Feiffer, Jules 1929-

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Feiffer, Jules 1929-

(Jules Ralph Feiffer)

PERSONAL:

Born January 26, 1929, in Bronx, NY; son of David (held a variety of positions, including dental technician and sales representative) and Rhoda (a fashion designer) Feiffer; married Judith Sheftel (a film production and publishing executive), September 17, 1961 (divorced, 1983); married Jennifer Allen (a journalist and stand-up comic), September 11, 1983; children: (first marriage) Kate; (second marriage) Halley, Julie. Education: Attended Art Students League, New York, NY, 1946, and Pratt Institute, 1947-48 and 1949-51.

ADDRESSES:

Home—New York, NY. Agent—Royce Carlton Incorporated, 866 United Nations Plaza, New York, NY 10017. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer, cartoonist, playwright, editorial cartoonist, illustrator, novelist, screenwriter, and commentator. Assistant to cartoonist Will Eisner, 1946-51, and ghostwriter for Eisner's comic book The Spirit, 1949-51; author of syndicated cartoon strip, Clifford, 1949-51; held a variety of positions in the art field, 1953-56, including producer of slide films, writer for Columbia Broadcasting System's Terry Toons, and designer of booklets for an art firm; author of cartoon strip (originally titled Sick, Sick, Sick, later changed to Feiffer), published in Village Voice, 1956-97, published weekly in London Observer, 1958-66, and 1972-82, and regularly in Playboy, beginning 1959, New Yorker, beginning 1993, and New Statesman & Society, beginning 1994; syndicated cartoonist, beginning 1959, including syndication by Universal Press Syndicate, Kansas City, MO; New York Times, editorial cartoonist, 1997-2000. Yale University, faculty member at Yale Drama School, 1973-74; Northwestern University, instructor; Southampton College, currently adjunct professor. Columbia University, senior fellow in National Arts Journalism Program, 1997-98. Appeared as himself in a number of films and documentaries. Exhibitions and retrospectives mounted at the U.S. Library of Congress, the JCC of Washington, DC, the New York Historical Society and the School of Visual Arts. Military service: U.S. Army, Signal Corps, 1951-53; worked in cartoon animation unit.

MEMBER:

PEN, American Academy of Arts and Letters, Authors League of America, Authors Guild (life member), Dramatists Guild (member of council), Writers Guild of America East.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Special George Polk Memorial Award, Department of Journalism, Long Island University, 1962; named most promising playwright of 1966-67 season by New York drama critics; London Theater Critics Award, 1967, and Obie Award from Village Voice, 1969, both for Little Murders; Outer Circle Critics Award, 1969, for Little Murders, and 1970, for The White House Murder Case; Antoinette Perry (Tony) Award nomination, best play, 1976, for Knock Knock; Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning, 1986; Venice Film Festival Best Screenplay, 1989, for I Want to Go Home; Lifetime Achievement Award, National Cartoonist Society; Lifetime Achievement Award, Writers Guild of America, for screenplays; Writers Guild of America West, animation writing award.

WRITINGS:

CARTOON COLLECTIONS

Sick, Sick, Sick, McGraw-Hill (New York, NY), 1958, published with introduction by Kenneth Tynan, Collins (New York, NY), 1959.

Passionella and Other Stories, McGraw-Hill (New York, NY), 1959.

Boy, Girl, Boy, Girl, Random House (New York, NY), 1961.

Feiffer's Album, Random House (New York, NY), 1963.

The Penguin Feiffer, Penguin (New York, NY), 1966.

Feiffer's Marriage Manual, Random House (New York, NY), 1967.

Feiffer on Civil Rights, Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith (New York, NY), 1967.

Pictures at a Prosecution: Drawings and Text from the Chicago Conspiracy Trial, Grove Press (New York, NY), 1971.

Feiffer on Nixon: The Cartoon Presidency, Random House (New York, NY), 1974.

(With Israel Horovitz) VD Blues, Avon (New York, NY), 1974.

Tantrum: A Novel in Cartoons, Knopf (New York, NY), 1979.

Popeye: The Movie Novel (based on the screenplay by Feiffer), edited by Richard J. Anobile, Avon (New York, NY), 1980.

Jules Feiffer's America: From Eisenhower to Reagan, edited by Steve Heller, Knopf (New York, NY), 1982.

(Coauthor) Outer Space Spirit, 1952, Kitchen Sink Press (Princeton, WI), 1983.

