But of course, she does, because that's just the sort of thing that would happen to Pekar. Those big heartbreaks, as well as the everyday ones, are the stuff of his work, and of the movie. Berman and Pulcini show us the philosophical side of Pekar, but they also make it clear that he hasn't been so busy thinking about his life that he's forgotten to live it. We see Giamatti-as-Pekar trudging to work at his dull but secure job, bellyaching about not being able to meet chicks, rooting around at garage sales seeking out rare jazz sides (he loves the thrill of the hunt but can't resist grumbling that a 50-cent Jay McShann side is overpriced).

Good things happen to Pekar, too: He meets Robert Crumb, who, in the early '60s, worked as a commercial artist at the greeting card company American Greetings, in Cleveland. The two strike up a friendship, and Pekar (who's nothing if not persistent) somehow gets Crumb to illustrate one of the comic-book stories he has already worked out on a sheet of paper with crude stick figures and voice balloons. The comics take off, or rather tunnel off: They're strictly an underground taste. But they do earn Pekar some loyal fans, and they also help him crack his perpetual loneliness -- they're instrumental in hooking him up with Brabner, who begins a mail correspondence with Pekar while she's working as a Delaware comic-book-store clerk (as well as teaching writing classes in prison).

The exoskeleton of "American Splendor" is traditional in its own way: The first half of the movie details Pekar's rise to underground fame and not-so-huge fortune. In the second half, the conflicts get tougher, but Pekar, in his characteristically griping, gloomy way, rises to meet them. We get a glimpse into his contentious-yet-happy marriage, we see clips of his infamous appearances on the David Letterman show (which remind us just what a smirking tool the pre-bypass Letterman used to be) and we get a window into his battle with cancer (which Pekar and Brabner later chronicled in a comic called "Our Cancer Year").

Berman and Pulcini find some innovative but organic ways to tell their story: In a few sequences, live-action segues magically into animation and back again. And most crucially of all, they capture the grumpy humanity of the "American Splendor" comics, which themselves are potently cinematic, though not in an obvious way. In his introduction to a compilation of the comics, Crumb writes about how difficult it is for artists to draw Pekar's characters. "It is a challenging task to draw ordinary people realistically, to give them unique personal qualities in a series of panels," he says. And that's the trick: There are points in the "American Splendor" comics where nothing much changes from panel to panel, other than a character's facial expressions; there are no skyscrapers to leap over or giant webs to sling. Instead, you get stories like this one: We see Pekar engaged in a discussion with his pompous but weirdly wise co-worker, Mr. Boats, about how Pekar, who peddles used pop records to his colleagues as a sideline, never brings him anything good, like Nat King Cole with strings. "I don't have any, Mr. Boats ... I don't run across it," Pekar explains earnestly. But Boats has already turned his back on him, swinging the prow of his bow-tied girth in the other direction, his giant horn-rimmed glasses the most prominent feature on his very large face: "Yeah, you got it ... You're keepin' it at home, though! You won't turn loose the good stuff ... you just sell the junk!"

The exchange is hilarious in the comic, and even funnier in the movie. (Boats is played, to great, rolling, comedic effect, by Earl Billings.) The filmmakers capture the delicate everyday repartee of people who know each other well, and who know how to give each other holy hell for fun. What comes across is how much Pekar likes the people around him, not in spite of their quirks but because of them.

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