Last On His Feet
Art by Youssef Daoudi, Poetics by Adrian Matejka
Jack Johnson and the Battle of the Century
Finalist for 2024 Eisner Award for Best Reality-Based Work
Price: $29.99
ISBN: 978-1-63149-558-8
February 21, 2023, Liveright (WW Norton)
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From the Publisher: 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.
Reviews & Praise
“In a new and magisterial work of poetic visual nonfiction, Daoudi and Matejka recreate and dissect one of the most explosively meaningful sporting events in American history.”
“The new graphic biography “Last on His Feet” is a fascinating collaboration between poet Adrian Matejka and artist Youssef Daoudi, who fracture the timeline of Johnson’s life and create a mosaic of a narrative pieced together around his most famous fight: In 1910, he faced off against James Jeffries in “the fight of the century,” an event imbued with cultural weight far greater than the two fighters’ combined 450 pounds. For the starkness of the black and white in the book — Matejka’s text and Daoudi’s ink — theirs is a story radiantly told.”
“Last on His Feet, a graphic novel written by the American poet Adrian Matejka and illustrated by the Moroccan artist Youssef Daoudi, revisits this “Fight of the Century,” which wasn’t just a landmark in athletics—it was a crucible for the racial animosity Black Americans had to navigate during Jim Crow. Through a stylish mix of prose, blank verse and illustrations, Last on His Feet captures these tensions with unsparing poignancy.”
A new and magisterial work of poetic visual nonfiction.
— Publisher’s Weekly, starred review
Lyrical narration and powerfully evocative black-and-white illustration combine for an uncommonly propulsive, completely immersive biography.
—Library Journal, starred review
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.
A knockout.