Back to Black: Jules Feiffer's Noir Trilogy

Beyond his iconic newspaper strips, the legendary American cartoonist and author Jules Feiffer has enjoyed a long and varied career, with a wide creative output in comics, theater, film, and children's literature, from illustrating The Phantom Tollbooth to writing the screenplay for the film Popeye. Yet, 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 tribute to the genre without losing his unique voice or critical edge.