Review by New York Times Review
FOR A PERSON OF COLOR in America, the term person of color can be both useful and divisive, at once a form of solidarity and a badge of alienation. There's a flattening effect, too: A multitude of ethnicities and cultures, with their own colorcoded nuances, get crammed into the initials P.O.C. Among its many virtues, Mira Jacob's graphic memoir, GOOD TALK (One World, $30), helps us think through this term with grace and disarming wit. The book lives up to its title, and reading these searching, often hilarious téte-a-tétes - with her parents and brother, confidantes and strangers, employers and exes - is as effortless as eavesdropping on a crosstown bus. Mira lives in New York with her husband, Jed, who is white and Jewish, and their young son, Z., who is dark-skinned like his mother - a poster for racial harmony that can, in the current climate, feel like a target. Born in New Mexico to parents who immigrated from India in 1968, Mira is simply "brown," if ethnically obscure, while growing up ("You're Indian like feathers or Indian like dots?" a boy asks her). Ironically, she first feels the stigma of skin color on trips to her parents' native country, thanks to not being as "fair" as the rest of her family. As a girl, Mira envisions the "lighter, happier, prettier me." In fifth grade, Mira tastes literary glory when she wins an essay contest sponsored by the Daughters of the American Revolution (on "Tools of Early America"). A stern but proud teacher drives her across town to the Elks Lodge, where Mira addresses the politely confused sponsors with an eye-opening claim: "Hammers were among the most used tools of the early American settlers." (Jacob's comic timing is impeccable.) The chapter conveys a dream of integration that's at once heartwarming and dated - a model-minority moment, complete with the teacher's fierce pep talk: "You are an American ... don't you ever let anyone tell you that you're not." Over the years, though, Mira finds plenty of people who do just that. In the wake of 9/11, the horror binds people in the city together, but then there are others, like a man at a bar Mira goes to, who suddenly feel emboldened to make comments like, "How do we know you aren't plotting to kill everyone in here if you won't even talk to us?" "1 guess America got kind of weird for us for a while," Mira tells her son, while withholding all the micro- and macroaggressions she's endured on the subway, in a diner, on the street. Included within that "us" are mother and son. But where does that leave Jed? After the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, 6-year-old Z. starts to question his place in society. "Is it bad to be brown?" he wonders. "Are white people afraid of brown people?" Progressive to the gills, with a lifetime of P.O.C. wisdom, Mira-as-mom carefully deflects and reassures. Then comes the kicker: "Is Daddy afraid of us?" The biracial Z. is trying to parse the color line, circa now, and see which side he's on, as if there would be some comfort in knowing, ft's a skill he'll have to hone all his life, the way his mother has, and the way his father has never had to. Throughout "Good Talk," Jacob reproduces the same black and white figures, like cutouts you can turn into finger puppets, often set against colorful photographs : a Chelsea street, her parents' kitchen. Even her major characters have just a few avatars, with fixed poses and expressions. Jacob zooms in and out, juxtaposes, crops. The figures work well as delivery systems for her dialogue, at times generating a deadpan humor, like the clip-art ciphers in David Rees's "Get Your War On" (2002). On occasion, the photocopied feel dilutes the text, as in a fight between Mira and Jed over his parents' full-throated support for Trump. Their faces, adequate in prior situations, appear oddly dazed and distracted. But the medium is part of the magic of "Good Talk." The old comic-book alchemy of words and pictures opens up new possibilities of feeling. During one searing argument, Mira asks Jed if his Jewish, MAGA-spouting folks - who are doting grandparents to their mixed-race child - would be O.K. if she voted for an anti-Semitic candidate. "1 don't know that it's helpful to be so black and white about it," Jed retorts. In a flash, the graphic elements (monochrome cutouts, photos) of "Good Talk" seem to be a commentary on race. The people are black and white - except, of course, they're not. IN NOBODY'S FOOL: The Life and Times of Schlitzie the Pinhead (Abrams Comic Arts, $24.99), the virtuoso comic-strip artist Bill Griffith gives voice to a true outcast - the sideshow attraction born Simon Metz (probably) in the Bronx (probably) in 1901. He fills the biographical lacunae with