I used to keep an informal list in my head of writers and artists whose hearts I’d eat to steal their talents.
I don’t keep the list anymore (somehow the way I think about that sort of desire has changed), and the actual phrasing was stolen from an Evan Dorkin strip, I believe where he pictures himself eating Jaime Hernandez’s heart. (For the record, Evan Dorkin was never on my list, nor was Jamie Hernandez, but the metaphor for talent-envy was spot on.)
Jules Feiffer was on that list.
Jesus, Jules Feiffer!
Talk about multi-talented. Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist who scripted “The Spirit” with Will Eisner and cartooned for the Village Voice for four decades, but also an Academy Award-winner for animation, playwright, novelist, artist…
Talk about a sharp mind, and an ability to crystallize the human condition into short, bite-sized pieces. Give me a six-panel Feiffer cartoon strip over any page of poetry to hit a note smartly, sharp and subtle at the same time. (Each such feat is a tiny miracle, and his work is full of them.)
He’s speaking in town on June 21st thanks to Cinefamily and Family bookstore. I’m probably not going to be able to go because of prior obligations, but you definitely should! You must. They’ll be screening the odd, ground-shifting (even by over-three-decades-later standards) film Little Murders.
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