FEIFFER, JULES

FEIFFER, JULES (1929– ), U.S. cartoonist and writer. Born in the Bronx, New York, Feiffer studied at James Monroe High School and entered the Art Students' League. From 1947 to 1951 he studied at the Pratt Institute while working as an assistant on the comic The Spirit. Growing up, he had always assumed that The Spirit was Jewish. In 1949 he created his first Sunday cartoon page feature, Clifford. He served in the U.S. Army from 1951 to 1953, working with a cartoon animation unit. Upon leaving the army, Feiffer worked in a number of jobs until in 1956, the New York weekly magazine The Village Voice began to publish his cartoons. His comic strip, which was simply called Feiffer, was an immediate success and appeared regularly in The Village Voice and was also internationally syndicated. His satirical cartoons made moral and political statements on a wide range of contemporary issues, both political and personal – from nuclear holocaust, the arms race, and presidential politics to male-female relationships and human fears, and neuroses – and were characterized by the revelation of the private thoughts of his characters. After appearing weekly for 43 years, Feiffer's last syndicated cartoon strip was published on June 18, 2000. Although known primarily for his cartoons, Feiffer has also achieved success as a playwright, screenwriter, and novelist. His plays of the late 1960s, Little Murders (1967), God Bless (1968), and The White House Murder Case (1969), were all highly political. Little Murders, which depicted the horrors of urban life, was later made into a film. In 1963, he came out against the Vietnam War, subsequently speaking at peace demonstrations in Washington. His screenplay for the 1971 movie Carnal Knowledge and his play Knock Knock (1976) dealt with more personal issues, the former with middle-age crisis and the latter with social values. His play Grownups (1981) focused on interfamily relationships and conflicts. He also wrote the screenplay for the film comedy I Want to Go Home (1989), directed by Alan Resnais and starring Adolph Green, as well as the script for the 1991 TV series The Nudnik Show. In 1986 Feiffer received the Pulitzer Prize in editorial cartooning, and in 2004 was honored with the Ian McLellan Hunter Award by the Writers Guild of America. Among Feiffer's many published works are Sick Sick Sick: A Guide to Non-Confident Living (1958); Great Comic Book Heroes (1965), a critical history of the comic book super-heroes of the late 1930s and early 1940s; Jules Feiffer's America, from Eisenhower to Reagan (1982); Marriage Is an invasion of Privacy, and Other Dangerous Views (1984); Ronald Reagan in Movie America: A Jules Feiffer Production (1988); and President Bill: A Graphic Epic (with W. Brown, 1990). Some of his many books for children include The Man in the Ceiling (1993); A Barrel of Laughs, a Vale of Tears (1995); Tantrum (1997); Meanwhile (1997); I Lost My Bear (1998); and Bark, George (1999). -ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: K. McAuliffe, The Great American Newspaper: The Rise and Fall of the Village Voice (1978); S. Heller (ed.), Man Bites Man: Two Decades of Satiric Art – 1960 – 1980 (1981). (Susan Strul / Ruth Beloff (2nd ed.)