vivid info on the sideshow life, Hollywood in the '30 s, and linework so rich you could eat it. A microcephalic, or "pinhead," "Schlitzie" drew crowds for nearly 50 years, variously presented as some biological oddity ("The Missing Link"), lost-race survivor ("Last of the Incas"), and/or female ("Monkey Girl"). Because of his mental disability, his vocal output was limited to nonsense repetitions: "Boffo!" "1 like dishes." "Is he married?" Yet he made an indelible appearance in "Freaks," Tod Browning's notorious 1932 sideshow-revenge movie, and in this way affected the course of cartooning history. As a Pratt student in the early '60s, Griffith caught a late-night revival of "Freaks," and was immediately drawn to Schlitzie. Attempts to render this vision came to naught, but years later, embedded in San Francisco's underground comic scene, Griffith was inspired to cast a pinhead as one point in a romancestory parody; in the last panel, he gave him the name "Zippy." Zippy became the titular star of a weekly strip in 1976, which was picked up a decade later for daily syndication, allowing Griffith to showcase his hero's hyperverbal, freeassociative riffs seven glorious times a week. The collected works read like a looking-glass version of "Doonesbury," the same cultural and political inputs producing something wildly random and addictively funny. (Peak Zippiness for me remains 1985's mind-blowing "Are We Having Fun Yet?," with cameos by everyone from Officer Big Mac to Leona Helmsley.) "Nobody's Fool" is an act of homage and loving reclamation. Griffith hasn't forgotten the influence Schlitzie had on his art, and in this way the book makes a fitting companion piece to "Invisible Ink" (2015), a memoir of his parents' marriage that focused on his mother's long affair with Lawrence Lariar, a prolific, now forgotten cartoonist. It's a brave and moving investigation into a lurid family secret, as well as an apt origin story for Griffith. (The prolific Lariar actually had work in the very first all-original comic book, "New Fun.") Though Schlitzie's biography leaves scant traces in the historical record, Griffith brings each scene to life, from F. Scott Fitzgerald freaking out over the "Freaks" invading the MGM commissary, to Schlitzie's sharing a bill with the Beach Boys at a citrus farmers' promotional show in 1962. Sold by his family to a manager in 1909, constantly crisscrossing the country, Schlitzie leads a life of tragic dimensions, including a harrowing stay at the L.A. County Hospital. Yet this is an uplifting, wonderfully humane book. The so-called freaks have a winning camaraderie, and one of Schlitzie's last managers even legally adopts him. Practically mute, Schlitzie is not really the jabber-jawed Zippy, but his gentle spirit somehow shines through. With "Nobody's Fool," Griffith suggests a transmigration of souls. ED park is the author of "Personal Days."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [June 2, 2019]
Review by Booklist Review
Griffith's graphic biography of sideshow freak Schlitzie the pinhead is a captivating labor of love that integrates American sideshow history and segments of Griffith's life and research process. His fascination with Schlitzie, born Simon Metz (most likely) in 1901, began after seeing Tod Browning's banned and panned film, Freaks, when an art student. That interest spawned his Zippy comic strip its hero an amalgam of two pinheads, Schlitzie and Zip the What-Is-It? and ultimately this biography that could almost be considered an oral history. With a paucity of written material and many origin stories for Schlitzie in play, Griffith's account leans heavily on those who knew, worked with, or cared for Schlitzie. As a result, Schlitzie's sweetly childlike character and quirks radiate from the pages, especially in his yes, Schlitzie was a man, despite often being billed as a girl random outbursts and favorite phrases. He loved movie stars, hats, doing dishes, and fried chicken; and if he saw someone he liked, Schlitzie would ask, Is he married? These are the details that elevate Griffith's book to become something truly special. His black pen illustrations hold a wealth of detail, too. Representations of sideshow banners, handbills, and posters occupy many pages; wavy framed fantasy sequences are starkly contrasted with angular presentations of harsher moments in Schlitzie's life. It is an astonishing life, beautifully told. Or, as Schlitzie would say, it's boffo!