Our Cancer Year

It was the year of Desert Storm that Harvey Pekar and his wife, Joyce Brabner, discovered Harvey had cancer. Pekar, a man who has made a profession out of chronicling the Kafkaesque absurdities of an ordinary life - if any life is ordinary - suddenly found himself incapacitated. But he had a better-than-average chance to beat cancer and he took it - kicking, screaming and complaining all the way. The Pekar/Brabner coalition draws upon this and other trials to paint a portrait of a man beset with fears real and imagined - who survives. Our Cancer Year, Pekar and Brabner`s first book-length comic, is the most human of stories. It is a true and unflinching account of two people battling cancer. But it is also a record of what happened to seven teenagers - young activists from Cambodia and the Middle East, friends of Joyce`s - and two difficult adults, as Operation Desert Shield turned into Operation Desert Storm.