Passionella and Other Stories (Feiffer: The Collected Works) (Vol 4)
by: Feiffer, Jules

Hardcover. Seattle, Fantagraphics, reprint, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 180 pages. After 14 years, Fantagraphics' Feiffer resumes with late-fifties and early-sixties popular-magazine stories emphasizing social satire. "Passionella" is Cinderella gone Hollywood: a chimney sweep is transformed into a sexpot. Other stories depict a despondent neurotic who solves romantic problems by inventing a compliant robot, a self-absorbed man who has the entire moon to himself, and the world's greatest athlete, scorned for shunning competition--all done in Feiffer's sketchy, economical cartoon style. An illustrated fable about a village jester searching for his serious side and several one-act plays fill out the volume. In these trenchant pieces, the era's anxieties--conformity, male insecurity, troubled relationships--don't seem a half century old.