the world. There's very little softness in his soul... But it's that hardness, shaped from his upbringing and apathy towards the world around him, which defines him. He knows what he is every day of his life. I re-read several earlier pages then with this newly discovered confidence in him in the back of my mind, and realized this wasn't a self-serving monologue. It was a hero epic told as if in a bar room. A dialogue of one man telling a story.

I imagined a hero of myth like Hercules or Gilgamesh sharing a drink with a friend and retelling old stories like this guy is retelling the events of his life. I'm not much of a superhero reader myself, but if Harvey ever wrote, say, Superman I would buy every issue.

That was when Michael Malice really came alive to me in Pekar's writing. It was the first time I could hear him in my mind's ear. And then Pekar reminded me what a bastard he was.

Page 119, Panel 2: Malice says to a security guard who had almost stopped him from entering a building until he was cleared by a supervisor: "Then let me explain something to you. There's a reason why some people work upstairs and some people work the door."

A guy you love to hate. Hero story?...Naw, it has more of a "Villian's Side of the Story" feel. Yep. It's official Michael Malice is a villian...

And he's a darn good one.

Amber "glych" Greenlee

Comment on the Forums.