Kill My Mother

Kill My Mother

by Jules Feiffer

Adding to a legendary career that includes a Pulitzer Prize, an Academy Award, Obie Awards, and Lifetime Achievement Awards from the National Cartoonist Society and the Writers Guild of America, Jules Feiffer now presents his first noir graphic novel. Kill My Mother is a loving homage to the pulp-inspired films and comic strips of his youth. Channeling Eisner's The Spirit, along with the likes of Hammett, Chandler, Cain, John Huston, and Billy Wilder, and spiced with the deft humor for which Feiffer is renowned, Kill My Mother centers on five formidable women from two unrelated families, linked fatefully and fatally by a has-been, hard-drinking private detective.

As our story begins, we meet Annie Hannigan, an out-of-control teenager, jitterbugging in the 1930s. Annie dreams of offing her mother, Elsie, whom she blames for abandoning her for a job soon after her husband, a cop, is shot and killed. Now, employed by her husband’s best friend—an over-the-hill and perpetually soused private eye—Elsie finds herself covering up his missteps as she is drawn into a case of a mysterious client, who leads her into a decade-long drama of deception and dual identities sprawling from the Depression era to World War II Hollywood and the jungles of the South Pacific.

Along with three femme fatales, an obsessed daughter, and a loner heroine, Kill My Mother features a fighter turned tap dancer, a small-time thug who dreams of being a hit man, a name-dropping cab driver, a communist liquor store owner, and a hunky movie star with a mind-boggling secret. Culminating in a U.S.O. tour on a war-torn Pacific island, this disparate band of old enemies congregate to settle scores.

In a drawing style derived from Steve Canyon and The Spirit, Feiffer combines his long-honed skills as cartoonist, playwright, and screenwriter to draw us into this seductively menacing world where streets are black with soot and rain, and base motives and betrayal are served on the rocks in bars unsafe to enter. Bluesy, fast-moving, and funny, Kill My Mother is a trip to Hammett-Chandler-Cain Land: a noir-graphic novel like the movies they don’t make anymore.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Fiction, Mystery, Historical Fiction, Noir, Adult

150 pages, Hardcover

First published August 25, 2014

About the author

Jules Feiffer was an American cartoonist, playwright, screenwriter, and author whose work left a significant imprint on American satire and cultural commentary. Emerging from the postwar era of newspaper comics, he first gained recognition through his long-running comic strip published in The Village Voice, where his loose, expressive line drawings and psychologically sharp dialogue captured the anxieties, contradictions, and social performances of contemporary life. Feiffer used humor to critique politics, relationships, and everyday neuroses, developing a voice that felt conversational, self-aware, and deeply engaged with the shifting cultural moods of the United States. His graphic style, which often emphasized gesture and tone over detailed renderings, was equally distinctive, and helped expand the visual vocabulary of editorial and literary cartooning. Beyond his cartoons, Feiffer became an accomplished writer for stage and screen; his play Little Murders offered a darkly comic exploration of violence and alienation in urban America, while his screenplay for Mike Nichols’s film Carnal Knowledge drew widespread attention for its unflinching examination of intimacy and desire. Feiffer also wrote children’s books, including the popular The Phantom Tollbooth, for which he provided the illustrations that helped establish the book’s imaginative visual identity. He demonstrated an enduring commitment to making art accessible, engaging with students and general audiences alike through teaching and public appearances, and continued producing work across multiple genres throughout his life. His comics and writings were often autobiographical in spirit, even when fictionalized, providing commentary on his experiences growing up in New York and moving through decades of cultural change. Feiffer received numerous honors for his contributions to American arts, including major awards recognizing his innovation in cartooning, his influence on graphic storytelling, and his impact on theater and film. His later work included longer-form graphic novels and personal memoirs, reflecting on childhood, family, and the evolution of his artistic voice. Feiffer remained an active and inquisitive creator well into his later years, consistently exploring new creative forms and responding to contemporary political and social issues. His legacy is seen in the work of generations of cartoonists and writers who drew inspiration from his willingness to bring emotional depth, social critique, and literary ambition to comics and satire. Feiffer’s work stands as a testament to the power of humor to illuminate the complexities of human behavior and the cultural forces that shape everyday life.

