10 Best Movies Based On Dark Horse Comics

Here’s irony for you: in American Splendor, Paul Giamatti plays real-life comic book creator Harvey Pekar, whose strips chronicle his frustration at the drudgery of life as well as his disappointment at not being taken seriously despite turning his back on “phony bulsh*t” superhero comics. A decade later, Giamatti appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and….enough said.

“Ordinary life is pretty complex stuff,” Pekar says at one point, and that’s this movie in a nutshell: it’s all about the minutiae of living, from choosing the right supermarket check-out lane (so you don’t get stuck behind the complaining housewife) to befriending an overweight loner who once drove 260 miles to see Revenge Of The Nerds because he identified with the characters.

The filmmakers mix footage of the real-life characters with dramatization, leading to sequences where Pekar comments in voice-over how Giamatti looks nothing like him. Despite its meagre budget and lack of effects shots, this could be the most meta comic book adaptation of all time.