The latest offering from Harvey Pekar (American Splendor, The Quitter) has him branching out in telling of someone else’s story. What can be described as graphic memoir, Ego & Hubris: The Michael Malice Story runs in the same vein as his previous works. It is the tale of Michael Malice, a geeky weakling with a high I.Q. and a personality befitting the title. At times, in fact a lot of times, Malice is jerk-boasting about his superior intelligence, yet is honest.

“I was a brilliant kid. People think that it’s bragging to say you’re brilliant. But if I were the tallest kid, it would be regarded as a mere statement of fact. So I’m not sure why it’s regarded as arrogance when I say I was smarter than everyone. Maybe because so many people think they’re smart when they’re not. I have a 160 I.Q., which is four standard deviations above the mean (or a higher I.Q. than 99.97% of the population), which means that there are 240 people smarter than me in New York City. I just did the calculation, and I’m pretty weirded out by it.”