Reviews

[Kimberly [Come Hither Books] · Rating 1 out of 5]

Kill My Mother is a confusing, nonsensical mess. The story takes every noir element imaginable, knots them together into an incomprehensible jumble, and keeps going for 150 pages.

Poor character design means that it’s nearly impossible to tell the characters apart, especially the three tall, leggy blonde femme fatales. For most of the book, I had no idea who was doing what to whom, which quickly led to a case of not caring what happened to any of them.

One positive thing I will say for the artwork: Feiffer has a gift for conveying movement. Boxers dance across the page, and tense standoffs explode into violence. I’ve seen few illustrators that manage to convey such a dynamic sense of motion. If I could follow the story well enough to understand what was happening, it might have been enough to save the book.

Despite its abundance of noir atmosphere, Kill My Mother never delivers a satisfying mystery. People are murdered, and secrets are revealed. But the murder I was most invested in was never dealt with again. (That I could tell. Events were so jumbled by the end that maybe I missed it altogether.) The twist that seemed to be the big reveal was tied to a murder I’d never wondered about. I’d already been shown the culprit, and felt no need to puzzle out the why of it.

I do NOT recommend Kill My Mother unless:
* You love artsy impressionistic illustrations with a strong sense of movement.
* You have a high tolerance for confusing plots and unlikeable characters.
* You adore all things noir, no matter how those elements are used.

Read for the 2015 Eisner challenge
2015 Eisner Nominee: Best Graphic Album

Reviewed on Come Hither Books

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 3 out of 5]

The reason this was popular this past year is because Jules Feiffer is the author. Feiffer got his fame from doing children's book and other illustrations, screenplays, plays, so people of a certain age would be interested in his first real graphic novel, a kind of homage to the noir age of Chandler, Hammett, Eisner, Hawks, Huston, etc. And at first glance it's exciting to see, especially if you see his signature drawing style, quick sketchy and airy.. the book jacket says inspired by Steven Canyon and the Spirit. It's oversized, a commitment by the publisher to greatness, and if you have just been reading individual comics,as I have, the size speaks wow. Open it up and the drawings appear pretty amazing, signature Feiffer, with a wash of tans and light browns on his pen and inked drawings. It creates a kind of atmosphere, and that is what noir is about, atmosphere and attitude, but the feel is here is a little light.. and sort of comic, ala Feiffer. It doesn't feel REALLY noir. The title is noir, a little startling and possibly off-putting for my generation's cute Feiffer work, but okay, we can go with that, we think as we flip through the pages. This is adult Feiffer, we think, his attempt to be edgy, with some of his humor intact, looks like…

And the first third appears pretty great, with that humor and a trip back in time to "the movies they don't make anymore." But increasingly, the plot gets confusing, three blonds all look alike for no apparent reason, the flow of the narrative visually from page to page seems choppy, and the purpose seems to shift, and it gets less rather than more interesting even as the action inevitably ratchets up. The feel is confusing, but not in a Matt Kindt way, where you have the idea Kindt is completely in control of the genre. Noir doesn't feel like Feiffer's best genre, he's an admirer of it from afar. He's too kindly and funny to really get into the darkness of it, like Kindt and Brubaker. I mean, The Big Sleep is confusing, too, sure, but you never want to stop watching even if you can't create a coherent diagram of the plot.

I take one more time to look at it and I think everyone will want to pick it up who is a Feiffer fan, it does look impressive, but… finally isn't so much.

[Astrid Langeveld · Rating 4 out of 5]

Er stond voor mijn boekenchallenge lees een graphic novel. Ik moest eerst even googlen wat voor boeken dat zijn. Ik had er nog nooit van gehoord. Dit boek is een ballonstrip in zwart en wit. Het is niet een makkelijk stripverhaal. Je moet er echt je hoofd bij houden om te weten wat de relatie is tussen de personen. Ik ben aangenaam verrast en ga zeker nog een keer een graphic novel lezen. Toen ik dit boek in leverde bij de bieb keek de medewerkster van de bieb erin en we gingen een gesprek aan. Ze had er ook nog nooit van gehoord en ze zou het ook een x gaan lezen. Zo zie je maar. Elkaar op ideeën brengen is erg leuk! Ik geef het 3,5 ster, maar omdat ik aangenaam verrast ben zijn het 4 sterren geworden.

