Welcome to Litsy!

I was in a graphic novel mood and this one fit the bill! Joel Kupperman was a child star of the popular Quiz Kids show in the 1940s-50s. His son is on a mission to learn more about him through interviews before his father loses his memory and this graphic novel is the result.

A graphic memoir about Joel Kupperman, the most famous of the “Quiz Kids” in the 40s & 50s, by his son. It is only tangentially about the Quiz Kids experience, though. It is more about a father/son relationship, or lack thereof, & the trauma that having your entire childhood scripted can cause. The art is not my taste, but it works for the book. It feels like a work that had to be done for a son to come to terms with why his dad is the way he is.

A graphic memoir where the author comes to terms with his father‘s unhappy youth, as the most famous contestant on the Quiz Kids game show in the 1940s and 1950s. Moving and thoughtful meditation on family and memory.

A great graphic novel memoir. A man looks back at his father‘s childhood as a radio and tv child prodigy.

A sad read, but a fascinating story. I don't pause to take in artwork enough when reading some graphic novels, mkreso when it's balck and white, so I finished this quite quickly.

"Happy late Christmas" said my brother as he handed me this.
It's definitely late Christmas... but so far it's not very happy.

A fascinating father-son relationship #graphicnovel memoir. Award-winning cartoonist Michael Kupperman‘s father Joel experienced trauma as a result of his childhood fame on the radio & TV show Quiz Kids. As an adult, he became ill & had to leave the room if someone even mentioned the show. So nobody talked about it & it was like a rot that soured the relationships in the Kupperman family. A touching story of a son trying to understand his dad.

Father to adult son: I should have thought about you more, because… I think my assumption was simply that you were a bright kid, you would do well in school, & you would find your own way out… basically it never occurred to me that I should have a particular obligation to develop your opportunities & understanding… I was out of the picture a lot of the time. I would have had to go back & construct a relationship, & nobody suggested I do that…

Until I did this research, I had no idea he‘d been a huge baseball fan, and even played piano with reasonable skill. This was all news to me.

I‘m really enjoying this memoir about a man‘s relationship with his once-famous father.

Putting children on display for the interest and amusement of adults was more commonplace back then. In Canada, following the birth of five surviving quintuplets (a first), the government put them on display behind glass for thousands of daily visitors to gawk at.