Marriage Is an Invasion of Privacy and Other Dangerous Views, Andrews & McMeel (Fairway, KS), 1984.

Feiffer's Children, Andrews & McMeel (Fairway, KS), 1986.

Ronald Reagan in Movie America: A Jules Feiffer Production, Andrews & McMeel (Fairway, KS), 1988.

The Complete Color Terry and the Pirates, Remco, 1990.

PUBLISHED PLAYS

The Explainers (satirical review; produced in Chicago, IL, at Playwright's Cabaret Theater, 1961), McGraw-Hill (New York, NY), 1960.

Crawling Arnold (one act; first produced in Spoleto, Italy, at Festival of Two Worlds, 1961; first produced in United States in Cambridge, MA, at Poets' Theater, 1961), Dramatists Play Service (New York, NY), 1963.

Hold Me! (first produced off-Broadway at American Place Theater, 1977), Random House (New York, NY), 1963.

The Unexpurgated Memoirs of Bernard Mergendeiler (one-act; first produced in Los Angeles, CA, at Mark Taper Forum, 1967), Random House (New York, NY), 1965.

Little Murders (two-act comedy; first produced on Broadway at Broadhurst Theater, 1967; first American play produced on the West End, London, England, by Royal Shakespeare Company at Aldw- ych Theater, 1967; also see below), Random House (New York, NY), 1968, reprinted, Penguin (New York, NY), 1983.

(With others) Dick and Jane (one act; produced in New York, NY, at Eden Theater as part of Oh! Calcutta!, devised by Kenneth Tynan, 1969; also see below), published in Oh! Calcutta!, edited by Kenneth Tynan, Grove (New York, NY), 1969.

Feiffer's People: Sketches and Observations (produced as Feiffer's People in Edinburgh, Scotland, at International Festival of Music and Drama, 1968), Dramatists Play Service (New York, NY), 1969.

The White House Murder Case: A Play in Two Acts [and] Dick and Jane: A One-Act Play (The White House Murder Case first produced off-Broadway at Circle in the Square Downtown, 1970), Grove (New York, NY), 1970.

Knock Knock (first produced in New York, NY, at Circle Repertory Theater, 1976), Hill & Wang (New York, NY), 1976.

Elliot Loves (first produced on Broadway, 1989), Grove (New York, NY), 1989.

Anthony Rose, Dramatists Play Service (New York, NY), 1990.

A Bad Friend (produced in New York, NY, 2003), Dramatists Play Service (New York, NY), 2005.

UNPUBLISHED PLAYS

The World of Jules Feiffer, produced in New Jersey at Hunterdon Hills Playhouse, 1962.

God Bless, first produced in New Haven, CT, at Yale University, 1968; produced on the West End by Royal Shakespeare Company at Aldwych Theater, 1968.

Munro (adapted by Feiffer from story in Passionella, and Other Stories), first produced in Brooklyn, NY, at Prospect Park, 1971.

(With others) Watergate Classics, first produced in New Haven, CT, at Yale University, 1973.

Grownups, first produced in Cambridge, MA, at Loeb Drama Center, 1981; produced on Broadway at Lyceum Theater, December, 1981.

A Think Piece, first produced in New York, NY, at Circle Repertory Theater, 1982.

Carnal Knowledge (revised version of play of same title originally written c. 1970; also see below), first produced in Houston, TX, at Stages Repertory Theater, 1988.

Also author of Interview and You Should Have Caught Me at the White House, both c. 1962.

SCREENPLAYS

Munro (animated cartoon; adapted by Feiffer from story in Passionella, and Other Stories), Rembrandt Films, 1961.

Carnal Knowledge (adapted from Feiffer's unpublished, unproduced play of same title written c. 1970), Avco Embassy, 1971.

Little Murders (adapted by author from play of same title), Twentieth Century-Fox, 1971.

Popeye, Paramount/Walt Disney Productions, 1980.

Grown-Ups (television screenplay), Playboy Entertainment Group, 1985.

I Want to Go Home, MK2 Productions, 1989.

I Lost My Bear, 2005.

Also author of the unproduced screenplays, Little Brucie and Bernard and Huey.

FOR CHILDREN

The Man in the Ceiling, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1993.

A Barrel of Laughs, a Vale of Tears, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1995.

Meanwhile, HarperCrest (New York, NY), 1997.

