Jar of Fools: A Picture Story
"Jar of Fools: A Picture Story" is a graphic novel by Jason Lutes that explores themes of love, loss, and personal transformation through the lives of its characters, particularly focusing on a washed-up magician named Ernie Weiss. The narrative is sparked by Ernie’s reflections on his estranged girlfriend, Esther, and his troubled past, including the mysterious death of his brother during a magic stunt. As the story unfolds, it intertwines the lives of several disillusioned individuals, including Ernie's mentor Al Flosso, a former magician dealing with senility, and Nathan Lender, a con man navigating life's challenges with his daughter Claire.
Lutes employed a clear-line artistic technique, heavily inspired by European comics, to present the characters' emotions and interactions with clarity and depth. The story, serialized in the 1990s and later published in full, stands out for its tragicomic elements, contributing to the modern evolution of graphic novels. The characters engage in various struggles, embodying themes of maturation, acceptance, and the complexities of relationships against a backdrop of magic and deceit. "Jar of Fools" resonates with readers not just for its storyline but also for its stylistic innovation and character depth, marking a notable entry in the realm of contemporary comics.
Jar of Fools: A Picture Story
AUTHOR: Lutes, Jason
ARTIST: Jason Lutes (illustrator); Kristian Grønevet (cover artist); Michel Vrana (cover artist)
PUBLISHER: Drawn and Quarterly
FIRST SERIAL PUBLICATION: 1993-1996
FIRST BOOK PUBLICATION: 1996
Publication History
Jar of Fools, Jason Lutes’s first book, was originally serialized in the Seattle, Washington, The Stranger and the Providence, Rhode Island, Nicepaper weekly newspapers between 1993 and 1996. It was self-published in an incomplete edition in 1994 through Penny Dreadful Press, which was created by Lutes and schoolmates at the Rhode Island School of Design. Penny Dreadful Press lasted for only about seven issues, which were sold at the school, to small comic shops, and in a mail network. Jar of Fools was then collected, in its entirety, by Black Eye Productions, also known as Black Eye Books, a short-lived Canadian comic book publishing company, in 1996. In 2001, Jar of Fools was published by Drawn and Quarterly.
Lutes is entirely responsible for writing, illustrating, penciling, inking, lettering, and creating backgrounds for Jar of Fools. The cover of the Drawn and Quarterly edition is a photo from istockphoto.com by Kristian Grønevet. However, the cover of the first complete printing of Jar of Fools by Black Eye Books is based on the collaboration between Lutes and Michel Vrana. The only changes between printed editions are the covers; the amount of strips collected; and, according to Lutes, two pages of changes in the drawings.
Plot
Jar of Fools was spurred by Lutes’s interest in the magician Harry Houdini and was written in an exploratory fashion: Lutes did not outline a plot, making intuitive choices along the way. In general, Lutes’s goal is to capture the untapped market—the audience that does not read comics—by creating a clear and focused product. Jar of Fools tells the story of a group of disillusioned people who come together to affect changes in one another’s lives.
Jar of Fools opens with Ernie Weiss dreaming about his estranged girlfriend, Esther, only to awaken on a park bench as an unshaven, depressed, and slightly alcoholic washed-out magician. Escaping the rain in the park, he returns to his rundown apartment and falls asleep to the television, which morphs into a dream of his brother’s death during an underwater escape stunt (which may or may not have been suicide). He is woken up by his neighbor, who says he has a phone call from his mentor, Al Flosso, who has escaped a retirement home once again. Ernie returns with Al to the apartment and discovers a letter and cassette sent by Esther.
The next section deals with Esther, who is first seen in bed with a man for whom she feels little. On her way to work, she seems to hinder a suicide. There is a young woman staring into the river from the bridge Esther crosses. The women share a brief conversation about the last person to die at the bridge, which was Ernie’s brother. Esther then goes to work at the coffee shop. Time goes slowly; when she returns home, she tells her boyfriend she would like to disappear. She goes to bed and dreams of Ernie. The following day at work, a con artist tricks her, and when she cannot catch him or get his license-plate number, in a fit of anger she punches a man who makes a sexual comment about her.
The story returns to Ernie, who is creating a cassette to send back to Esther. Still living with Ernie, Al persuades him to dress up and practice his magic tricks. Ernie leaves the apartment to wander the town and discovers two men from the retirement home have come to pick up Al. Ernie tries to warn Al; in the nick of time, the con man, Mr. Lender, whom Ernie first encountered during his stroll home in the opening scene, pulls up with a car (his daughter, Claire, is with him) and rescues the pair.
At the end of part 1, Esther has a broken hand and is frustrated with her life. Ernie and Al are with Mr. Lender and Claire. They are homeless and living out of their car while hiding under a freeway overpass. Mr. Lender wants Ernie to teach Claire magic tricks so she can learn to con people better. Mr. Lender also shows Ernie the same straightjacket and ball and chain that belonged to Ernie’s brother. The scene closes with the four people falling asleep in the car under the overpass as it rains.
