Jar of Fools: A Picture Story - Softcover

Lutes, Jason

3.8

1,751 ratings by Goodreads

9781896597720: Jar of Fools: A Picture Story

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1896597726 ISBN 13: 9781896597720

Publisher: Drawn and Quarterly, 2003

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Ernie is an alcoholic stage magician haunted by lost love and his brother's suicide, and he's hooked up with his senile mentor in one last effort to sort his life out. But Ernie needs to keep Flosso the Magnificent with him in the present and by his side to guide Ernie through these difficult days. These two magicians have run out of escape tricks but they can't stop running.
Esther is still numb with grief for Ernie's brother. She works at a coffee shop and has allowed her heart to simply atrophy while a torrent of rage builds slowly inside her. Nathan Lender is a small time grifter living on his wits and in a car with his twelve-year-old daughter, Claire. He's running out of time to fix the past and make things right for his daughter. One morning Nathan Lender makes the mistake of trying to con Esther at the coffee counter. Circumstance will bring a desperate group of people together, all at the end of their rope. An unlikely kind of love grows from these broken people who discover the act of self-sacrifice can perform miracles.

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From the Publisher:

Jason Lutes was born in New Jersey in 1967, and started reading and drawing comics as soon as he was able. The European comics he encountered during childhood visits to France made a great impression on him, and have proven a strong influence on his adult work. The first time he gave up comics was to attend the Rhode Island School of Design(BFA in Illustration, 1991), but publications such as R. Crumb's Weirdo, Art Spiegelman's RAW, and Chester Brown's Yummy Fur lured him back. Upon graduation, he moved to Seattle, lost his spleen in a bike accident, and washed dishes until he was hired by Fantagraphics Books.The second time he gave up comics was a year later, when he became disillusioned with the comics industry and quit Fantagraphics to wash more dishes. He was lured back by the opportunity to draw a strip for "The Stranger", a Seattle weekly, and that strip was later collected in the book "Jar of Fools". In 1995, after a stint as art director at "The Stranger", he quit to try his hand at being a full-time cartoonist. He currently lives in Seattle, where he infrequently produces chapters in the comics novel "Berlin" and fondly recalls happier days as a dishwasher. In 1996 Lutes started work on Berlin, a projected 600 page story set in Germany during the twilight years of the Weimar Republic. Berlin; Book One, collecting the first part of the trilogy, has just been published by Drawn & Quarterly.

From the Back Cover:

Haunted by the death of his escape-artist brother and a failed romance, the remaining hope of washed-up stage magician Ernie Weiss lies in his aging mentor, Al Flosso. But Al is slipping further into senility with each passing day. Meanwhile, Esther O'Dea, Ernie's ex-love, struggles to find peace in her own life, and a con man named Nathan Lender sets some mysterious plans for Ernie's future in motion. A compelling rumination on the nature of love, loss, magic and memory.

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