Jules Feiffer#Books

{{Short description|American cartoonist and author (1929–2025)|bot=PearBOT 5}}

{{Redirect|Feiffer|his daughter, the actress and playwright|Halley Feiffer}}

{{Infobox comics creator

| image = Jules Feiffer-drawing.jpg

| caption = Feiffer in 1958

| birth_name =

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1929|1|26}}

| birth_place = New York City, U.S.

| death_date = {{Death date and age|2025|1|17|1929|1|26}}

| death_place = {{nowrap|Richfield Springs, New York, U.S.}}

| area = {{hlist|Cartoonist|author|playwright|screenwriter}}

| alias =

| awards = {{ubl|Pulitzer Prize (1986)|Inkpot Award (1989)|Comic Book Hall of Fame (2004)}}

| notable works = {{hlist|class=nowraplinks|Carnal Knowledge|Little Murders|Munro|The Phantom Tollbooth}}

| spouse = {{ubl|{{marriage|Judith Sheftel|1961|1983|end=divorced}}|{{marriage|Jennifer Allen|1983|2014|end=divorced}}|{{marriage|JZ Holden|2016}}}}

| children = 3, including Halley

}}

Jules Ralph Feiffer ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|f|aɪ|f|ər}} {{respell|FY|fər}};{{Cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUQe7nniiIo&t=5m30s |title=Old Masters: Art Spiegelman, Jules Feiffer, Alex Melamid |date=December 2, 2014 |publisher=The Italian Academy – Columbia University |time=5m30s |access-date=March 7, 2025}} January 26, 1929 – January 17, 2025) was an American cartoonist and author, who at one time was considered the most widely read satirist in the country. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1986 for editorial cartooning and, in 2004, Feiffer was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame. He wrote the animated short Munro, which won an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 1961. The Library of Congress has recognized Feiffer's "remarkable legacy", from 1946 to the present, as a cartoonist, playwright, screenwriter, adult and children's book author, illustrator, and art instructor.

When Feiffer was 17 (in the mid-1940s), he became assistant to cartoonist Will Eisner. There, he helped Eisner write and illustrate his comic strips, including The Spirit. In 1956, Feiffer became a staff cartoonist at The Village Voice, where he produced the weekly comic strip titled Feiffer until 1997. Feiffer's cartoons became nationally syndicated in 1959 and then appeared regularly in publications including the Los Angeles Times, the London Observer, The New Yorker, Playboy, Esquire, and The Nation. In 1997, he created the first op-ed page comic strip for The New York Times, which ran monthly until 2000.

Feiffer wrote more than 35 books, plays, and screenplays. His first of many collections of satirical cartoons, Sick, Sick, Sick, was published in 1958, and his first novel, Harry, the Rat With Women, in 1963. In 1965, Feiffer wrote The Great Comic Book Heroes, the first history of the comic-book superheroes of the late 1930s and early 1940s and a tribute to their creators. In 1979, he created his first graphic novel, Tantrum. By 1993, Feiffer began writing and illustrating books aimed at young readers, with several of them winning awards.

Feiffer began writing for the theater and film in 1961, with plays including Little Murders (1967), Feiffer's People (1969), and Knock Knock (1976). He wrote the screenplay for Carnal Knowledge (1971), directed by Mike Nichols, and Popeye (1980), directed by Robert Altman. At the time of his death, Feiffer was working on a visual memoir.

Early life

Feiffer was born in The Bronx, New York City, on January 26, 1929.Comics Buyer's Guide #1650; February 2009; Page 107{{cite web|last=Miller |first=John Jackson |author-link=John Jackson Miller |url=http://cbgxtra.com/knowledge-base/for-your-reference/comics-industry-birthdays |title=Comics Industry Birthdays |work=Comics Buyer's Guide |date=June 10, 2005 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110218031356/http://cbgxtra.com/knowledge-base/for-your-reference/comics-industry-birthdays |archive-date=February 18, 2011 |url-status=dead }} His parents were David Feiffer and Rhoda ({{nee|Davis}}), and Feiffer was raised in a Jewish household with a younger and an older sister.Silvey, Ed. The Essential Guide to Children's Books and Their Creators, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2002) p. 154 David was usually unemployed in his work as a salesman due to the Depression, while Rhoda was a fashion designer who made watercolor drawings of her designs which she sold to various clothing manufacturers in New York. "She'd go door to door selling her designs for $3," recalled Feiffer. However, the fact that she was the breadwinner created an "atmosphere of silent blame" in the home. Feiffer began drawing at age three. "My mother always encouraged me to draw," he said.Feiffer, Jules. [https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-return-of-cartoonist-jules-feiffer-1434468364 "The Return of Cartoonist Jules Feiffer"], The Wall Street Journal, June 16, 2015

