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Introduction: Comics, Fatherhood, and Autobiographical Representation Read chapter Read first chapter

2020 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

9. “You tell your father he did a good job”: Sons, Fathers, and Intergenerational Dynamics in Jeffrey Brown’s A Matter of Life

Author : Mihaela Precup

Published in: The Graphic Lives of Fathers

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

In A Matter of Life (2013), subtitled “An autobiographical meditation on fatherhood and faith,” Jeffrey Brown examines fatherhood both as a son and as a father himself. This intergenerational examination of fatherhood inevitably produces a contemplation of the frailty of human bonds and the difficult fact that blood ties do not protect anyone against dying. Brown’s representation of his own experience is a hopeful example of involved fatherhood: he is a calm, helpful, and supportive father, and his own distance from his minister father’s faith offers him a serene perspective on life and death. This chapter focuses not only on the two models of paternal conduct depicted by Jeffrey Brown in A Matter of Life, but also on related issues such as alternative masculinity, intergenerational conflict, and the apparent contradiction between a positive worldview and the inevitability of the final extinction of human life.

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previous chapter “When the monsters come jello them”: Fatherhood, Vulnerability, and the Magic of the Mundane in James Kochalka’s American Elf
next chapter Conclusion
Footnotes
1
Brown motivates the fragmentary structure of his work through his interest in examining “how our memories reconstruct events to give meaning” (Brown 2015).
 
2
See Kochalka and Brown’s collaborative work/argument on their respective motivations for writing alternative instead of mainstream comics, but also other matters related to their creative work, Conversation #2 (2005).
 
3
Brown mentions that his use of color in A Matter of Life is partly motivated by the fact that he has gradually become more comfortable with it, but also because the book occupies a special place in his autobiographical body of work: “Despite the fact that I’ve written these other autobiographical books that are all about these super-personal, intimate moments, this is really the most personal book I’ve written. Doing it in color added an extra level of representation that was important to me” (Brown 2013b).
 
4
Every Girl Is the End of the World for Me (2006) was republished in Undeleted Scenes (2010).
 
5
A one-page reference to Clumsy, alongside a previous comic titled “Jeffrey Brown Must Die,” helps explain this segment as a reaction to criticism he received about his first memoir from one critic: that it is a book “for sissies,” “dripping with self-pity” (Brown 2010, 309).
 
6
Brown does not, however, idealize the outlook of classic heavy metal bands on homosexuality, as the commentary in the narrative box points out: “The Christian music lyrics weren’t all that different from other heavy metal” (2013a, 47).
 
7
Jeff’s mother complains about the high volume and the style of the music, but never calls it evil, while the father is portrayed elsewhere trying to convince his own mother that pedophilia and homosexuality are not the same thing.
 
8
The back cover showcases the book’s subtitle, carved above an altar in an empty and impeccably groomed church; Brown thus places science and religion on opposing sides of his narrative, even though the book itself complicates this apparent black-and-white premise.
 
9
Having to explain the finite nature of life to one’s child is a difficult duty of parenthood, one that shows the parent, as Michael Chabon argues in some of his own musings on fatherhood, as “ultimate guarantor or destroyer” of their child’s “perfect innocence of some imminent pain, misfortune, or sorrow” (2009, 45). Both James Kochalka and Jeffrey Brown picture themselves having to tackle this unenviable task. While in American Elf Kochalka—working in the four-panel format of his graphic diary and having to condense or curtail certain experiences—shows himself teaching his sons about death by pointing out various dead animals they see on their walks, in A Matter of Life death is the subject of lengthier scenes and conversations.
 
10
Jeffrey Brown’s next book after A Matter of Life, titled Kids Are Weird (2014), is a treasury of similar Oscar moments, where the bizarre logic of his imagination and his understanding of the world around him are both heartwarming and comical. Luke Skywalker, from Brown’s series of Star Wars parodies that started with Darth Vader and Son (2012), bears a physical resemblance to Oscar and some of the situations from A Matter of Life. In an interview with Jason Heller, Brown draws an explicit connection between A Matter of Life and his Darth Vader and Son: “I was working on Darth Vader And Son while I was drawing A Matter Of Life, so those two books kind of inform each other. Darth Vader And Son represents this lighter side, that less-philosophical side that’s still meaningful and can be touching or emotional, just in a different way. I think that any time I’ve done more humorous work, I’ve always put a lot of myself into it, Darth Vader And Son especially. I basically draw Luke Skywalker the same way I draw my son Oscar in A Matter Of Life” (2013b).
 
