Jules Feiffer

Jules Feiffer
Feiffer in 2018
Born (1929-01-26) January 26, 1929 (age 95)
New York City, U.S.
Area(s)Cartoonist, author, playwright, screenwriter
Notable works
Feiffer (comic strip), Carnal Knowledge, Little Murders, Munro, The Phantom Tollbooth
Awards
Spouse(s)
  • Judith Sheftel
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1961; div. 1983)​
  • Jennifer Allen
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1983, divorced)​
  • JZ Holden
    ​
    (m. 2016)​
Children3, including Halley

Jules Ralph Feiffer (born January 26, 1929)[2][3] is an American cartoonist and author, who at one time was considered the most widely read satirist in the country.[4] He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1986 for editorial cartooning, and in 2004 he 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 his "remarkable legacy", from 1946 to the present, as a cartoonist, playwright, screenwriter, adult and children's book author, illustrator, and art instructor.[5]

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, he became a staff cartoonist at The Village Voice, where he produced the weekly comic strip titled Feiffer until 1997. His 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.

He has written 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, he 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, Feiffer created his first graphic novel, Tantrum. By 1993, he 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. He was recently given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Dramatist's Guild. He lives in upstate New York with his wife JZ Holden and their three cats, Mimi, Jackson and Dezzdemona. He is currently working on a visual memoir.

  1. ^ Inkpot Award
  2. ^ Comics Buyer's Guide #1650; February 2009; Page 107
  3. ^ Miller, John Jackson (June 10, 2005). "Comics Industry Birthdays". Comics Buyer's Guide. Archived from the original on February 18, 2011.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Comics was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference LOC was invoked but never defined (see the help page).