Overview

Eighty-nine-year-old Jules Feiffer delivers the tour de force of his illustrious career in this epic finale that dares to try things that film noir could only dream of (Chris Ware). In The Ghost Script, Feiffer plunges us into the blowzy, boozy world of Blacklist Hollywood, circa 1953: witch hunts and Reds and pinkos and starlets and a mysterious, orchid-growing mastermind, the renamed Cousin Joseph, running a back- channel clearinghouse for victims of the entertainment world's purge. Stumbling his way through this maze is private eye Archie Goldman, a tough-talking good guy, always a step or two behind in this fast-moving story of plots, counterplots, and goon violence. Meet Lola Burns, the buxom Blacklistee, desperate to get back into pictures, and O. Z. McCay and Fay Bloom, the booze-swilling, hard-living communist screenwriters. In this satiric assault on our past and present, Feiffer shows how the arc of American history evolves from starry dreams to thwarted and sold- out dreams.

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9781631493133

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Reviews

Feiffer is a master of sequential art and he takes us effortlessly on a story of betrayal and revenge with plenty of twists to the plot to keep the tempo fast moving and totally engrossing. The characters are created with both empathy and insight that ensures they keep our attention and the plot stays believable. -- Gnash Comics

... a mark of Feiffer's mastery is that everything seems inevitable once it has happened. It's convincing genre fiction. -- New Statesman Less emotionally stressful, though with deep seriousness lurking beneath its shrewd wit and artistic energy, is Jules Feiffer's The Ghost Script ... the third in a trilogy of graphic novels by a veteran cartoon satirist (Feiffer is 89). In straggly, super-vivid monotone art, it pays homage to the Spirit comics of Will Eisner, whom Feiffer once assisted, and the PI stories of mid-century Hollywood. -- Tim Martin - The Spectator This is a vibrant, speedy and, yes, at times angry, account of the McCarthy era in Hollywood circa 1953, a mix-up of private eyes, pinko writers, Union goons and right-wing loons. -- The Herald Eighty-nine-year-old Jules Feiffer is a comics legend, and The Ghost Script proves that age is just a number when it comes to telling a compelling story... Feiffer's skill at juggling noir tropes with real-world Hollywood history is fascinating... he hits every twisted beat, enlists and skewers every stereotype, and employs his trademark drawing style to excellent effect - there's a fluidity to every character, a subtlety that proves you don't have to fill in every detail of a face and body to make the subject come alive on the page. -- Starburst Feiffer is a master of sequential art and he takes us effortlessly on a story of betrayal and revenge with plenty of twists to the plot to keep the tempo fast moving and totally engrossing. The characters are created with both empathy and insight that ensures they keep our attention and the plot stays believable. -- Gnash Comics

Feiffer concludes the remarkable trilogy that began with Kill My Mother and Cousin Joseph, inspired by the tropes of film noir and the historical reality of anticommunist witch hunts, in this feverish crime story... [Feiffer] shows off his mastery of the form with grace... the atmosphere of paranoia, censorship, and enforced patriotism thrums... In this capstone to a graceful three-volume performance, Feiffer has an utterly unique take on crime fiction and crime comics, drawing with an energy that practically hurls the characters off the page. -- Publisher's Weekly (starred review)

Author Information

Jules Feiffer is a cartoonist, playwright, screenwriter, children's book author and illustrator, and member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He teaches a humor-writing class at Stony Brook Southampton College and lives in East Hampton, New York.

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