--Julia Smith Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Griffith (Invisible Ink) crafts an affectionate graphic biography of Schlitzie Surtees (possibly born Simon Metz, though this is uncertain), the real-life inspiration for Griffith's long-running Zippy The Pinhead strip. Set in American carnivals, Griffith's story depicts the history of freak show culture as well as an outline of Schlitzie's life (1901-1971) out on the circuit based on interviews and other source material, starting with the painful scene of him leaving his mother. Schlitzie, billed as everything from "Tik Tak the Aztec Girl" to "Julius, the Missing Link," would be ogled at by the audience for his deformities, prompted with simple questions by a carnival barker, and sometimes become furious when taunted. Unlike most of the adult performers in his shows (such as the "bearded lady"), he was mentally low-functioning, which required a variety of nurses, parent figures, and handlers to take care of him. Griffith details Schlitzie's involvement in the cult-classic film Freaks, which inspired Griffith to create the philosophical Zippy character. With dense cross-hatching and lively, expressive character design, Griffith's art straddles the line between absurdity and realism. Griffith gets at the central paradox at the heart of freak shows: while exploitative and demeaning, the shows created a loving, tight-knit community. The performers close to Schlitzie were fiercely protective and loving toward him. Much like in Freaks, the revelation found in this illuminating work is that the true monsters are the "normal" people who line up to laugh at or abuse Schlitzie. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Griffith (Invisible Ink: My Mother's Love Affair with a Famous Cartoonist) presents an in-depth biography, based on research and interviews, of Schlitzie the Pinhead, a sideshow performer widely known for his appearance in Tod Browning's 1932 cult classic film Freaks. Born with microcephaly in 1901, Schlitzie (who's real name is lost to history but may have been Simon Metz) was sold by his parents to a Coney Island sideshow and soon found himself traveling the country as the star attraction of a variety of circuses. Alternately billed as male or female, sometimes promoted as the missing link between modern man and their evolutionary ancestors or a holdover from vanished civilizations, Schlitzie is here affectionately portrayed as a kind, warm-hearted performer behind the showbiz bluster. His story raises serious questions about the essence of fame, exploitation, and even the subjective nature of what it means to live a happy, fulfilling life. VERDICT Griffith is renowned for his absurdist comic strip Zippy the Pinhead, inspired by Schlitzie's iconic image, and on some level this biography seems to be an attempt at restoring some dignity to a life he's mined for his own purposes. He succeeds wonderfully. © Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A graphic narrative illuminates the transformation of the real-life Schlitzie the Pinhead into the widely syndicated Zippy.Griffith (Invisible Ink: My Mother's Affair with a Famous Cartoonist, 2015) tells two stories here. The first is, as best as he could research, the life of a Bronx boy with an oddly shaped head and a childlike sunniness that would rarely diminish as he aged. When he was 8 or so, he was sold by his parents to a "traveling sideshow." As such sideshows became exceedingly popular within the circus industry, he went by various names and personas, generally exotic, occasionally femalee.g., "Darwin's Missing Link," "Last of the Incas" "Tik-Tak the Aztec Girl." He might have been lost to posterity if Hollywood hadn't beckoned, with director Tod Browning featuring him in the sensationally received and controversial Freaks (1932). During its preview, writes the author, "a lot of people got up and ran out. They didn't walk out. They ran out." It was decades before the film would be proclaimed a classicand a fledgling art student saw a midnight screening and found his career changed: "I'd just been handed subject matter,' " writes Griffith, who relates both Schlitzie's story and his own in the same large-paneled caricature that would mark his development of the "Zippy" strip. "Little did I know at the time," he writes, "but I'd just set myself on a lifelong career drawing my version of Schlitzie." The figure who had inspired him didn't fare so well, as circus popularity declined and freak shows faced legal challenges for exploiting the mentally impaired. Schlitzie was committed to a mental institution after being deprived of his way of making a living, but he was subsequently released to a former circus colleague. The internet belatedly aided Griffith's research, and he was able to connect with those who had known Schlitzie in his prime: "He could be a delightlike a happy child," remembered one. He died in 1971.A tender biographical tribute to an artist's inspiration. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