When Feiffer was 13, his mother gave him a drawing table for his bedroom. She also enrolled Feiffer in the Art Students League of New York to study anatomy. He graduated from James Monroe High School in 1947. Feiffer won a John Wanamaker Art Contest medal for a crayon drawing of the radio Western hero Tom Mix.Feiffer, Jules. The Great Comic Book Heroes (The Dial Press, New York, first trade paperback edition, 1977), p. 12. {{ISBN|978-0-8037-3045-8}}. Ellipses after "Green Hornet" in original text. He wrote in 1965 about his childhood:

{{quote|I came to the field with a more serious intent than my opiate-minded contemporaries. While they, in those pre-super days, were eating up "Cosmo, Master of Disguise"; "Speed Saunders"; and "Bart Regan Spy", I was counting up how many panels there were to a page, how many pages there were to a story – learning how to form, for my own use, phrases like: @X#?/; marking for future reference which comic book hero was swiped from which radio hero: Buck Marshall from Tom Mix; the Crimson Avenger from The Green Hornet ...}}

Feiffer said that cartoons were his first interest when young, "what I loved the most." Feiffer stated that because he could not write well enough to be a writer, or draw well enough to be an artist, he realized that the best way to succeed would be to combine his limited talents in each of those fields to create something unique. Feiffer read comic strips from various newspapers which his father brought home, and he was attracted mostly to the way they told stories. "What I loved best about these comics was that they created a very personal world in which almost anything could take place," Feiffer said. "And readers would accept it even if it had nothing to do with any other kind of world. It was the fantasy world I loved."

Among Feiffer's favorite cartoons were Our Boarding House, Alley Oop and Wash Tubbs.Feiffer, The Great Comic Book Heroes, pp. 12–13 He began to decipher features of different cartoonists, such as the sentimental naturalism of Abbie an' Slats, the [Preston] Sturges-like characters and plots of others, with cadenced dialogue. Feiffer recalls that Will Eisner's Spirit rivaled them in structure, and no strip, except [Milton] Caniff's Terry [and the Pirates], rivaled it in atmosphere."Feiffer, The Great Comic Book Heroes, p. 13

Career

=Cartoonist=

==With Will Eisner (1946–1956)==

{{quote box||align=right|width=25em|bgcolor = Cornsilk|quote=Our fights were always collegial. Never once did [Eisner] pull rank on me. I was always amazed by what he let me get away with. It shows how close and tight the relationship was, that he let me do that parody. He had great generosity of soul.|source= —Jules Feiffer}}

After Feiffer graduated from high school at 16, he was desperate for a job, and went unannounced to the office of one of his favorite cartoonists, Will Eisner. Eisner was sympathetic to young Feiffer, as Eisner had been in a similar situation when he first started out. Eisner asked Feiffer, "What can you do?" He answered, "I'll do anything. I'll do coloring, or clean-up, or anything, and I'd like to work for nothing."Schumacher, Michael. Will Eisner: A Dreamer's Life in Comics, Bloomsbury Publishing (2010) pp. 98–100 However, Eisner was unimpressed by Feiffer's art abilities and did not know how he could employ him. Eisner ultimately decided to give him a low-paying job when he found out that Feiffer "knew more about him than anybody who had ever lived," said Feiffer. "He had no choice but to hire me as a groupie."

Eisner considered Feiffer a mediocre artist, but he "liked the kid's spunk and intensity", writes Eisner biographer Michael Schumacher. Eisner was also aware that they both came from similar backgrounds, despite his being 12 years older. They both had fathers who struggled to support their family, and both their mothers were strong figures who held the family together through hardships. "He had a hunger for comics that Eisner rarely saw in artists", notes Schumacher. "Eisner decided that there was something to this wisecracking kid." When Feiffer later asked for a raise, Eisner instead gave him his own page in The Spirit section and let him do his own coloring.Feiffer, Jules. Backing into Forward: A Memoir, Doubleday, 2010. As Eisner recalled in 1978:

{{quote|He began working as just a studio man – he would do erasing, cleanup ... Gradually it became very clear that he could write better than he could draw and preferred it, indeed – so he wound up doing balloons [i.e., dialog]. First he was doing balloons based on stories that I'd create. I would start a story off and say, 'Now here I want the Spirit to do the following things – you do the balloons, Jules.' Gradually, he would take over and do stories entirely on his own, generally based on ideas we'd talked about. I'd come in generally with the first page, then he would pick it up and carry it from there.Groth, Gary. "Will Eisner Interview", The Comics Journal No. 46 (May 1979), p. 37. Interview conducted Oct. 13 and 17, 1978}}

They collaborated well on The Spirit, sharing ideas, arguing points, and making changes when they agreed. In 1947, Feiffer also attended the Pratt Institute for a year to improve his art style. Over time, Eisner valued Feiffer's opinions and judgments more often, appreciating his "uncanny knack" for capturing the way people talked, without using contrived dialogue. Eisner recalls that Feiffer "had a real ear for writing characters that lived and breathed. Jules was always attentive to nuances, such as sounds and expressions" which made stories seem more real.

==At ''The Village Voice'' (1956–1997)==

File:Jules Feiffer - 1.jpg

File:Conedexplainers.jpg

After working with Eisner for nearly a decade, Feiffer chose to start creating his own comic strips. In 1956, after again first proving his talent by working for free, Feiffer became a staff cartoonist at The Village Voice, where he produced a weekly comic strip. Feiffer's strips ran until 1997, at first titled Sick Sick Sick, then as Feiffer's Fables, and finally as simply Feiffer. After a year with the Voice, Feiffer compiled a collection of many of his satire cartoons into a best-selling book, Sick Sick Sick: A Guide to Non-Confident Living (1958), a dissection of popular social and political neuroses. The success of that collection led to his becoming a regular contributor to the London Observer and Playboy magazine.[http://www.tcj.com/the-jules-feiffer-interview/ "The Jules Feiffer Interview"], The Comics Journal 124, 1988. Director Stanley Kubrick, a fellow Bronx native, invited Feiffer to write a screenplay for Sick, Sick, Sick, although the film was never made.Kercher, Stephen E., Revel with a Cause: Liberal Satire in Postwar America, Univ. of Chicago (2006) pp. 340–341 After first becoming aware of Feiffer's work, Kubrick wrote him in 1958:

{{quote|The comic themes you weave are very close to my heart ... I must express unqualified admiration for the scenic structure of your "strips" and the eminently speakable and funny dialog ... I should be most interested in furthering our contact with an eye toward doing a film along the moods and themes you have so brilliantly accomplished.[https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/hope-for-america/cartoons-and-satire.html "Hope for America: Performers, Politics and Pop Culture"], Library of Congress}}

By April 1959, Feiffer was distributed nationally by the Hall Syndicate, initially in The Boston Globe, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Newark Star-Ledger and Long Island Press.Feiffer, Jules. Explainers: The Complete Village Voice Strips (1956–1966), Fantagraphics Books, 2008.[https://web.archive.org/web/20110201075325/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,892185,00.html "The Press: Sick, Sick, Well"] Time, February 9, 1959. [https://web.archive.org/web/20110201075325/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,892185,00.html WebCitation archive]. Eventually, his strips covered the nation, including magazines, and were published regularly in major publications such as the Los Angeles Times, The New Yorker, Esquire, Playboy and The Nation. Feiffer was commissioned in 1997 by The New York Times to create its first op-ed page comic strip, which ran monthly until 2000.{{cite news|url = https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/21/arts/jules-feiffer-dead.html|title = Jules Feiffer, Acerbic Cartoonist, Writer and Much Else, Dies at 95|last = Webster|first = Andy|date = January 21, 2025|accessdate = January 21, 2025|newspaper = The New York Times|url-access = limited}}

Feiffer's cartoons were typically mini-satires, where he portrayed ordinary people's thoughts about subjects such as sex, marriage, violence and politics. Writer Larry DuBois describes Feiffer's cartoon style:

{{quote|Feiffer had no stories to tell. His main concern was to explore character. In a series of a dozen or so pictures, he would show the shifts of mood that flickered across the faces of men and women as they tried, often vainly, to explain themselves to the world, to their husbands and wives, to their mistresses and lovers, to their employers, to their rulers, or simply to the unseen adversaries at the other end of the telephone wires ...