[Ellis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well! This is a doozy. Noir-ish private detectives, alcohol abuse, blackmail, shoplifting, war zones, and lesbianism - what else? I wish there was a tidy Latin word that meant "hating your mom." I would have appreciated it if just one of the female characters with giant doe eyes & similar hairstyles had been a brunette; at some point it got a little difficult to tell one freakishly tall blonde from the next. Other than that, well worth it.

[Elizabeth A · Rating 2 out of 5]

From the book blurb: Kill My Mother centers on five formidable women from two unrelated families, linked fatefully and fatally by a has-been, hard-drinking private detective.

I found this a confusing graphic novel, partly because I simply could not tell the women apart. While I really liked the sketchy artwork, the story was too choppy for my tastes.

[Stewart Tame · Rating 4 out of 5]

The jacket flap description claims this is noir, but I would dispute that. It takes some of its inspiration from noir, yes, but so many of the tropes associated with the genre are nonexistent here. I'd say it's more farce than anything. Part of it may be that Jules Feiffer doesn't really have a noir drawing style. You want someone who can really rock the shadows and 30's clothing styles--Frank Miller, Gene Colan, Alex Toth, someone like that ... Feiffer's angst-ridden scratchy linework just doesn't do it.

Not that this is, by any means, bad. The story is told in two parts: we get the setup in 1933, and then we jump ahead to the early 40's, during WWII, where it all plays out. There's a fairly sizeable cast of characters. We first meet Annie, who, at 15, hates her mother and wishes her dead. She believes her mother has abandoned her, emotionally if not literally. She's a willful, domineering young woman who holds her best friend, Artie, in thrall. Her mother is working as a secretary for a private eye, and is much more capable than Annie gives her credit for ...

Since this is a Feiffer book, the dialogue sparkles. Characters reveal truths about themselves that they may not be aware of. No, it's not realistic, but it's very characteristically Feiffer. His art is lovely, yes, but the more his characters talk, the more wonderful they become.

Feiffer says this is the first of a noir trilogy, the recently-published Cousin Joseph being the second. I actually read that one first. It's a prequel to this volume and tells, among other things, how Annie's father died. Whether this is all really noir or not, I'm looking forward to volume three.

[George Ilsley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Guess I was expecting a little more, so ended up disappointed. There is a large cast of characters, drawn in a loose messy sprawling style. I had trouble telling people apart, especially Annie and her mother Elsie.

I agree with another reviewer here, who describes this as farce more than noir.

My problem? I picked up volume 3, not realizing it was a trilogy. Got the first two books, started with this one, Volume 1. Now do I really have to read the other two? To complicate matters, volume 2 is a prequel, so maybe I should've started there.

Three stars because, well, it's a trilogy of stars. This is generous, considering that the word "thieves" was misspelled and my shock, understandably, was enormous.

[Emilia P · Rating 2 out of 5]

This commits many of the cardinal graphic novel sins that make a bad graphic novel, and yet somehow it was a favorite of 2014 for far too many folks. Number one is that it has no flow to the layout -- it's a comic book written by a picture book illustrator, and feels like such, clunky, too much space taken up by static illustrations. Number two is that OH MY GOODNESS all the characters look the damn same. And honestly, their motives and their personalities are not enough to distinguish them. Not. Ok. And finally uhhh I guess I think the plot is hell of contrived. Maybe that's all noir? And I don't like noir. But it seems awfully simple. Am I supposed to pat it on the back for the GLBT-friendly subplots? Nope, there are plenty of books where that's not a gimmick and they're way better and deserve more recognition. Feh.

[Adriana Scarpin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Na verdade eu queria ler Você é Minha Mãe? da Alison Bechdel mas não o consegui encontrar nas minhas pilhas de livros, por isso resolvi ler esta HQ mesmo. Rá!
É uma boa transposição do clima noir do cinema para os quadrinhos e dá mesmo para identificar a influência de todos aqueles diretores que o autor cita no ínicio, mas nada além de um trabalho correto.

