Staff Picks (June14): Kill My Mother

Publisher: LIVERIGHT / WW Norton

Jules Feiffer's 1965 Playboy article on "The Great Comic Book Heroes" introduced me to The Spirit, Plastic Man, and so many more comics beyond the local spinner rack. Soon enough, I found a treasure trove of his books in the second hand stores and Brandeis book fairs I frequented. Feiffer's art style seems to combine a free flowing almost graphic stream of conscience and graphic story telling made books like Passionella, The Explainers, and Sick Sick Sick my alternative/indie comics before I was aware of their existence.

After years of plays, novels, children's books, and classic work like illustrating The Phantom Tollbooth, Jules Feiffer has returned to his comic book roots. An original graphic novel from WW Norton’s Liveright imprint, Kill My Mother allows Feiffer to tell a story that is all crime noir as he channels film noir, Eisner’s The Spirit with a splash of Chandler , Hammett and, for me, a bit of Spillane and Shakespeare while making the book totally Feiffer.

~ Steve Leaf