RIP Jules Feiffer
I hadn’t thought of Feiffer in many years, but as a teenager I was a huge fan. I had several of his books of cartoons, and they were wonderful. He turned his satirical eye and his whimsical pen on the liberals of his day, gently and incisively mocking them, although I assume he was a liberal too.
I especially loved the leotard-clad Dancer, who namelessly and hopefully danced her interpretive dances to Spring, to Love, to whatever. I found this one – not necessarily his best, but at least it’s of the character:
Feiffer had reached the formidable age of 95 when he died. I know next to nothing about his later works, but it sounds like he kept pretty busy:
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.
Here’s one that’s still timely; I don’t know when it was published:
RIP.
I don’t recall ever doing a deep dive on his work, or intentionally seeking it out, but I was always entertained when I stumbled onto it. I vaguely remember being 13, or so, and finding something in a magazine and recognizing the artwork as similar to “The Phantom Tollbooth” and noticing the artist’s attribution in the magazine was the same as the Tollbooth illustrator’s name. I then sought out other works by Feiffer in the library and also liked what I found.
But I’d forget he was out there until stumbling onto something new by him, and really enjoying it. It was pure chance, but it was fun encountering Feiffer anew every decade, or so, like a surprise. Didn’t he also illustrate “Harrison Bergeron?*”
*ChatGPT says no. Maybe I’m just confusing Feiffer’s style with the drawings Vonnegut would sometimes include in his own works.
I never thought about it until re-looking at Feiffer’s dancer illustration thanks to neo’s post, but it looks a lot like how Schultz drew Snoopy dancing. Was Schultz doing an homage to Feiffer?
I’m wondering now where I encountered Feiffer in my teens and twenties. I don’t know but I loved what I saw. Hostileman was great.
The “black” vs “African American” theme was done much better, in my opinion, by Berke Breathed in “Bloom County” in 1988 but I’m not sure which came first.
I loved the Phantom Tollbooth and my children have enjoyed it. It’s hard to picture it without the illustrations, which is a sign of a good illustrator: for example it’s jarring to see a Dickens novel illustrated by someone else, if it was illustrated by Phiz.
I guess I thought he’d already died.
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I saw a production of the play Feiffer’s People in 1982. It was by a collection of high school students. With one possible exception, I don’t think I’ve ever been so entertained by a play.
Regarding the Bloom County take, whenever the opportunity arises I refer to nonwhite people as “colored people.” When someone inevitably corrects me I ask, “what is the difference?” Never yet gotten an answer.
I was in a high school production of “The Apple Tree,” a musical adaptation of three stories by different writers (including Mark Twain). I think it had been only mildly successful on Broadway in the 1960s, despite being written by Bock and Harnick of “Fiddler on the Roof” fame, directed by Mike Nichols, and starring a young Alan Alda. One segment was based on Feiffer’s illustrated story “Passionella,” a Cinderella parody in which a shy woman is magically transformed into a sexy movie star. It was mostly a send-up of glamorous method actors from the ’50s and ’60s, like Marlon Brando and Marilyn Monroe, and their supposed search for authenticity. Which was kind of funny, but the references were extremely outdated by the time we got to it. (Honestly, I don’t know why my school chose that show, but it was still better than doing “Oklahoma!” yet again.)