[Alberto Martín de Hijas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Este tomo se presenta como una historia policiaca pero mi sensación es que esa trama no es más que un Macguffin para enlazar las historias de las mujeres que protagonizan el libro, todas ellas personajes muy bien caracterizados y desarrollados (Me sorprende que se haya criticado que todos los personajes parecen iguales porque yo no he tenido ningún problema para distinguirlos pero supongo que cada lector tiene su experiencia) Quizás la historia ganaría un poco desarrollando algo más alguna de las tramas, pero en general, mi sensación es que todo encaja bien tal y como está. Una cosa que hay que destacar es el espectacular dinamismo del dibujo de Feiffer que fluye de una viñeta a otra y es capaz de transmitir movimiento con unas pocas líneas (Recordemos que cuando publicó este libro tenía 85 años)

Un tomo brillante, con personajes muy bien construidos.

[Courtney · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is actually a difficult one to write a review of. I enjoyed reading it, but I'm not 100% certain I caught all the nuances. We've got multiple time periods, a trio of femme fatales the all kind of look alike, perpetually drunk private investigators, old Hollywood, a whip-smart heroine and her angry-crazy daughter. It begins in the '30's and ends up a decade later during WWII. It's a very involved story and any synopsis I could provide would do a disservice. In fact, there were many points where I wasn't sure what was even happening. The vibe is distinctly noir and the tale is plenty engaging. I have never read anything by Feiffer before, so I was unfamiliar with his extremely sketchy style of drawing. For me, it was difficult to discern which character was which and what exactly was happening in many of the scenes. Thus, I can't say that this graphic novel worked all that well for me, though I still enjoyed reading it.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

This first part of a noir trilogy is perhaps best for Feiffer completists. I'd give it full marks based on the illustrations alone - which, expectedly, are masterful and often dazzling. Alas, there's also a story that goes with them. 

The storyline is... less satisfying. ~ though it's clear that Feiffer is offering up his version of classic noir in general; Chandler and James M. Cain more specifically. A little of it works but a lot of it doesn't. Occasionally there's a funny line.

The confusing / convoluted / choppy narrative plays more like farce (with the tempo of that modern noir champ Jim Thompson). Like some other reviewers here, I found it hard following the plot. 

[Melissa Chung · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very strange story. Solid 3 stars. Was entertaining, but not super amazing. It has a blurb on the front by Neil Gaiman, but I just found it okay.

Kill My Mother, starts off in Bay City 1933. It's a story about a brat of a girl named Annie who hates her mother Elsie. Elsie goes to work for an asshole of a guy named Neil Hammond who used to work with her late husband. Annie resents her mother for never being home. Elsie tries to impress her daughter by trying to find her husband killer. She is always thinking about Annie, but like most stories there is miscommunication and people assuming the worst of others.

The next couple of characters are a boxer named Eddie Longo and his wife Mae. Mae has hired Neil Hammond to find and kill her sister.

Annie has a best friend Artie. She is horrible to Artie and treats him like a slave.

Fast forward to Hollywood 1943, ten years later and all the characters have moved west. It's movie stars and agents. Money, money, money. What is everyone up to now?

I thought the illustrations were a tad ugly, but over all I liked it. The story itself is pretty dark.

Like I said above a solid 3 stars. It was an okay crime noir....I think that is what they are called.

[G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Got a limited edition signed by Jules at BEA. Classic noir with plenty of twists, bold B&W drawings (which sometimes makes all the dames slightly confusing in the beginning), funny, sarcastic, biting and all Jules. He says he's working on a sequel to this. If you're into noir and Feiffer, this is your book.

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

4 stars for the 1933 section, and 5 stars for the look of the art, but the second half of this book, which takes a 10 year leap in time, takes a narrative swerve that kills the momentum and the believability of the events within. Too bad, because the art is really phenomenal.

