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Jack Johnson and the Battle of the Century
by Youssef Daoudi
A groundbreaking graphic portrait of boxing legend Jack Johnson, Last On His Feet offers a front-row seat to the Battle of the Century.
On the morning of July 4, 1910, thousands of boxing fans stormed a newly built stadium in Reno, Nevada, to witness an epic showdown. Jack Johnson, the world's first Black heavyweight champion―and most infamous athlete in the world because of his race―was paired against Jim Jeffries, a former heavyweight champion then heralded as the "great white hope." It was the height of the Jim Crow era, and spectators were eager for Jeffries to restore the racial hierarchy that Johnson had pummeled with his quick fists.
Transporting readers directly into the ring, artist Youssef Daoudi and poet Adrian Matejka intersperse dramatic boxing action with vivid flashbacks to reveal how Johnson, the self-educated son of formerly enslaved parents, reached the pinnacle of sport―all while facing down a racist justice system. Through a combination of breathtaking illustrations and striking verse, Last On His Feet honors a contentious civil rights figure who has for more than a century been denied his proper due.
"A desert boxing match becomes an epic, a tragic symbol, and a thunderous encapsulation of America's bloody racial history in this passionately told graphic history from Daoudi and Matejka about America's first Black heavyweight champion, Jack Johnson...This is a big brawl of a book that, like the greatest boxing matches, finds the poetry in the violence." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"[E]vocative and entrancing... With red ink luridly accentuating the brutal black-and-white tale, Daoudi's exceptional sense of anatomy, expressions, and choreography combine with the snap of Matejka's text to vividly depict this defiant and flawed man's struggle against a culture built to dehumanize him and equipped with laws to break him. You can't fight city hall, but Johnson lands some solid blows on his way to the mat." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"[A]n immersive character-study of one of the most controversial figures in sports history...Lyrical narration and powerfully evocative black-and-white illustration combine for an uncommonly propulsive, completely immersive biography." - Library Journal (starred review)
"Last On His Feet is not only a testament to the incredibly complex life of Jack Johnson, but it's also an example of how some stories require more than straight-ahead prose. How some lives can only be captured by the ballet of poetry and razor-sharp imagery, especially a life as beautiful and brutal as Johnson's. Matejka and Daoudi rise to the occasion and turn a tale about one of the most courageous and controversial champions, into an experience so immersive you can almost smell blood and sweat coming from the pages. This is a masterpiece." - Jason Reynolds, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author
"With action, suspense, and introspection, Last On His Feet provides the reader a front row seat to the 'Fight of the Century.' A riveting tale of physical triumph against the backdrop of racism at the turn of the 20th century; a must-read for sport and history fans alike." - Andrew Aydin, coauthor of March and Run
"A powerful work ― no gimmicks, straightforward narrative with a timeless appeal, beautifully lyrical. Jack Johnson knew his place in this world and liked the finer things in life. He carved inroads to success with fists of righteous anger and keen business sense in a time when the odds were overwhelmingly stacked against someone like him. But if you think Jack Johnson would bend the knee -- then you don't know Jack!" - Wilfred Santiago, author of 21: The Story of Roberto Clemente
This information about Last On His Feet was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Youssef Daoudi, a comic artist, writer and illustrator, is the author of Monk!. Previously, he was an art director for multinational advertising firms.
Adrian Matejka is the author of The Big Smoke, which won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award. He teaches creative writing at Indiana University in Bloomington.
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