loonyboi's review
5.0
An excellent and witty memoir of a brilliant artist. There are a lot of gaps here, things for one reason or another he decided not to include. Which did strike me as strange while I was reading it. He addresses some of this in the afterwords. But there's so much great stuff in here that it doesn't matter that he never talks about his Academy Award winning short or the time he worked for Walt Disney.
Highly recommended, if you're into the subject matter.
Highly recommended, if you're into the subject matter.
sarahjsnider's review
3.0
I appreciated that Feiffer discussed his failures in more detail than his successes. Otherwise, it's diverting and fast, but not a must-read.
glitterandtwang's review
4.0
I can't remember why I requested this, but I'm glad I did. I didn't even know that Feiffer was the illustrator for Norton Juster's Phantom Tollbooth, but that makes a lot of sense. Despite knowing virtually nothing about his career, this was a really enjoyable read and it was extremely easy for my neurotic, contrarian self to relate to the good-natured rage that fuels his outlook on life.
My one complaint is that his story sometimes loops back on itself, and because it is focused on his career there are hints at events in his personal life that never really come to much.
I learned in this book that Feiifer wrote his first children's book as a result of being mad at another author. What's not to love about that?
My one complaint is that his story sometimes loops back on itself, and because it is focused on his career there are hints at events in his personal life that never really come to much.
I learned in this book that Feiifer wrote his first children's book as a result of being mad at another author. What's not to love about that?
rabbithero's review
3.0
I feel in love with Jules Feiffer at the age of 10, when I read the Phantom Tollbooth for the first time. A huge part of who I became is because of his influence. Around 2003 or so I got to meet him, very briefly, at a comicon where I was selling and he was guest of honor. I worked up the courage to introduce myself, and handed off a pile of my self-published zines. He tossed them aside absently, almost coldly, and ushered me along. I was crushed.
Since then, I spoke of him in couched terms, so extreme was my disillusionment. I'd comment on how unpleasant he was, but how his art still was meaningful to me, as though those things in tandem proved I had secret insight, and not wounded youthful pride. But as I think back on that encounter, I realized something: a contribution I made to a book called Spark Generators, was solicited from, and by a big name publisher. They were were looking for comics where people were going to talk about their influences, with Jeff Smith included, under a Will Eisner cover. And I was to be included?
How did they even know I exist?
I did my strip on Jules Feiffer.
I mention all this because this memoir reminds me of that experience, of the coldness I perceived, and its perhaps-not-actual truth. This memoir is the work of a fallible man, who is a little self-involved, a little name-droppy, with huge-ass mother issues, and too high an opinion of himself. But that's sort of the point. That which I saw as coldness could have been an bad lunch, or an aggravating issue with his over-bearing mother. He could have gotten me published in Spark Generators, and thought nothing more of it. I'll never know.
But in reading this, I see him not as this legendary guy who's "actually a total asshole" (as I would describe him in my anst-ridden, know-it-all youth, more for show than for anything else), but instead as Jules Feiffer, a good-natured derp, though persnickety, stuck in his ways and proud of his pedigree, whose kind of an name-dropping asshole just like the rest of us.
A memoir, like its author and its reader, flawed.
Since then, I spoke of him in couched terms, so extreme was my disillusionment. I'd comment on how unpleasant he was, but how his art still was meaningful to me, as though those things in tandem proved I had secret insight, and not wounded youthful pride. But as I think back on that encounter, I realized something: a contribution I made to a book called Spark Generators, was solicited from, and by a big name publisher. They were were looking for comics where people were going to talk about their influences, with Jeff Smith included, under a Will Eisner cover. And I was to be included?
How did they even know I exist?
I did my strip on Jules Feiffer.
I mention all this because this memoir reminds me of that experience, of the coldness I perceived, and its perhaps-not-actual truth. This memoir is the work of a fallible man, who is a little self-involved, a little name-droppy, with huge-ass mother issues, and too high an opinion of himself. But that's sort of the point. That which I saw as coldness could have been an bad lunch, or an aggravating issue with his over-bearing mother. He could have gotten me published in Spark Generators, and thought nothing more of it. I'll never know.
But in reading this, I see him not as this legendary guy who's "actually a total asshole" (as I would describe him in my anst-ridden, know-it-all youth, more for show than for anything else), but instead as Jules Feiffer, a good-natured derp, though persnickety, stuck in his ways and proud of his pedigree, whose kind of an name-dropping asshole just like the rest of us.
A memoir, like its author and its reader, flawed.
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