[Teresa Bateman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got an Advanced Reading Copy of the book from the publisher. I have enjoyed Jules Feiffer's work in the past, finding he has a cleverness with wordplay, and a unique world view. My experience, however, has been in his his children's fiction genre, so perhaps I was unprepared for this clearly adult graphic novel. It takes its characters from the 30's into the war years and what characters they are! A girl who resents her mother, a private eye who's the epitome of the noir genre and dies from a gunshot wound while wearing women's panties, Hollywood stereotypes that are deliberately overplayed... I could go on and on. There's cross-dressing, nudity, war, treachery, plots within plots, old grudges that won't stay hidden, and feisty, flawed characters. Feiffer puts the "graphic" in graphic novel. His artwork has his typical casual yet controlled flair. Clever? Certainly. He plays up all the old themes then throws them in a blender and sees how they taste together. (Resulting in an explosion in your mental tastebuds.) Yet I never truly came to care about any of the characters, and I have to wonder who the intended audience is. The references to the 30's and 40's would best be appreciated by adults, but the format appeals more to a younger audience, for whom the material is inappropriate. On the other hand, that argument is also typical of Feiffer's sense of the absurd.

[Zedsdead · Rating 2 out of 5]

A sociopathic teenage girl wants to kill her mother for having the gall to get a job after her father died. A blonde woman hires a private investigator to find and kill another blonde woman. Some other blonde women are homeless, and mute, and do some acting, and work for the aforementioned PI, but I don't know who they are or even how many because they all look alike.

I threw in the towel 73 pages in when I picked the book up and realized I had no idea who I was looking at or what was going on.

On a picture by picture basis, I quite like the art. It's all strong black lines with brown or blue or gray tinting, unusual and interesting. But it's too chaotic and abstract to be sequential; too often you only get a vague impression of what's transpiring in a given panel, and the people--aside from being hard to differentiate--look inhumanly loose of limb, like marionettes.

[Ashley · Rating 1 out of 5]

Such good reviews in places. Neil gaiman liked it...so i really wanted to. I just did not get the appeal. It was all over the place.

Flow of pannels was hard to follow and all the female characters were drawn so similarly it got confusing.

[Rebecca I · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jules Feiffer has an interesting sense of humor, but when you combine that with a story from years gone by and throw in the noir detective stuff, it is hilarious and kind of kinky. Hard to tell exactly what he is making fun of at all times. Even the dedication may be a little tongue in cheek.

[Sydney · Rating 5 out of 5]

No other review counts. This story is amazing and I loved every second. There are a lot of characters, but they're all beautifully crafted and full of depth. This one ended in tears.

[Carlos De Eguiluz · Rating 5 out of 5]

"'Kill My Mother' es una historia de mujeres."

Me fue imposible no echarle un vistazo a la historia recomendada por Neil Gaiman, Art Spiegelman, Chris Ware y Stan Lee. Básica pero brillante, un compendio de lo típico de la clásica novela negra, bello desarrollo de personajes y visualmente placentera.

[Mage M · Rating 1 out of 5]

Tried to read as much as possible, couldn't get through the whole thing it was so confusing and hard to care about the characters

[Phrodrick slowed his growing backlog · Rating 4 out of 5]

I tend to agree with the more critical reviews that Jules Feiffer’s Kill My Mother can be hard to follow. This is mostly because of a lack of distinguishing characteristics in drawing the female characters. This is a dark book. Why the expression “Funny” is included on the press blurb on the cover I do not know. As you might expect given the title of the book, it is very dark and I am not sure that any of the main characters are likable. Still I can recommend this book. The plotting is complex and ambitious for such a short graphic novel All the threads tie up and the ending is more optimistic than one might have expected. Mostly Feiffer is a good writer. Usually he is a better artist.

Jules Feiffer has collected an amazing variety of awards. He is the author of at least two classic Children’s stories, the Giving Tree and the Phantom Toll booth. He learned the art of cartooning from the best having worked with among others Will Eisner. His career includes scripting and writing well known titles like Carnal Knowledge and Little Murders. I first got to know his name from his days as a cartoonist and writer in the Playboy magazines I used to sneak from my older brother’s hidden stash.

Kill My Mother is his homage to the classic hard boiled detective, noir books of the 1940’s and 1950’s. In this case the hard boiled detective is mostly in advanced stages of alcohol addiction and anything but heroic. His death is early in the book and he is not missed. The characters that carry the story forward are a group of sisters and a daughter. All flawed and at all tend to be drawn alike. The male characters are mostly there to prop up the story line and never to be admired.

