Posted on 01/21/2025 6:16:18 PM PST by BenLurkin
Some artists draw every line as if they know just where it will end. Jules Feiffer never did. Not for him the delicate feathering, diligent crosshatching or obsessive pointillism of the neurotically controlling craftsman. His lines unfurled across the page like banners of the subconscious, zooming forward, doubling back and propelling the reader's gaze (and even, you had to suspect, his own) in directions nobody could have anticipated.
It wasn't just on the page that he hurled himself so intrepidly into the unknown. In life, too, he continually aimed for unseen horizons. When he died Jan. 17 of congestive heart failure at his home in Richfield Springs, N.Y., he left an abundant legacy across a range of artistic media. The history of graphic art, literature, film and the theater bear the imprint of his ever-distinctive, ever-wayward pen.
Fortunately, Feiffer wasn't one of those geniuses who were forced to languish unappreciated in his lifetime. He collected his share of kudos, though they took a while in coming. It wasn't until 1986 — rather tardily, you have to own — that he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning. Over the years, he received other journalism awards: a special George Polk Memorial Award, a Newspaper Guild Page One Award, an Overseas Press Club Award. In 1995 he was elected into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and 2004 saw him inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards' Hall of Fame. He wrote an animated short film, Munro, which won a 1961 Oscar.
What's more important, though, is the impact he had on a generation's inner eye. For people who knew the Village Voice as the coolest newspaper there was, treasuring characters like Munro, Huey and the Dancer as living companions, Feiffer was always more than a "mere" cartoonist.
The history of graphic art, literature, film and the theater bear the imprint of his ever-distinctive, ever-wayward pen.
Still, Feiffer's creativity was rooted in the medium. Born in the Bronx in 1929, he grew up loving to draw. At age 5, his depiction of Tom Mix snagged him a gold medal in the John Wanamaker department store's drawing contest. Straight out of high school, he looked up Will Eisner in the phone book and buttonholed the legendary comics mastermind in his downtown office. Eisner "couldn't have been more pleasant until he looked at my work, and then he told me that the work was s***," Feiffer told the Voice in 2018. Even so, Eisner allowed the boy to contribute bits and pieces to the studio's comics. Feiffer filled in black-ink areas and ruled panel borders. More importantly, he talked to Eisner about the form. Eventually Feiffer graduated to writing stories for The Spirit, continuing until he was drafted in 1951. He served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps until 1953.
After a period searching for his perfect outlet — or, at least, for anyone who would publish innovative work in the conformist mid-'50s — Feiffer saw his debut Village Voice cartoon printed in 1956, in the newspaper's first anniversary issue, and he quickly became known for his hyper-cool, icepick wit.
Real-life events prompted him to direct that wit into a more multidimensional medium: playwriting. In the early '60s he wrote the comedic revues The Explainers and Hold Me! and the one-act Crawling Arnold. The assassination of John F. Kennedy prompted him to pen his first full-fledged play, 1967's Little Murders. (Though its Broadway debut was a flop, an Off-Broadway production won an Obie award in 1969.) He went on to write The White House Murder Case in 1970 and Grown Ups in 1981, and two novels, Harry, the Rat with Women (1963) and Ackroyd (1977). Perhaps most memorably, he penned the screenplay for 1971's Carnal Knowledge, directed by Mike Nichols.
Meanwhile, back at the Voice, Feiffer still wasn't drawing a paycheck — and wouldn't for his first two decades there, even as collections like 1958's Sick, Sick, Sick and 1965's The Unexpurgated Memoirs of Bernard Mergendeiler made his style immediately recognizable across the country. Those collections introduced Feiffer to adult readers, but for the younger set he was the magical artist behind 1961's The Phantom Tollbooth. More than 30 years after illustrating Norton Juster's cult kids' book, Feiffer returned to the genre as an author, with books like 1993's The Man in the Ceiling (eventually adapted into a musical with Tony Award-winning producer Jeffrey Seller) and his 2010 re-teaming with Juster, The Odious Ogre. Recent years saw him return to razor-edged grownup satire in 2014's Kill My Mother and 2016's Cousin Joseph. His most recent book was a graphic novel for kids published in Sept. 2024, called Amazing Grapes.
Feiffer's ever-twisting creative path continued to surprise and inspire his fans throughout his life. In 2016 he embarked on yet another new chapter, marrying freelance writer and novelist JZ Holden. He was 87; she, 64.
In all his diverse endeavors, he taught us the joys of unpredictability, of stepping off the narrow road of convention. He was, and always will remain, the man who drew lines without knowing where they'd end.
I disliked his artistic style almost as much as I disliked his politics.
Conformist 50s? Ask Maynard G. Krebs
Never heard of him, but the article is such literary fellatio, that this had to be a hardcore left cartoonist.
Gosh, I haven’t thought about him in a long time. Rest in peace.
I recall seeing his work for several years in the local papers. Sunday sections in both the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press carried his editorial comics or media reviews. Feiffer was popular with printed media not just because most of his work was clever, but because his panels were usually done in high contrast black line grey mass and white negative spaces. In other words,they printed easy and told their story in a quick, graphic manner.
I’m not in touch with the New York theater crowd or those who the the Village Voice means anything to mid-America. Thus I may never have come in contact with his “work”.
Thanks to FR I at least know he has passed on.
Without samples of his work I don’t know if I’ve ever seen any of his work.
Civil rights, rock and roll, hot rods, TV satire, women in the workplace, soaring productivity... America wasn’t conformist, just not bitterly angry about everything. I’d argue that it was the second least conformist decade in the last century.
My father bought me a book called “The Great Comic Book Superheroes”. The volume was a great selection of golden age superhero comic stories.
However, Jules Feiffer was chosen to write the introduction, and it was nearly pornographic. My father had excised the pages, and I only found out was in them years later.
Feiffer should have known that at least SOME of his audience would be composed of nine-year old boys whose fathers wanted them to have some knowledge of the golden age heroes who were the progenitors of the bronze age I grew up with. I suspect Feiffer didn’t care.
Civil rights, rock and roll, hot rods, TV satire, women in the workplace, soaring productivity.
Mention Modern Art, Civil Rights or Folk Music, and you’re In Like Flynn!
I remember him quite well in the 1970s, but I haven’t thought about him in 40 years or more, and had no idea he was still alive.
“I remember him quite well in the 1970s, but I haven’t thought about him in 40 years or more, and had no idea he was still alive.”
Neither did I. They made “Little Murders” into a movie with Elliott Gould, Donald Sutherland, and Alan Arkin. It was pretty good.
Never cared for his cartoons. When I watched the movie POPEYE(1980) I noticed he wrote the script. I said “Aw C*ap! This is not going to be worth watching!” It turned out to be one of those rare movies you wish you could get two hours of your life back after watching.
Even my Brother-in-law hated it and he will watch anything!
In 1952 the spook agencies were conducting chemical warfare experiments on prisoners, military, and unsuspecting civilians. 2 subjects were kept tripping on acid for 77 straight days. Sleep deprivation was part of it, when they tried to go to sleep they were awakened with a cattle prod. Doesn’t sound very conformist to me.
I had that book too. I was only seven when I read it, and didn’t bother with the text. Only later when I actually read Feiffer’s text did I see how inappropriate it was for a book that would appeal to children.
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