By The Daily Cross Hatch
July 21, 2008
One of the great things about interviewing the Jules Feiffer, from an editorial standpoint, is the fact that the legendary cartoonist invariably has some new project to speak about, between a seemingly endless parade of comics, plays, and books, all of which the artist thankfully continues to crank out, a mere six months away from his 80th birthday, to a bottomless stream of career retrospectives that publishers such as Fantagraphics seem to issue like clockwork.
Conducted with the artist after a recent appearance at The Strand Bookstore, just below Manhattan’s Union Square, this interview largely celebrates the latter, in light of the recent release of Explainers, a hardbound volume celebrating the early Village Voice strips that first put Feiffer on the map, released by the completists at the aforementioned indie comics publishing house.
After his discussion [video of which is available here], Feiffer happily signed several towering piles of books for admiring fans, from the aforementioned new Fantagraphics volume, to classics like The Phantom Tollbooth, to the poster for the black comedy, Little Murders, for which Feiffer penned the screenplay.
In this first of our two part interview, we discuss the roles that newspaper comics, Will Eisner, and the Korean War played in the genesis of Feiffer’s career.
You’ve recently completed work on the first draft of your memoirs.
Oh no–this is something like the second or third draft. It’s finished, but we’re in the editing process, which means that the editor is doing his edit, and I’m going over that and making changes and corrections, based on his suggestions, so that should be done within the next three or four weeks.
Bob Andelman’s “Mr. Media” podcast interview with Jules Feiffer is HERE!