It would be no exaggeration to say that his dialog is as acute as any that is being written in America today. Dialog aimed at sophisticated minds, usually with the purpose of shaking them out of sophistication into real awareness.DuBois, Larry. "Playboy Interview with Jules Feiffer", Playboy magazine, September 1971}}

=Author=

File:Feifferobama.jpg (2008)]]

Image:Nervousset.jpg (1959)]]

Feiffer published the hit Sick, Sick, Sick: A Guide to Non-Confident Living in 1958 (which featured a collection of cartoons from about 1950 to 1956), and followed up with More Sick, Sick, Sick and other strip collections, including The Explainers; Boy, Girl. Boy, Girl.; Hold Me!; Feiffer's Album; The Unexpurgated Memoirs of Bernard Mergendeiler; Feiffer on Nixon; Jules Feiffer's America: From Eisenhower to Reagan; Marriage Is an Invasion of Privacy; and Feiffer's Children. Passionella (1957) is a graphic narrative initially anthologized in Passionella and Other Stories, a variation on the story of Cinderella. The protagonist, Ella, is a chimney sweep who is transformed into a Hollywood movie star. Passionella was used as one part of the 1966 Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock Broadway musical The Apple Tree.{{cn|date=October 2024}}

Feiffer's cartoons, strips and illustrations have been reprinted by Fantagraphics as Feiffer: The Collected Works. Explainers (2008) reprints all of his strips from 1956 to 1966. David Kamp reviewed the book in The New York Times:

{{quote|His strip, usually six to eight borderless panels, initially appeared under the title Sick Sick Sick, with the subtitle 'A Guide to Non-Confident Living'. As the Lenny Bruce-ish language suggests, the earliest strips are very much of their time, the postwar Age of Anxiety in the big city; you can practically smell the espresso, the unfiltered ciggies, the lanolin whiff of woolly jumpers.Kamp, David. [https://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/19/books/review/Kamp-t.html "Cartoons for Grown-Ups"], The New York Times "Sunday Book Review", October 19, 2008. [https://archive.today/20120906181855/http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/19/books/review/Kamp-t.html?_r=1 WebCitation archive].}}

Feiffer has written two novels (1963's Harry the Rat with Women, 1977's Ackroyd) and several children's books, including Bark, George; Henry, The Dog with No Tail; A Room with a Zoo; The Daddy Mountain; and A Barrel of Laughs, a Vale of Tears. He partnered with The Walt Disney Company and writer Andrew Lippa to adapt his book The Man in the Ceiling into a musical.[http://easthamptonstar.com/Arts/2016419/Pow-Jules-Feiffers-Ceiling-Man-Hits-Stage "Pow! Jules Feiffer's Ceiling Man Hits the Stage"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160423234756/http://easthamptonstar.com/Arts/2016419/Pow-Jules-Feiffers-Ceiling-Man-Hits-Stage |date=April 23, 2016 }}, The East Hampton Star, April 21, 2016 Feiffer illustrated the children's books The Phantom Tollbooth and The Odious Ogre. His non-fiction includes the 1965 book The Great Comic Book Heroes.

{{quote box||align=left|width=25em|bgcolor = Cornsilk|quote=I want to write about marriage. I think the most interesting story is how men and women get on with each other, the terms they accept to live together and survive together, the compromises they make, the betrayals of themselves and of each other, and how, despite the fact that over and over again they find that it can't possibly work, it still seems to be preferable to anything else they know about. In the end, it becomes rather heroic.|source= —Jules Feiffer, Playboy interview}}

Feiffer also wrote and drew one of the earliest graphic novels, the hardcover Tantrum (Alfred A. Knopf, 1979),Tallmer, Jerry. [http://www.nyc-plus.com/nycp1/thethreelive.html "The Three Lives of Jules Feiffer"], NYC Plus No. 1, April 2005. [https://web.archive.org/web/20081120090228/http://www.nyc-plus.com/nycp1/thethreelive.html WebCitation archive]. described on its dustjacket as a "novel-in-pictures". Like the trade paperback The Silver Surfer (Simon & Schuster/Fireside Books, August 1978), by Marvel Comics' Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, and the hardcover and trade paperback versions of Will Eisner's A Contract with God, and Other Tenement Stories (Baronet Books, October 1978), this was published by a traditional book publisher and distributed through bookstores, whereas other early graphic novels, such as Sabre (Eclipse Books, August 1978), were distributed through some of the first comic-book stores.