11
The authors of a study of almost two hundred families of largely Abrahamic faiths over 15 years provide a useful review of previous research on the matter and conclude that, according to their analysis, faith alone is not a guarantor of good behavior or a successful family life: “When faith and family relations are combined—when the power of religion is linked with the powerful social and emotional bonds inherent in family relationships—both great good and horrific harm to children, women, men, and society are possible” (Dollahite et al. 2018, 238).
 
12
It is not precisely specified when Jeff’s loss of faith occurs, but the conditions for this are created during high school by his discovery of Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time, Richard Feynman and Carl Sagan’s work, alongside other scientific writings—such as Lawrence Krauss’s The Physics of Star Trek and Isaac Asimov’s Understanding Physics—that are also relevant to young Jeff because of his love of science fiction (2013a, 32–33).
 
13
That Brown means to draw intergenerational connections among the family’s fathers is also made apparent through the brief presence in the memoir of the narrator’s paternal grandfather. The segment is introduced as a postmortem tribute, as Jeff remembers the last time he visited his grandfather and received a wood sculpture as a gift before going to college to study art. Baffled by the fact that it is an abstract piece that does not immediately spell out its meaning, Jeff’s face mirrors his disappointment. The first and last panels of this segment, placed diagonally on the page, make the connection between the grandfather’s wood-carving tools and the final product of his labors, the abstract sculpture Jeff contemplates with a smile in the last panel, after understanding that it must have been the most laborious, hence the most precious artwork that his grandfather produced.
 
Literature
Barbour, John D. 2004. Judging and Not Judging Parents. In The Ethics of Life Writing, ed. Paul John Eakin, 73–98. Ithaca/London: Cornell University Press.
Brown, Jeffrey. 2002. Clumsy: A Novel. Marietta: Top Shelf Productions.
———. 2003. Unlikely. Marietta: Top Shelf Productions.
———. 2005. AEIOU/An Easy Intimacy. Marietta: Top Shelf Productions.
———. 2008. Little Things: A Memoir in Slices. New York: Touchstone.
———. 2009. Funny Misshapen Body. New York: Touchstone.
———. 2010. Undeleted Scenes. Marietta: Top Shelf Productions.
———. 2012. Darth Vader and Son. San Francisco: Chronicle Books.
———. 2013a. A Matter of Life. Marietta: Top Shelf Productions.
———. 2014. Kids Are Weird And Other Observations from Parenthood. San Francisco: Chronicle Books.
Brown, Jeffrey, and James Kochalka. 2005. Conversation #2. Marietta: Top Shelf Productions.
Carabí, Àngels, and Josep M. Armengol. 2014. Introduction. In Alternative Masculinities in a Changing World, ed. Àngels Carabí and Josep M. Armengol, 1–13. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Chabon, Michael. 2009. Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son. London: Fourth Estate.
Chast, Roz. 2014. Why Can’t We Talk about Something More Pleasant? New York: Bloomsbury.
Farmer, Joyce. 2014. Special Exits. Seattle: Fantagraphics.
Pease, Bob. 2014. Reconstructing Masculinity or Ending Manhood? The Potential and Limitations of Transforming Masculine Subjectivities for Gender Equality. In Alternative Masculinities in a Changing World, ed. Àngels Carabí and Josep M. Armengol, 17–34. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Salter, Anastasia, and Bridget Blodgett. 2017. Toxic Geek Masculinity in Media: Sexism, Trolling, and Identity Policing. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRef
Smith, Sidonie, and Julia Watson. 2010. Reading Autobiography: A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives. 2nd ed. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Thompson, Craig. 2003. Blankets. Marietta: Top Shelf Productions.
Metadata
Title
“You tell your father he did a good job”: Sons, Fathers, and Intergenerational Dynamics in Jeffrey Brown’s A Matter of Life
Author
Mihaela Precup
Copyright Year
2020
Book
The Graphic Lives of Fathers

Print ISBN: 978-3-030-36217-1

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-030-36218-8

Copyright Year: 2020

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36218-8_9