A Dance to Jules Feiffer

Jules Feiffer speaking to the 2015 AAEC convention by Skype

Brilliant cartoonist, author, and playwright Jules Feiffer passed away last Thursday, a little over a week before his 96th birthday.

Growing up, I mostly got to see his cartoons when I came across a copy of the Sunday Chicago Sun-Times, which ran his work in their newsmagazine supplement. It wasn't the paper we got at home, but if I spotted one a neighbor had put out for recycling, I would salvage the magazine and clip out Feiffer's cartoon.

Eventually, I found his books; my personal library includes a few of his paperbacks, plus a coffee-table size career retrospective that came out in 

A typical Feiffer cartoon was a multi-panel monologue of a solo character or a dialogue between two, their neuroses on full display — what you imagine the Peanuts characters might have become in middle age. From time to time, presidents and cabinet secretaries would appear, sharing their inner thoughts or speaking on television.

in Village Voice, New York, 1972

His drawing style was deceptively simple, bordering on rough sketch. Yet he included details that belied the outward simplicity. I failed to notice it in the example above until it was pointed out to me, but there is a motif of stripes from each panel to the next (don't miss the recruit's chevron).

I had Feiffer's monologists in mind when I drew one of my early cartoons about AIDS:

in UW-Parkside Ranger, Sept., 1985

But now that I think about it some more, it's an approach that I've used many, many times over the years. At some point, what was once an homage becomes an influence.

The closest I ever got to meeting Feiffer was when, kept home by illness, he spoke by Skype to the 2015 convention of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists in Columbus, Ohio, the first such convention I was able to attend in person. He spoke about the evolution of comics from the funnies of the 1930's to modern-day graphic novels.

Feiffer told us how his long-running Dancer character was modeled after a girlfriend he had once upon a time. She, too, was a dancer; their relationship didn't last long, but they remained on friendly terms and she didn't mind showing up in his cartoons year after year, slim and limber and lithe yet frozen in time.

Dance in Peace, Jules Feiffer.

from Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival promotional material, 2009