Jules Feiffer was a cartoonist and writer whose satirical wit earned him a Pulitzer Prize in 1986 and made him one of the most influential cartoonists of the 20th century.
- Died: January 17, 2025 (Who else died on January 17?)
- Details of death: Died in Richfield Springs, New York of congestive heart failure at the age of 95.
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Jules Feiffer’s legacy
For decades, Feiffer’s artistry was omnipresent in magazines and newspapers, as well as on screen, on stage and elsewhere. His work as a satirical cartoonist, which earned him a Pulitzer Prize in 1986, was some of the most recognizable and revered of the 20th century.
Feiffer first rose to prominence through his long-running comic strip in The Village Voice, starting in 1956. His comics often depicted characters navigating the complexities of modern life, exploring topics such as relationships, identity, and existential dilemmas. Politics also became a frequent subject he lampooned. His panels were soon syndicated nationwide, appearing in The Boston Globe, The New Yorker, Esquire, Playboy, The Nation, and other publications.
But Feiffer was not just a cartoonist. He was a prolific author, screenwriter, and playwright, too. His script writing includes the play and subsequent film “Little Murders,” a dark comedy about the anxieties of urban life; 1971’s “Carnal Knowledge,” starring Jack Nicholson and Ann-Margret, and even lighter fare, such as Robert Altman’s (1925–2006) 1980 live action adaptation of “Popeye.”
His work as an author included picture books, cartoon collections, and 1965’s landmark “The Great Comic Book Heroes,” the first book to chronicle the history of superhero comics from the 1930s and ‘40s. He also illustrated the popular children’s book, “The Phantom Tollbooth,” and created one of the first-ever graphic novels, “Tantrum,” published in 1979.
Feiffer’s list of accolades includes the aforementioned Pulitzer, as well as an Academy Award for his short 1961 animated film “Munro,” an Obie Award and Outer Circle Critics Award for his plays “Little Murders” and “The White House Murder Case,” and others. He has been inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Comic Book Hall of Fame, and he has earned Lifetime Achievement Awards from the National Cartoonists Society and the Writers Guild of America.
Notable quote
“I sit down at a table, and I make notes and scrawl things down. And suddenly, as a result of scrawling, a notion hits me. And I scribble that and then another notion and another notion, and suddenly, I’m on a track somewhere. The one thing I don’t want to know ever is where I’m going before I get there.” — interview with NPR, 2024
Tributes to Jules Feiffer
Full obituary: The Washington Post
