{"id":32284,"date":"2025-02-23T09:01:55","date_gmt":"2025-02-23T09:01:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=32284"},"modified":"2025-02-21T17:55:24","modified_gmt":"2025-02-21T17:55:24","slug":"explainers-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2025\/02\/23\/explainers-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Explainers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nBy Jules Feiffer<\/strong> (Fantagraphics Books)
\nISBN: 978-1-56097-835-0 (HB)<\/p>\n

This book includes some Discriminatory Content<\/strong> included for comedic and dramatic effect.<\/em><\/p>\n

In January this year we lost one of the few remaining titans of our industry and art form. Bronx-born Jules Ralph Feiffer (January 26th<\/sup> 1929 – January 17th<\/sup> 2025) was always far more than \u201cjust a comic-book guy\u201d, even though his credits in the field are astonishingly impressive. Feiffer wrote upwards of 35 books, plays, and screenplays and was frequently cited as the most widely read satirist in America. His creative credits extend far beyond the world of print. Feiffer was one of the playwrights on stage revue Oh! Calcutta!<\/strong> (collaborating with Kenneth Tynan, Edna O\u2019Brien, Sam Shepard, Leonard Melfi, Samuel Beckett & John Lennon) and has created 35 plays, books and screenplays including Carnal Knowledge<\/strong> and Little Murders<\/strong>. In 1961 his animated trenchant antiwar short feature Munro<\/strong> won an Academy Award.<\/p>\n

In our isolated, outlier field, Feiffer began his career working for and with Will Eisner on The Spirit<\/strong> and other comics features, before creating his own Sunday strip Clifford<\/strong> (1949-51). He eventually settled at The<\/strong> Village Voice<\/strong>, art directing and crafting a variety of comics for kids and adults. These include Sick, Sick, Sick<\/strong>, Passionella and Other Stories<\/strong> (1959), Feiffer on Nixon, the Cartoon Presidency <\/strong>(1974), Knock Knock<\/strong> (1976), Tantrum<\/strong> (1979), I Lost My Bear <\/strong>(1998), Kill My Mother<\/strong> (2014) and Amazing Grapes<\/strong> (2024).<\/p>\n

He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1995, and his many awards include a Pulitzer and Oscar, an Obie, Inkpot, National Cartoonists Society\u2019s Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award, and Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Writers Guild and Dramatists<\/a> Guild of America. In 2004 he was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame and was later recognized by The Library of Congress for his \u201cremarkable legacy as a cartoonist, playwright, screenwriter, adult and children’s book author, illustrator, and art instructor\u201d. In 2006 was awarded the Creativity Foundation\u2019s Laureate.<\/p>\n

Novelist (Harry: The Rat with Women, a Novel<\/strong> in 1963 and 1977\u2019s Ackroyd<\/strong>), animator, educator, academic, film maker, playwright (why isn\u2019t there a single-word term for those guys?), he officially turned his back on cartooning in 2000, but the 42-year run of his satirical comic strip in The Village Voice<\/strong> ranks as some of the most telling, trenchant, plaintive and socio-politically perspicacious narrative art in the history of the medium.<\/p>\n

In 1965 Feiffer kickstarted academic American comic fandom with his celebratory evaluation of the industry\u2019s formative Golden Age The Great Comic Book Heroes<\/strong>, and in 1979 was at the forefront of the creation of graphic novels with Tantrum<\/strong> before scripting Robert Altman\u2019s much-undervalued Popeye<\/strong> movie (released a year later).<\/p>\n

After years as a cartoonist, illustrator, pundit and educator, at the age of 85 (having been born in the Bronx on 26th<\/sup> January 1929) he returned to his primary role of storyteller with another gripping and innovative graphic novel – for which read on after the review below…<\/p>\n

Originally entitled Sick, Sick, Sick<\/strong>, and latterly Feiffer\u2019s Fables<\/strong>, before simply settling on Feiffer<\/strong> – Feiffer\u2019s Village voice strip was quickly picked up by the Hall Syndicate and developed a devoted worldwide following. Over decades the strip generated many strip collections – the first book was in 1958 – since its low key premiere. The auteur\u2019s incisive examination of American society and culture, as reflected by and expressed through politics, art, Television, Cinema, work, philosophy, advertising and most especially in the way men and women interacted, informed and shaped opinions and challenged accepted thought for generations. They were mostly bloody funny and wistfully sad too – and remain so today.<\/p>\n

Fantagraphics Books began collecting the entire run in 2007 – and we\u2019re all waiting patiently for the run to continue and conclude. However Explainers<\/strong> is a magnificent first volume of 568 pages, covering the period from its start in October 1956 up to the end of 1966. As such, it covers a pivotal period of social, racial and sexual transformation in America and the world beyond its borders and much of that is – tragically- still painfully germane to today\u2019s readers.<\/p>\n

Explainers<\/strong> is a \u201cdipping book\u201d: not something to storm your way through, but a faithful relaxation resource to return to over and again. Feiffer\u2019s thoughts and language, his pictorial observations and questions on \u201cthe eternal verities\u201d are potently, dauntingly relevant even now. As I\u2019ve already mentioned, it is utterly terrifying how many problems of the 1950s and 1960s still vex and dog us today – and the \u201cBattle of the Sexes\u201d that my generation honestly believed to be almost over still breaks out somewhere every minute. Of course, now we have the internet to advise and enrage us further…<\/p>\n

Most crucially and compellingly, Feiffer\u2019s expressive drawing is a masterclass in style and economy all by itself.<\/p>\n

If you occasionally resort to Thinking and sometimes wonder about Stuff, this book should be your guide and constant companion – and it will make you laugh.
\n\u00a9 2007 Jules Feiffer. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jules Feiffer (Fantagraphics Books) ISBN: 978-1-56097-835-0 (HB) This book includes some Discriminatory Content included for comedic and dramatic effect. In January this year we lost one of the few remaining titans of our industry and art form. Bronx-born Jules Ralph Feiffer (January 26th 1929 – January 17th 2025) was always far more than \u201cjust … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Explainers”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[90,113,122,125,216,105,343,111,156],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cartooning-classics","category-comedy","category-historical","category-humour","category-lifestyle","category-mature-reading","category-reportage","category-satirepolitics","category-world-classics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-8oI","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32284"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32286,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32284\/revisions\/32286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}