Remembering Jules Feiffer

A fan of the cartoons he admired in the daily New York newspapers, he vowed to someday become a famous cartoonist. Hence, he began his schooling at the age of six, sitting at the kitchen table and copying the newspaper artists he most admired. By the time he was in his teens he was taking classes at Art Students League, and later on he studied at Pratt Institute.

After two years of army service, he developed a character named Munro, a four-year-old accidentally drafted into the army. It may have been his first children’s book, but it failed to find a buyer.

Feiffer eventually found kindred spirits in New York’s Greenwich Village. He began hanging out with underground comedians Mort Sahl and Nichols and May. Newsweek magazine labeled them “sick humorists”. By then Feiffer’s work had begun to appear in a few papers and Jules was quick to respond to the critics that “It was not sick humor, but it was society that was sick”. In 1956 he began an association with The Village Voice, and introduced his new comic strip: Sick, Sick, Sick

Over the years he enjoyed considerable success. His cartoons were widely syndicated. He wrote an Off-Broadway play, Little Murders, that garnered an Obie; a movie script, Carnal Knowledge, that starred Jack Nicholson; and was awarded an Oscar for an animated movie, Munro, based on the 4-year-old character drafted into the army who he had written about many years earlier.

Perhaps it was his Munro character that eventually led him to writing children’s books. Whatever it was, he once was quoted as saying, “It was a joyously accidental career turn”. In all, he wrote and illustrated 10 books beginning in 1993 with The Man in the Ceiling.  

However, it was not really his first children’s book assignment. Almost thirty years earlier he had teamed up with author Norton Juster to illustrate the classic The Phantom Tollbooth. For more than half a century that book has been a best-selling staple, and it is no mystery why. It’s simply because it is one of those very rare titles that appeals to both children and adults. We believe that accolade also applies to Jules Feiffer himself. His work, for close to a century, has touched everyone in one way or another.

The SCBWI applauds his contributions to the arts, while deeply mourning his loss to our world.