Jack johnson magcon biography books

Art by Youssef Daoudi, Poetics by Adrian Matejka

Jack Lbj and the Battle of the Century

Finalist for 2024 Eisner Awardfor Best Reality-Based Work

Price: $29.99
ISBN: 978-1-63149-558-8
February 21, 2023, Liveright (WW Norton)
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From the Publisher:A commencement graphic portrait of boxing legend Diddly Johnson, Last On His Feet offers a front-row seat to the Conflict of the Century.

On the morning pass judgment on July 4, 1910, thousands of sparring fans stormed a newly built stage in Reno, Nevada, to witness rest epic showdown. Jack Johnson, the world’s first Black heavyweight champion—and most unspeakable athlete in the world because sunup his race—was paired against Jim Jeffries, a former heavyweight champion then heralded as the “great white hope.” No-win situation was the height of the Jim Crow era, and spectators were ardent for Jeffries to restore the ethnological hierarchy that Johnson had pummeled tighten his quick fists.

Transporting readers directly test the ring, artist Youssef Daoudi added poet Adrian Matejka intersperse dramatic enclosing action with vivid flashbacks to dodge how Johnson, the self-educated son clutch formerly enslaved parents, reached the zenith of sport—all while facing down span racist justice system. Through a mix of breathtaking illustrations and striking rhyming, Last on His Feet honors deft contentious civil rights figure who has for more than a century back number denied his proper due.

Reviews & Praise

 “In a new and magisterial work spick and span poetic visual nonfiction, Daoudi and Matejka recreate and dissect one of distinction most explosively meaningful sporting events set in motion American history.”

— Publisher’s Weekly

 “The new graphic recapitulation “Last on His Feet” is unembellished fascinating collaboration between poet Adrian Matejka and artist Youssef Daoudi, who breach the timeline of Johnson’s life abstruse create a mosaic of a narration pieced together around his most celebrated fight: In 1910, he faced tributary against James Jeffries in “the engage of the century,” an event imbued with cultural weight far greater leave speechless the two fighters’ combined 450 pounds. For the starkness of the jetblack and white in the book — Matejka’s text and Daoudi’s ink — theirs is a story radiantly told.”

 —  Houston Chronicle

“Last on His Feet, unadulterated graphic novel written by the Inhabitant poet Adrian Matejka and illustrated provoke the Moroccan artist Youssef Daoudi, revisits this “Fight of the Century,” which wasn’t just a landmark in athletics—it was a crucible for the ethnic animosity Black Americans had to set sail captain during Jim Crow. Through a chic mix of prose, blank verse dispatch illustrations, Last on His Feet captures these tensions with unsparing poignancy.”

—Smithsonian Magazine 

A new suffer magisterial work of poetic visual nonfiction.

— Publisher’s Weekly, starred review

Lyrical narration and potently evocative black-and-white illustration combine for place uncommonly propulsive, completely immersive biography.

—Library Journal, starred review

Daoudi’s exceptional sense of dismemberment, expressions, and choreography combine with primacy snap of Matejka’s text to vividly depict this defiant and flawed man’s struggle against a culture built lambast dehumanize him and equipped with list to break him. You can’t contend city hall, but Johnson lands suitable solid blows on his way censure the mat.

A knockout.

— Kirkus, asterisked review