Feiffer's autobiography, Backing into Forward: A Memoir (Doubleday, 2010), received positive reviews from The New York Times{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/18/books/18book.html |work=The New York Times |title=From an Artist of Anxiety, an Ink-Stained Memoir |first=Michiko |last=Kakutani |date=March 17, 2010 |access-date=February 25, 2017 |archive-date=September 5, 2012 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120905044528/http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/18/books/18book.html?_r=1 |url-status=dead}} and Publishers Weekly, which wrote:

{{quote|His account of hitchhiking cross-country invades Kerouac territory, while his ink-stained memories of the comics industry rival Michael Chabon's Pulitzer Prize–winning fictional portrait. Feiffer was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1951 during the Korean War,[https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/art/2025/01/22/jules-feiffer-cartoonist-military-cartoons/ Jules Feiffer and the art of crossing the line] The Washington Post. Retrieved January 23, 2025. where he did animation for the Signal Corps.[https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jules-Feiffer Jules Feiffer, American cartoonist and writer] Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved January 23, 2025. His two years in the military gave Feiffer fodder for the trenchant Munro (about a child who is drafted). Such satirical social and political commentary became the turning point in his lust for fame, which finally happened, after many rejections, when acclaim for his anxiety-ridden Village Voice strips served as a springboard into other projects.[http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/419618-Nonfiction_Reviews_11_30_2009.php?q=feiffer "Nonfiction Reviews: 11/30/2009"], Publishers Weekly, November 30, 2009. [https://web.archive.org/web/20101231042723/http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/1-legacy/21-nonfiction-book-reviews/article/27994-nonfiction-reviews-11-30-2009-.html Archive].}}

Feiffer has had retrospectives at the New York Historical Society, the Library of Congress and The School of Visual Arts. His artwork is exhibited at and represented by Chicago's Jean Albano Gallery.[http://www.jeanalbano-artgallery.com/feiffer/ Jean Albano Gallery – Jules Feiffer]. [https://web.archive.org/web/20110713095630/http://www.jeanalbano-artgallery.com/feiffer/ WebCitation archive]. In 1996, Feiffer donated his papers and several hundred original cartoons and book illustrations to the Library of Congress.

In 2014, Feiffer published Kill My Mother: A Graphic Novel through Liveright Publishing, which was named a Vanity Fair Best Book of 2014 and a Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction Book of 2014. In 2016, Feiffer published Cousin Joseph: A Graphic Novel, a prequel to Kill My Mother. Cousin Joseph was also published through Liveright Publishing, and was a New York Times Bestseller, named one of The Washington Post's Best Graphic Novels of the Year, and was nominated for the Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize. A third book in the series, The Ghost Script: A Graphic Novel, was published by Liveright in 2018.

Feiffer's picture book for young readers, Rupert Can Dance, was published by FSG in 2014.

=Playwright and screenwriter=

Feiffer's plays include Little Murders (1967), Feiffer's People (1969), Knock Knock (1976), Elliot Loves (1990), The White House Murder Case, and Grown Ups.{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/12/11/theater/stage-grown-ups-by-feiffer-at-lyceum.html/|title=STAGE: 'Grown Ups' by Feiffer at Lyceum|work=The New York Times |date=December 11, 1981 |last1=Rich |first1=Frank }} After Mike Nichols adapted Feiffer's unproduced play Carnal Knowledge as a 1971 film, Feiffer scripted Robert Altman's Popeye, Alain Resnais's I Want to Go Home, and the film adaptation of Little Murders.{{cn|date=July 2024}}

The original production of Hold Me! was directed by Caymichael Patten and opened at The American Place Theatre, Subplot Cafe, as part of its American Humorist Series on January 13, 1977. The production ran on the Showtime cable network in 1981.

