Jules Feiffer, Pulitzer-Winning Cartoonist and Tony-Nominated Playwright, Dies at 95

Jules Feiffer, the Pulitzer-winning political cartoonist, writer and Tony-nominated Broadway playwright, died on January 17. He died of congestive heart failure at his home in Richfield Springs, N.Y., his wife, JZ Holden, confirmed. He was 95.

Jules Ralph Feiffer was born on January 26, 1929, in the Bronx. At 16, Feiffer was hired as a gofer at the studio of Will Eisner, creator of the comic book character the Spirit. Feiffer worked his way up the ranks until he was eventually writing Spirit stories himself. In 1956, he started drawing a regular strip, which became Feiffer, for The Village Voice, for no payment. The strip was syndicated in 1959 and ran until 2000.

Feiffer’s work, imbued with a distrust for authority he developed after being drafted into the Army, appeared in Playboy, the New Yorker and Rolling Stone, among others. He also provided the illustrations for The Phantom Tollbooth (1961), a children’s book by his Brooklyn neighbor Norton Juster that became an immediate hit.

Feiffer’s foray into playwriting reflected a shift in focus from the political to the personal. His Broadway plays included the black comedy Little Murders (1967); a segment of the infamous revue Oh! Calcutta! (1969); Knock Knock (1976), for which he received a Tony nomination for Best Play; and Grown Ups (1981). In an article in the New York Times in 1976, a friend described Feiffer as “human litmus paper,” for his “ability to smell out the emotions of the people he knows.”

Feiffer went on to write screenplays for the films Carnal Knowledge and Popeye and adapted Little Murders into a feature film starring Elliot Gould. Later in life, he wrote and illustrated books for young readers.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by his three daughters—children's book author Kate Feiffer, playwright and actress Halley Feiffer and and Julie Feiffer—as well as two granddaughters.