Jules Feiffer at work on the proofs of his first book, Sick, sick, sick in New York in 1958.
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Jules Feiffer at work on the proofs of his first book, Sick, sick, sick in New York in 1958.
Underwood Archives/Getty Images
Some artists draw each line as if they know exactly where it will end. Jules Feiffer never did it. Not for him the delicate feathers, the diligent hatching or the obsessive pointillism of the neurotic and controlling artisan. His lines unfolded across the page like banners of the subconscious, zooming in, zooming back, and propelling the reader’s gaze (and even, one might suspect, his own) in directions no one could have predicted.
It was not only on the page that he launched himself so boldly into the unknown. In life too, he continually aimed for invisible horizons. When he died Jan. 17 of congestive heart failure at his home in Richfield Springs, N.Y., he left a legacy rich in a range of artistic media. The history of graphic arts, literature, cinema and theater bears the imprint of his pen, always so distinctive and always capricious.
Fortunately, Feiffer was not one of those geniuses who was forced to languish unappreciated throughout his life. He received his share of congratulations, even if they took a while to arrive. It was not until 1986 — quite late, it must be admitted — that he received the Pulitzer Prize for his editorial cartoon. Over the years, he has 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 to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and in 2004 he was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards Hall of Fame. He wrote an animated short film, Munrowhich won an Oscar in 1961.
What is more important, however, is the impact it had on the inner eye of a generation. For people who knew the Village voice As the coolest newspaper ever, cherishing characters like Munro, Huey and the Dancer as life companions, Feiffer has always been more than “just” a cartoonist.
Yet Feiffer’s creativity was rooted in this medium. Born in the Bronx in 1929, he grew up loving to draw. At the age of 5, his depiction of Tom Mix won him a gold medal in the John Wanamaker department store drawing competition. Right out of high school, he looked up Will Eisner in the phone book and zeroed in on the legendary comic book mastermind in his downtown office. Eisner “couldn’t have been nicer until he looked at my work and then he told me the work was crap,” Feiffer told the Voice in 2018. Despite this, Eisner allowed the boy to contribute bits and pieces to the studio’s comics. Feiffer filled in the areas with black ink and the borders of the lined panels. More importantly, he talked to Eisner about form. Eventually, Feiffer began writing stories for The Spirituntil he was drafted in 1951. He served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps until 1953.
After a period of searching for his ideal outlet – or, at least, anyone willing to publish innovative work in the mid-1950s – Feiffer saw his beginnings Village voice cartoon printed in 1956, in the paper’s first anniversary issue, and he quickly became known for his hyper-cool, ice-pick wit.
Real-life events inspired him to direct that mind toward a more multidimensional medium: playwriting. At the beginning of the 1960s, he wrote comic magazines The explainers And Hold me! and the only act Arnold crawling. The assassination of John F. Kennedy prompted him to write his first full-fledged play, 1967. Little Murders. (Although its Broadway debut was a failure, an Off-Broadway production won an Obie Award in 1969.) He later wrote The White House Murder Case in 1970 and Adults in 1981, and two novels, Harry, the rat with the women (1963) and Acknowledge (1977). Perhaps most memorably, he wrote the screenplay for 1971. Carnal knowledgedirected by Mike Nichols.
Meanwhile, back at VoiceFeiffer still didn’t draw a salary – and wouldn’t during his first two decades there, even though collections like those in 1958 Sick, sick, sick and the 1965s The Unexpurgated Memoirs of Bernard Mergendeiler made his style instantly recognizable across the country. These collections introduced Feiffer to adult readers, but for younger readers, he was the magical artist behind the 1961s. The ghost toll. More than 30 years after illustrating Norton Juster’s cult children’s book, Feiffer returns to the genre as an author, with books like the 1993 book. The man on the ceiling (eventually adapted into a musical with Tony Award-winning producer Jeffrey Seller) and its 2010 re-teaming with Juster, The odious Ogre. In recent years, he returned to cutting adult satire in the 2014s. Kill my mother and 2016 Cousin Joseph. Her most recent book was a children’s graphic novel published in September 2024, titled Amazing grapes.
Jules Feiffer in New York in 2007.
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Feiffer’s ever-twisting creative path continued to surprise and inspire his fans throughout his life. In 2016, he embarked on a new chapter by marrying independent writer and novelist JZ Holden. He was 87 years old; she, 64 years old.
In all his various activities he taught us the joys of unpredictability, of breaking away from the narrow path of convention. He was and always will be the man who drew lines without knowing where they would end.
Etelka Lehoczky wrote about books for The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Review of Books And The New York Times.