Feiffer moved to Shelter Island, New York in 2017.{{cite web|url=http://shelterislandreporter.timesreview.com/2017/03/03/jules-feiffer-%E2%80%82a-new-chapter-life-filling-volumes/ |title=Jules Feiffer — A new chapter in a life filling volumes |website=Shelter Island Reporter |date=March 3, 2017}} He wrote the book for a musical based on a story he wrote earlier, Man in the Ceiling, about a boy cartoonist who learned to pursue his dream despite pressures to conform. The musical was produced and directed by Jeffrey Seller in 2017 at the Bay Street Theatre in neighboring Sag Harbor, New York.{{cite web|url=http://www.playbill.com/article/andrew-lippa-stars-in-world-premiere-of-his-man-in-the-ceiling-musical-beginning-may-30|title=Andrew Lippa Stars in World Premiere of His Man in the Ceiling Musical Beginning May 30 |website=Playbill |date=May 30, 2017}}{{cite web|url=https://variety.com/2017/legit/reviews/the-man-in-ceiling-review-musical-1202456128/|title=Long Island Theater Review: 'The Man in the Ceiling' by Andrew Lippa and Jules Feiffer|first=Frank|last=Rizzo|date=June 9, 2017}}

=Art instructor=

Feiffer was an adjunct professor at Stony Brook Southampton. Previously, he taught at the Yale School of Drama and Northwestern University. Feiffer has been a Senior Fellow at the Columbia University National Arts Journalism Program. He was in residence at the Arizona State University Barrett Honors College from November 27 to December 2, 2006. During the summer of 2009, Feiffer was in residence as a Montgomery Fellow at Dartmouth College, where he taught an undergraduate course on graphic humor in the 20th century.

Personal life

File:Loz feiffer.png at Columbia University in 2016]]

Feiffer was married thrice and had three children. His daughter Halley Feiffer is an actress and playwright.{{cite web|url=http://www.nysun.com/arts/halley-feiffers-indie-success-on-stage-and-screen/81293/ |title=Halley Feiffer's Indie Success on Stage and Screen |last=Pisarro |first=Carla |work=The New York Sun |date=July 7, 2008 |access-date=March 2, 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110319203835/http://www.nysun.com/arts/halley-feiffers-indie-success-on-stage-and-screen/81293/ |archive-date=March 19, 2011 }}. . A second daughter, Kate Feiffer, is the author and playwright of My Mom Is Trying to Ruin My Life and other works.{{cite web|url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/kate-feiffer/my-mom-is-trying-to-ruin-my-life/ |title=Kirkus Review: My Mom is Trying to Ruin My Life}}

His third marriage took place in September 2016, when he married freelance writer JZ Holden; the ceremony combined Jewish and Buddhist traditions.[https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/fashion/weddings/jz-holden-and-jules-feiffer-married.html "JZ Holden and Jules Feiffer: Humor and Truth Spark Outrage, Then a Union"], The New York Times, September 17, 2016 Holden is the author of Illusion of Memory (2013).

Feiffer lived in upstate New York with his wife and their two cats.{{Cite news|last=Kaufman|first=Joanne|date=October 8, 2024|title=An Artist Who Loved the City Finds 'Paradise' Upstate|url=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/10/08/realestate/jules-feiffer-home-upstate-new-york.html|access-date=January 24, 2025|work=The New York Times|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}} On January 17, 2025, Feiffer died from congestive heart failure at his home in Richfield Springs, New York; he was 95 years old.{{cite web|title=Jules Feiffer, Acerbic Cartoonist, Writer and Much Else, Dies at 95|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/21/arts/jules-feiffer-dead.html|date=January 21, 2025|last=Webster|first=Andy|work=The New York Times|access-date=January 22, 2025}}{{Cite news |date=January 21, 2025 |title=Jules Feiffer, cartoonist of acerbic wit and satire, dies at 95 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2025/01/21/jules-feiffer-cartoonist-humorist-pulitzer-dead/ |access-date=January 21, 2025 |newspaper=The Washington Post}}

