Jules Feiffer’s Village Voice cartoon expressed the hip, irreverent ethos of New York City’s radical downtown artists and writers.
Those of us in the hinterlands who subscribed to the iconoclastic newspaper turned to Feiffer’s cartoon first for clues on how to act with urban sophistication.
A strident liberal, Feiffer satirized left wing orthodoxies and Manhattan pretensions. His progressive audience loved being skewered by him.
Feiffer’s weekly strip gave us an education on art, politics, modes of behavior and moral values.
The influential cartoonist, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, moviemaker and children’s book author died last week at age 95 at his home in Richfield Springs, N.Y.
Suffering from various ailments for years, he died from congestive heart failure.
Outside of his era-defining cartoon, I consider Feiffer’s screenplay for the tragi-comic film “Carnal Knowledge” his greatest accomplishment.
Staring Jack Nicholson, Art Garfunkel, Candice Bergen and Ann-Margret, the film directed by Mike Nichols weighs the emotional costs of America’s poisonous male-female relationships.
Younger generations won’t have much interest in the vanished cultural wars depicted in Feiffer’s cartoons.
The sexual battles of “Carnal Knowledge” will remain current.
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