(With Daniel M. Pinkwater) Five Novels: The Boy from Mars, Slaves of Spiegel, The Snarkout Boys, The Avocado of Death, The Last Gur, Farrar, Straus & Giroux (New York, NY), 1997.

I Lost My Bear, William Morrow (New York, NY), 1998.

Bark, George, HarperCollins Juvenile Books (New York, NY), 1999.

I'm Not Bobby!, Michael di Capua Books/Hyperion Books for Children (New York, NY), 2001.

By the Side of the Road, Michael di Capua Books/Hyperion Books for Children (New York, NY), 2002.

The House across the Street, Michael di Capua Books/Hyperion Books for Children (New York, NY), 2002.

The Daddy Mountain, Michael di Capua Books/Hyperion Books for Children (New York, NY), 2004.

A Room with a Zoo, Michael di Capua Books/Hyperion Books for Children (New York, NY), 2005.

Henry, the Dog with No Tail, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers (New York, NY), 2007.

OTHER

(Illustrator) Robert Mines, My Mind Went All to Pieces, Dial (New York, NY), 1959.

(Illustrator) Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth, Random House (New York, NY), 1961.

Harry, the Rat with Women (novel), McGraw-Hill (New York, NY), 1963.

(Editor and annotator) The Great Comic Book Heroes, Dial (New York, NY), 1965, published with new illustrations and without original comic-book stories), Fantagraphics (Stamford, CT), 2003.

Silverlips (television play), Public Broadcasting Service, 1972.

(With Herb Gardner, Peter Stone, and Neil Simon) Happy Endings (television play), American Broadcasting Companies, 1975.

Akroyd (novel), Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1977.

(Author of introduction) Rick Marshall, editor, The Complete E.C. Segar Popeye, Fantagraphics (Stamford, CT), 1984.

Feiffer: The Collected Works, Volume 1: Clifford, Fantagraphics (Stamford, CT), 1989.

Feiffer: The Collected Works, Volume 2: Munro, Fantagraphics (Stamford, CT), 1989.

Feiffer: The Collected Works, Volume 3: Sick, Sick, Sick, Fantagraphics (Stamford, CT), 1991.

Feiffer: The Collected Works: Passionella, Fantagraphics (Stamford, CT), 1993.

(With Ted Rall) Revenge of the Latchkey Kids: An Illustrated Guide to Surviving the '90s and Beyond, Workman Publishing Company, 1998 (New York, NY).

(Illustrator) Florence Parry Heide, Some Things Are Scary, Candlewick Press (Cambridge, MA), 2000.

(Illustrator) Jenny Allen, The Long Chalkboard and Other Stories, Pantheon Books (New York, NY), 2006.

Writer on the television series, The Nudnik Show, 1991.

Vanity Fair contributing editor.

ADAPTATIONS:

The Feiffer Film, based on Feiffer's cartoons, was released in 1965; Harry, the Rat with Women was made into a play and produced in Detroit, MI, at Detroit Institute of Arts, 1966; Passionella, and Other Stories was adapted by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick into "Passionella," a one-act musical produced on Broadway as part of The Apple Tree, 1967, revived 2006; Jules Feiffer's America: From Eisenhower to Reagan was adapted by Russell Vandenbroucke into a play titled Feiffer's America; What Are We Saying?, a parody on Feiffer's cartoons, was produced in Rome, Italy.

SIDELIGHTS:

On learning that Hudson Review contributor John Simon described Jules Feiffer's play Little Murders as "bloody-minded," and made reference to its "grotesque horror" and "hideous reality," those who only know Feiffer as a cartoonist and not as a playwright might be more than a little surprised. Such brutal words are unexpected when used to characterize the work of a cartoonist—whom we might imagine would only want to make us laugh.

Feiffer revealed the origins of his somewhat black humor in a Washington Post interview with Henry Allen: "Back then [in the 1950s], comedy was still working in a tradition that came out of World War II…. Comedy was mired in insults and gags. It was Bob Hope and Bing Cosby, Burns and Allen, Ozzie and Harriet. There was no such thing as comedy about relationships, nothing about the newly urban and collegiate Americans. What I was interested in was using humor as a reflection of one's own confusion, ambivalence and dilemma, dealing with sexual life as one knew it to be." His cartoons presented a mixture of social commentary and political satire previously reserved for the editorial page of the newspaper.