Honors and awards

1961, recipient of a George Polk Award for his cartoons[https://www.loc.gov/bookfest/kids-teachers/authors/jules_feiffer Jules Feiffer], Library of Congress
1961, film Munro won Academy Award for animated short
1969 and 1970, won Obie Award and Outer Circle Critics Award for plays Little Murders and The White House Murder Case;
1986, awarded the Pulitzer Prize for political cartoons
1989, recipient of an Inkpot Award{{Cite web|title=Inkpot Awards|url=https://www.comic-con.org/awards/inkpot/|access-date=January 24, 2025|website=Comic-Con International|language=en-US}}
1995, elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters
2004, inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame
2004, received the National Cartoonists Society's Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement AwardGardner, Alan. [http://dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2007/01/30/jules-feiffer-to-recieve-lifetime-achievement-award/ "Jules Feiffer to Receive Lifetime Achievement Award"], The Daily Cartoonist, January 30, 2007. Retrieved March 3, 2009. [https://web.archive.org/web/20110929082942/http://dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2007/01/30/jules-feiffer-to-recieve-lifetime-achievement-award/ WebCitation archive].
2006, received the Creativity Foundation's Laureate[http://creativity-found.org/laureate-prize/archive/jules-feiffer/ "2006 Laureate Prize Winner: Jules Feiffer – Arts"], Creativity Foundation. [https://web.archive.org/web/20110814020611/http://creativity-found.org/laureate-prize/archive/jules-feiffer/ WebCitation archive].
2010, won a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Writers Guild of America{{cite web|url=https://www.wgaeast.org/2011/01/frank-gilroy-to-receive-writers-guild-of-america-east-lifetime-achievement-award/|title=Writers Guild of America East Press Release|date=January 10, 2011 }}
2023, won a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Dramatists Guild of America{{Cite web |date=May 17, 2023 |title=Dramatists Guild Honors 2023 Award Recipients |url=https://www.dramatistsguild.com/news/dramatists-guild-honors-2023-award-recipients |access-date=January 24, 2025 |publisher=Dramatists Guild}}

Selected works

Sick, Sick, Sick (1958)
Passionella and Other Stories (1959)
The Explainers (1960)
Boy, Girl, Boy, Girl (1961)
The Feiffer Album (1962)
Hold Me! (1962)
Harry: The Rat with Women, a Novel (1963)
Feiffer's Album (1963)
The Unexpurgated Memoirs of Bernard Mergendeiler (1964)
The Great Comic Book Heroes (1965)
Feiffer on Civil Rights (1966)
The Penguin Feiffer (1966)
Feiffer's Marriage Manual (1967)
Pictures at a Prosecution (1971)
Feiffer on Nixon, the Cartoon Presidency (1974)
Knock Knock (1976)
Tantrum (1979)
Jules Feiffer's America: From Eisenhower to Reagan (1982)
Marriage Is an Invasion of Privacy and Other Dangerous Views (1984)
Feiffer's Children (1986)
Ronald Reagan in Movie America (1988)
The Man in the Ceiling (1993)
A Barrel of Laughs, a Vale of Tears (1995)
Meanwhile— (1997)
I Lost My Bear (1998)
Bark, George (1999)
Backing into Forward: A Memoir (2010)Brennan, Elizabeth A.; Clarage, Elizabeth C. Who's Who of Pulitzer Prize Winners, Greenwood Publishing Group (1999), p. 156
Smart George (2020)
Amazing Grapes (2024)

References

External links

{{Sisterlinks|d=Q975547|c=category:Jules Feiffer|n=no|b=no|v=no|voy=no|m=no|mw=no|s=no|wikt=no|species=no}}

[https://www.rmichelson.com/illustration/jules-feiffer/ Jules Feiffer illustration] represented by [https://www.rmichelson.com/ R. Michelson Galleries]
{{citation |url=http://www.julesfeiffer.com |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120721055333/http://www.julesfeiffer.com/ |archive-date=July 21, 2012 |title=Jules Feiffer Official Site |access-date=February 12, 2013 }}
{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20101010171356/http://fora.tv/2009/08/05/Jules_Feiffer_Confessions_in_Print Archival footage of a discussion with Jules Feiffer at a PillowTalk at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival in 2009]}}
[https://www.lambiek.net/artists/f/feiffer.htm Lambiek Comiclopedia article]
{{IMDb name|270547|Jules Feiffer}}
{{discogs artist|Jules Feiffer}}
Stossel, Sage, [https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2010/03/a-conversation-with-jules-feiffer/37775/ "A Conversation with Jules Feiffer"], The Atlantic, March 19, 2010. [https://web.archive.org/web/20100526060742/http://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2010/03/a-conversation-with-jules-feiffer/37775 Archive]
Adams, Sam, [https://www.avclub.com/jules-feiffer-1798214484 "Jules Feiffer"], The A.V. Club, July 28, 2008. [https://web.archive.org/web/20140808043823/https://www.avclub.com/article/jules-feiffer-14283 Archive].
Transcript of March 24, 2010, Feiffer interview at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, published as [http://filmfestivaltraveler.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=705%3Ajules-feiffer-qa&catid=31%3Ageneral "Backing into Jules Feiffer: An Exclusive Q&A"], FilmFestivalTraveler.com, April 18, 2010. [https://web.archive.org/web/20190708102450/http://filmfestivaltraveler.com/index.php?option=com_content Archive]