Scope and Content Note
The papers of Jules Ralph Feiffer (1929- ), cartoonist, playwright, and author, span the years 1919-1995, with the bulk of the material dating from 1950 to 1990. The collection principally documents Feiffer's writing career and is organized in six series: Family and Biographical File, General Correspondence, Art Publications, Writings, 2022 Addition, and Oversize.
In 1956, Feiffer offered his cartoons to the Village Voice, just then making its reputation as a newspaper with influence beyond its locus in Greenwich Village in New York City. Feiffer's cartoons were simply-rendered drawings of people talking and explaining, talking to each other, to themselves, and, ostensibly, to the reader, sometimes in psychoanalytic language. His satire was compared to the stage acts of Elaine May and Mike Nichols, Mort Sahl, and Lenny Bruce. By the 1960s, when Feiffer was widely syndicated in the United States and Europe as a weekly strip, he turned his narrative sense and penchant for dialogue to writing novels and plays. Feiffer's cartooning style parallels his work for stage and screen in character development and theme, sometimes concentrating on relations between the sexes, as in his 1971 film Carnal Knowledge, other times exploring political and philosophical questions in Little Murders, God Bless, and Knock, Knock, and his youthful comic book heroes for the 1981 film, Popeye, all of which are well documented in the Writings series.
The Writings series comprises the largest group of papers. Included with drafts, notes, and background material is documentation on the publication or production of the work, such as correspondence and contracts, playbills and promotional material, and newspaper clippings of reviews and notices. The files for Carnal Knowledge also include legal documents concerning obscenity charges made against the film.
The Family and Biographical File features correspondence between Feiffer and his parents Rhoda and David Feiffer, and sisters, Miriam "Mimi" Feiffer Moody and Alice Feiffer Korman, during the 1950s when Feiffer was drafted into military service and in the early stages of his cartooning career. The series also includes appointment calendars, awards and citations, financial records for the years 1965-1980, high school records, legal documents, and newspaper clippings of articles about Feiffer.
The General Correspondence, organized in two parts as a chronological file and an alphabetical subject file, includes letters to Feiffer from friends, neighbors, acquaintances, fans and readers, writers, journalists, editors, publishers, cartoonists, academics, political activists, actors, directors, attorneys, and representatives of cultural, social, political, and religious organizations. The correspondence mostly concerns Feiffer's creative projects and includes comments sent by readers or audience members along with evaluations and reactions written by colleagues and friends in the publishing and theater worlds. Feiffer's political interests are also discussed in his correspondence and indicate his views and activities in behalf of various social issues in New York.
Frequent correspondents include Ted Riley, an agent who placed Feiffer's drawings in publication before they were widely syndicated, literary agent Robert Lantz, Hugh Hefner and Playboy Enterprises, and writers with whom Feiffer was friendly during sojourns to Martha's Vinyard, such as Robert Crichton and Ward Just. Other prominent correspondents include Steve Allen, Alan Arkin, Imamu Amiri Baraka, Stanley Burnshaw, Milton Arthur Caniff, E. L. Doctorow, Lillian Hellman, Stanley Kubrick, Norman Mailer, Elaine May, Eugene J. McCarthy, George S. McGovern, Mike Nichols, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Robert Chesley Osborn, Carl Reiner, Philip Roth, Arthur Meier Schlesinger Jr., Charles M. Schulz, Stephen Sondheim, Edward Sorel, G. B. Trudeau, and Fredric Wertham.
The Art Publications series includes files relating to Feiffer's illustrations in advertisements, articles, and books, especially his own books of cartoon collections, as well as calendars, cards, cartoons, and comic strips. A small file documents exhibitions of Feiffer's drawings in museums and galleries.
In 1961, Paul Sills at the Second City (Theater company) in Chicago, Illinois, directed The Explainers which was based on cartoons by Feiffer. The 2022 Addition contains playscripts with annotations, notes, and revisions by Feiffer and cast member Charles Lewsen. These represent the textual changes made in rehearsals. The addition also includes a cartoon gift from Feiffer to Lewsen.