In part 2, Ernie teaches Claire magic tricks in exchange for Mr. Lender’s help with Al. Ernie also visits the junk shop where Mr. Lender found the straitjacket. He gets little information about the man who brought it in. Meanwhile, Mr. Lender watches over Al, who is suffering from senility—he thinks he is young again and that his magician friends are still alive.
In the meantime, Claire has left her job, apartment, and boyfriend to search for Ernie, whom she finds. Ernie has a mental breakdown and is on the bridge about to try the same trick his brother attempted. Esther stops him. Claire and her father go on one final con; it goes wrong, and Mr. Lender gives himself up to the police to save Claire. Claire is left with Esther; they take the car and try to find Claire’s mother. Al and Ernie go into the city together to start a new life.
Characters
•Ernie Weiss, a.k.a. the Amazing Ernesto, the protagonist, is an unshaven down-and-out magician tormented by his older brother’s death. He misses his girlfriend, Esther. He takes in his former mentor, Al Flosso, and tries to take care of the elderly man.
•Esther O’Dea is Ernie’s former girlfriend. She is dissatisfied with her life. She stops Ernie’s suicide attempt. She later takes Claire back to her mother.
•Al Flosso is Ernie’s former magic mentor. He escapes from a retirement home and is the major catalyst for everything that happens in the story. He might be suffering from dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. He coaxes Ernie to start over instead of remaining stuck in his old life.
•Nathan Lender is a con man living out of his car. His daughter is Claire. He saves Al and Ernie, and, in exchange, Ernie and Al teach Claire magic tricks. He cons Esther but later apologizes and asks her to take Claire back to her mother. He saves everyone by distracting the police and allowing the police to arrest him.
•Claire Lender is Mr. Lender’s child. She misses her mother and is unhappy in the unstable life her father provides. She is often part of her father’s cons, either keeping the car running or creating a diversion. She learns magic tricks in order to help her father with bigger cons.
Artistic Style
As published by the Penny Dreadful Press, Jar of Fools was originally serialized in black and white. Lutes uses clear-line technique. He is heavily influenced by European comics artists such as Hergé, the creator of The Adventures of Tintin (1929-1976), as well as Art Spiegelman’s comics anthology RAW. Lutes’s approach to comics production, in terms of going against the mainstream both in content matter and art style, exemplifies Spiegelman’s influence. Neatly proportioned panels offer a variety of viewpoints from characters instead of simple third-person views. Lutes believes clarity is the most important thing in the work, which affects the visuals of speech: There is never more than a sentence or two in a word balloon, and conversations are staged at the eye level with careful attention paid to body language and the facial expressions of those in the panel. He also provides inflection on the conversation with the angle or frame of the drawn panel.
Themes
Jar of Fools is primarily concerned with love: between a man and a woman, between brothers, between a father and a child, and between mentor and protégé. There are criminal elements to the story (magic is used to con people), but the story is also one of acceptance of the past such as when Ernie the failed magician comes to realize he may never know whether or not his brother’s death was suicide.
Jar of Fools is concerned with peoples’ lives and the grittiness of them. Also present is a coming-of-age theme, though in general, the characters are either older or younger than characters that readers would associate with a bildungsroman. Characters quit drinking, go to jail for the right reasons, return to an abandoned family, and move on to new lives—all signs of maturation.
Magic is also a prominent theme in Jar of Fools. This is personified by the main character, Ernie Weiss, whose name references Houdini’s given name, Ehrich Weiss. Magic is also used to con people. Furthermore, Al’s antics and mental instability are centered on magic.
Impact
Jar of Fools is Lutes’s first mainstream success and is a novel published in the Modern Age of comics. When Jar of Fools was first produced, it was atypical of the age, particularly because it is a tragicomedy; this is a comics subgenre that has become more common, as realist comics artists have come to the forefront.
Lutes’s writing style has been compared to Ernest Hemingway’s. The characters’ psychological makeups and their backstories are interchangeable—much like Hemingway’s characters—and provide readers with a greater sense of story and mood.
Lutes has worked as an artist on other graphic novels such as The Fall (2001), written by Ed Brubaker. His art style has given a clean visual story line to Brubaker’s work. Lutes’s work has evolved since Jar of Fools, a fact that can be seen in later works such as the critically acclaimed Berlin: City of Stones (2000). His work has been published in multiple languages and editions. Jar of Fools has garnered positive criticism, and after the success of Berlin, many critics and scholars are returning to Jar of Fools.
Further Reading
Folman, Ari, and David Polonsky. Waltz with Bashir (2009).
Lutes, Jason. Houdini: The Handcuff King (2007).
Tomine, Adrian. Shortcomings (2007).
Bibliography
Hatfield, Charles. Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2005.
Heer, Jeet, and Kent Worcester. A Comics Studies Reader. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2009.
Lutes, Jason. “Walrus Comix Presents: An Exclusive Interview with Artist Extraordinaire, Missoula, Montana’s Comix Laureate Jason Lutes.” Walrus Comix. http://www.walruscomix.com/interviewlutes.html.