AMERICAN SPLENDOR is an engaging adaptation of the autobiographical comic books written by working-class intellectual and hospital file clerk Harvey Pekar (Giametti & himself). After a chance meeting with Robert Crumb (Urbaniak), Harvey decides to turn his unremarkable everyday life into a comic series: his obsession with books and old jazz, his nerdy workmates and slovenly housekeeping. One catch: Harv can’t draw… The film’s inventive structure intermingles fiction and documentary, animation, actors playing real people and the people themselves, set to a jazzy soundtrack. The result is a perfect reflection of the original’s smart and sardonic attitude and a deserved winner of the 2003 Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.