Back to Black - (Critical Graphics) by Fabrice Leroy

About the Book

Back to Black provides the first full-length critical analysis of Jules Feiffer's late-career graphic novels Kill My Mother (2014), Cousin Joseph (2016), and The Ghost Script (2018), examining how they pay playful homage to the cinematic techniques and iconography of film noir while addressing serious themes like McCarthyism, antisemitism, and gender discrimination.

Book Synopsis

The legendary American cartoonist and author Jules Feiffer has enjoyed a long and varied career, working on everything from illustrating The Phantom Tollbooth to writing the screenplay for the film Popeye. But some of his most innovative work came very late in his career, with a trio of graphic novels he composed in his eighties: Kill My Mother (2014), Cousin Joseph (2016), and The Ghost Script (2018).

Back to Black provides the first full-length critical analysis of this trilogy, exploring how it pays homage to the iconography and themes of film noir through constant graphic experimentation and a striking reinvention of Feiffer's distinctive style. Fabrice Leroy shows how Feiffer deftly alternates between dramatic and satirical tones as he plays with the conventions of noir to provide a caustic yet moving commentary on mid-twentieth-century American life. Through close readings of each novel in the trilogy, he examines Feiffer's singular depiction of the central political issues in the United States from the Great Depression to the 1950s, which still resonate today: unionization struggles, cinematic propaganda, McCarthyism, the American Dream, immigration, antisemitism, civil rights, and gender discrimination. Placing the noir trilogy into the context of Feiffer's long career, Back to Black demonstrates how he offers a loving pastiche of the genre without losing his unique voice or critical edge.

Review Quotes

"In this meticulously detailed study, Leroy brings the scholarly detective's critical eye to Jules Feiffer's late-career crime fiction masterpiece. An important examination of the stylistic importance of one of our greatest cartoonists, Back to Black discovers what is all too human in the dark heart of the American comics tradition."--Bart Beaty "author of Twelve-Cent Archie"

"Leroy has written a book that is vital in finally giving Jules Feiffer the place he deserves in American comics. His in-depth readings disclose the larger historical, social, and political context of an exceptional trilogy, shedding new light on questions of masculinity in recent Jewish American culture."--Jan Baetens "author of Rebuilding Story Worlds: "The Obscure Cities" by Schuiten and Peeters"

"A fresh interpretation of how Feiffer deftly manipulates the affordances of the graphic novel to dazzling effect. Leroy analyzes the complexities of Feiffer's rhetorical page layouts, appreciating the distinctive qualities of his fluid drawing style and demonstrating the subtlety and relevance of his masterworks. Leroy's vast knowledge of the cultural context and engaging style make Back to Black an indispensable addition to the scholarly conversation on Feiffer's work."--Martha Kuhlman "coeditor of The Comics of Chris Ware: Drawing Is a Way of Thinking"

About the Author

FABRICE LEROY is a professor of Francophone studies at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He is the author of Sfar So Far: Identity, History, Fantasy, and Mimesis in Joann Sfar's Graphic Novels and coeditor of the collections Intermediality in French-Language Comics and Graphic Novels and The Cambridge Companion to the American Graphic Novel.