Tantrum

Jules Feiffer’s Tantrum (1979, Alfred A. Knopf) is a single-issue graphic novel that broke ground as one of the earliest modern works to explore adult anxieties through the comic form. Feiffer, writing and drawing the entire book, tells the story of a man who literally regresses into a toddler to escape the pressures of middle-class life—a darkly comic, psychologically sharp fable. Its publication by a prestigious literary house marked a pivotal moment for the medium, helping to legitimize long-form comics as a vehicle for sophisticated, introspective storytelling.