Out of this does come a happy rather a happyish ending, one final foreshadowed plot twist and a case for a feminist variation on the noir narrative.
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[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

So you guys know that I don't read too many graphic novels. When I do, they are award winners or something that a friend recommends strongly. My community college library purchased this adult graphic novel based on a review somewhere, but it hasn't been checked out yet. It's been on display, too.

The problem? I don't see the teen appeal other than the title. The homage to noir threw me off. I've read a few pulp detective novels, but I was just confused on this one. Feiffer is a great artist--he's won all sorts of awards, but I really couldn't tell the characters apart and so I was lost. The word bubbles are everywhere and my scatterbrain had a hard time following the action. And there was plenty of action! Totally unbelievable to me, though, especially the war scenes. These characters aren't nice and don't care. And that meant that I didn't care either. There are some adult scenes with penises and boobs. I loved the crossdressing twist, but didn't think that Elsie's character rang true. This was just not my thing.

[Uwe Hook · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not particularly fond of graphic novels and "Kill my mother" didn't change my opinion.

The story is as dizzying as some of Feiffer’s drawings, with numerous and occasionally confusing surprises and contortions, including the killing of a mother in the past. And while the reader feels a certain urgency to understand what the hell is going on, once the various truths and reasons for hatred are revealed it all seems rather absurd and confusing.

It’s hard to know what to make of Feiffer’s women killing or wanting to kill mothers. Is he spoofing the obligatory femmes fatale in noir storytelling by creating these femmes lethal?
But I wasn’t getting the joke. And while there’s a certain psychological truth in daughter-mother and sister-sister conflict, such tensions rarely go beyond verbal slapping.

The first half was intriguing but the second half didn't deliver on the initial promise.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very good graphic novel from a seasoned cartoonist, Jules Feiffer. It is a different graphic novel from most current ones in that it follows a traditional classic three act structure. Within each of those three acts is a smaller story. Each of these smaller stories wraps up tight enough to move the graphic novel to it's final denouement wherein the entire graphic novel completes itself with no loose ends.

Modern graphic novel fans will find Mr. Feiffer's art of questionable merit, but that lack of popular approval underscores much of why it is necessary to be appreciated. The art, like the written words, is part of providing the story to the reader, but not overpowering the reader and disengaging their visual imagination.

I recommend this graphic novel to everyone while realizing that there could be a segment who will not fully appreciate it.

[Raina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yeah, it was fine. I don't have as special-of-a-spot in my heart for Feiffer as many of my generation. I've always found his stuff more scrawly and angular than I dig. And noir isn't an aesthetic that I particularly relate to either (though I do like mysteries, as a rule, as well as film industry stories). Ultimately, I had kind of a hard time telling the characters apart, and my mind wandered while reading it.

Yay more (famous) people trying the GN form, though! I'll give it an extra star for that.



...Ok, and let's be honest. With a title like that, I was really hoping/expecting the thing to be a barely veiled autobiographical expose (clearly I didn't retain any summaries I read before putting it on hold). So the voyeur in me was disappointed.

[Michael Martin · Rating 2 out of 5]

It is only out of respect for Feiffer’s past accomplishments that I even give this sloppy graphic novel a “2”. Not only is the meandering plot irritating and confusing, but the drawings are sloppy and in most of the book it is difficult to tell the female characters apart from one another. Making matters worse, the big “reveal” at the end of the book is a real groaner. I know Jules is now in his 90’s and I hate rating this as low as I am, but if you want to read him at his best, I highly advise you to find anthologies of his fantastic Village Voice cartoons or watch the films Carnal Knowledge or Little Murders. Those are all brilliant. This is just a 150 page graphic novel that is tedious and totally forgettable.

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

While the title is compelling, this was just... bizarre. There were a few panels that were visually appealing, but most of the illustrations just look like you knocked over a sewing-scraps-bin and a mug of tea. Most of the characters were awful people, and didn't redeem themselves with their actions... so the big redemption scenes at the end seemed rushed and pretty forced.

All in all, this just left me with a raised eyebrow and a vaguely unsettled feeling.

[Emma · Rating 2 out of 5]

I kept mixing up all the characters, and found the plot confusing/insubstantial. I like his drawings, but so many of the people looked like each other...