
It turns out that Mr. Feiffer, who is now 85 years old
has been very busy in the interval between my Playboy days and my most recent purchase.
He has written two novels, a successful memoir and
several children’s books. He has written
several plays, including Little Murders,
which was made into a film. Mike Nichols
adapted one of his unproduced plays as the film Carnal Knowledge, and Feiffer, introduced to Hollywood, then scripted
Robert Altman’s Popeye, which starred
the recently departed Robin Williams.
His more than forty years of cartoons from the Village Voice have gone through several iterations of print.
Not bad for a guy who started out in the business
writing balloons for The Spirit.
That beginning, and the influence of its creator,Will Eisner set
him on a course of crafting slightly off-center cartoons. They, in turn opened doors to theater, film,
teaching positions and a lifetime of drawing original cartoons.
The Graphic Novel would seem a natural progression
because it is, after all, a hardback comic book. There is significant character development, a
serious plot, and his signature art work, all of which cause me to nibble away
at it rather than to devour the entire book in one sitting. The characters are stereotypes: the rebellious
daughter, the young widow, who hides her brains and bravado from the Mike
Hammer-type, hard-drinking private eye she hopes will find her husband’s killer. There is even a Mysterious Woman. I have
yet to find out how she fits into the story.
It is my first Graphic Novel, but I may look at the genre again.
I would have plenty to choose from!
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Blackmark |
The origin is given to a “picture novel” published in
1950, titled “It Rhymes With Lust” but the next serious contribution didn’t come
until 1968, when a Balloon-narrative novel called His Name is…Savage, with a character looking remarkably like Lee
Marvin, hit the stands. Purists would argue that the true original Graphic Novel was Gil Kane and Archie Goodwin's Blackmark, which came out in 1971, building on the popularity of Dungeons and Dragons.
Comics as a medium were changing and I can remember
making good use of the Classic Comics
edition of Tale of Two Cities. It helped
my eighth-grade son get through his English assignment. And DC Comics was modernizing the comic book
landscape leading to todays fixation with the Action Heroes we see on the
screen.

At the time I bought Feiffer’s book, I also bought the
14th book in the Captain
Underpants series. I originally
thought it also might be a graphic novel but, although heavily illustrated, it
is just a children’s book. I have been
searching for why it is so controversial, without much success. In fact the vocabulary is probably at 11th
or 12th-grade level, and I would think it might encourage young
readers to read, something neither of my grandsons seem to find interesting.
There is much talk about Ebola in the news, including
monitoring by twice-daily temperature checks.
In my next post, I’ll track some of the changes in thermometers in my
lifetime. You may find the “what and
whys” of the changes interesting. I hope
you will join me.