Jules Ruled
By Paul Merklein
Jules Feiffer would not stop talking.
He stood in front of a packed audience seated on folding chairs at Schwartz Bookshop in Wisconsin, answering questions, telling stories, and charming the crowd. Feiffer was a legend, an icon, a rebel with many causes. He was a cartoonist, playwright and novelist who looked and sounded like one of his cartoon characters. He was a Fifties Lefty who rubbed elbows with Jack Nicholson and Robin Williams. He was fired by The Village Voice after contributing his cartoons every week for 40 years, then bounced back to write and illustrate books for children, young adults, and old adults. He was unstoppable.
He would not stop talking, just like he would not stop drawing cartoons, writing books and screenplays, complaining, kvetching and griping about men, women, sex, politics, religion, pop culture, current events, the media, America and anything else that enraged him. Almost everything enraged him. He didn't own a computer. He didn't need a cellphone. He had paper and a pen, and an ambition that would not let him rest. Not until this January, when died at his home in upstate New York at the productive age of 95.
I was seated in one of those folding chairs at Schwartz Bookshop in Shorewood. I could barely stay in my seat. Feiffer was one of my heroes, and here he was right in front of me, answering questions and smirking at his own stories. I had several of his books that he was going to autograph. I couldn't wait. He was going to sign my books. I was going to shake his hand. And then my head would explode.
Feiffer inspired me to draw cartoons. He opened my eyes. Before I discovered his drawings, cartoons were just snarky kids with big heads, super heroes and sexy dames. Feiffer broke all the rules. No more restricting little boxes or borders. No more speech balloons or thought bubbles. No more backgrounds! His pen knew no boundaries. It was all words, words and more words, cascading around a cartoon face and commanding your attention.
Feiffer was the edge. He was a hip mix of George Carlin, Bob Dylan and Picasso. His style and range of topics whiplashed from one cartoon to the next, keeping readers on their toes. He made you think. He made you pause. He made you question everything. He drew himself. He drew Presidents. He drew everyday people. And he gave them all a voice. His voice. His characters never stopped talking. And his audience never stopped listening. We couldn't get enough.
Many years later, I met Feiffer again at a Comic-Con in Baltimore. I was freelancing cartoons to newspapers and magazines, and teaching cartooning at a community center in Arlington VA. He was drawing graphic novels and writing his autobiography. He was on stage, still answering questions, telling stories, and smirking.
His advice to artists was simple. Don't be afraid to fail. Failure inspired him. Failure made him keep drawing. Failure made him keep writing. Read his cartoons. Read his books. Hear his voice. He is still talking.
Paul Merklein is a former resident of Silver Spring MD. His Guess Who cartoon appears in Riverwest Currents newspaper in Milwaukee WI. You can see his cartoons at… https://www.instagram.com/guesswhocartoons
