Studies in the Novel

Abstract:

In Jules Feiffer's comics narrative Tantrum (1979) Leo Quog screams himself back to the age of two in order to escape the responsibilities of adult life. Leo's regression provided a dramatic equivalent to the infantilization that contemporary commentators protested was a symptom of American narcissism, and Tantrum contained parodies of the consciousness movement and interest group politics, both read in the 1970s as key manifestations of the 'Me Decade.' Rather than see Tantrum's social critique as an attempt to uplift comics and have them esteemed as 'graphic novels' for adult readers, this article uses Feiffer's unpublished archive to show that his intentions were more complicated than that. Feiffer believed comics were a children's medium and he narrated Leo's odyssey in a sequence of images because the fusion of comic and novel reflected the confusion of adulthood and infancy in US society.