From the beginning of his career Feiffer avoided the silliness expected of a nonpolitical cartoonist. His characters include people who are odd enough to be humorous but who at the same time can elicit a painful, empathetic response from his readers: Passionella, who achieves movie stardom because she has the world's largest breasts; Bernard Mergeneiler, known for his romantic failures; and an inventor who creates a "Lonely Machine" that makes light conversation and delivers sympathetic remarks whenever necessary.

Feiffer's concerns as a cartoonist have followed him to the stage, but some critics have faulted Feiffer's plays for being too dependent on his cartoons for inspiration. In the Village Voice Carll Tucker, for example, commented: "Feiffer's genius as a cartoonist is for dramatic moments—establishing and comically concluding a situation in eight still frames. His characters have personality only for the purpose of making a point: They do not have, as breathing dramatic characters must, the freedom to develop, to grow away from their status as idea-bearers."

Other critics voiced their approval for what they have seen as the influence of Feiffer's cartoons in his work for the theater. In Alan Rich's New York magazine review of Feiffer's play, Knock Knock, for example, the critic noted: "What gives [the play] its humor—and a great deal of it is screamingly funny—is the incredible accuracy of [Feiffer's] language, and his use of it to paint the urban neurosis in exact colors. This we know from his cartoons, and we learn it anew from this endearing, congenial theater piece." Other commentators on New York's theatrical scene, such as Dictionary of Literary Biography contributor Thomas Edward Ruddick, have been able to separate Feiffer's dramatic work from his other creative efforts. "Feiffer's plays show considerable complexity of plot, character, and idea, and command attention," Ruddick noted, "not dependent upon Feiffer's other achievements. His plays, independently, constitute a noteworthy body of work."

Those who enjoyed Feiffer for his adults-only satire may have been surprised to see the cartoonist venture into the children's book market in the 1990s. For his part, Feiffer is the father to essentially three generations of girls; in 1993, when The Man in the Ceiling was published, he had thirty-one-year-old Kate, eleven-year-old Halley (to whom that book is dedicated) and fifteen-month-old Julie. "I'm glad they're girls," the author told Publishers Weekly writer John F. Baker. "Boys are terribly active and geared toward just the sort of sports I was never any good at."

Feiffer's attraction to the youth market arose "from a combination of his fond recollections of reading to Halley as a small child … and an illustrator friend's interest in doing a book," according to Baker. In The Man in the Ceiling, Feiffer writes and illustrates the tale of Jimmy, a little boy who dreams of being a cartoonist. His aptitude for drawing underscores the fact that the boy is "not much good at anything else, including such boyish but unFeiffer-like pastimes as sports," Baker continued.

"Yes, I did cartoons as a kid, just like Jimmy," Feiffer admitted in the Publishers Weekly piece. "And I rediscovered some of them while I was working on [the book]. But those drawings of Jimmy's were the toughest part; I had to get the tone just right—they mustn't be too satirical—and it terrified me for a long time. I left them right to the end."

Feiffer's caution was rewarded by the favorable reviews that greeted The Man in the Ceiling. Jonathan Fast, in fact, singled out Jimmy's artwork, noting in his New York Times Book Review piece, "the adventures of Mini-Man, Bullethead, and The Man in the Ceiling, Jimmy's magnum opus, are reprinted in glorious pencil and run as long as six pages." Evidently Feiffer's efforts also reached a younger audience: Nine-year-old reviewer Erin Smith told the San Francisco Review of Books that the work "has great pictures. The story is just as funny. The best pictures are the comics that Jimmy drew."

In 1995, Feiffer released his second children's book, A Barrel of Laughs, a Vale of Tears. The volume is comprised of fairy tales with a slightly acerbic air meant to appeal to children and parents alike. Featuring King Whatchamacallit, who speaks in spoonerisms: "My son, when you're around, no till gets soiled—er, no soil gets tilled; no noo gets shailed—that is, no shoe gets nailed." Another urbane character, J. Wellington Wizard, amused children's author Daniel M. Pinkwater. "Written with conviction, not to say innocence, Mr. Feiffer's ebullient story renders the reader capable of maximum suspension of disbelief—and what would be corny is touching instead," Pinkwater declared in the New York Times Book Review.

The young protagonist of Meanwhile, Raymond, is deeply engrossed in his comic book when his mother calls. Hoping to avoid having to respond, Raymond applies a longstanding comic book tradition: he uses the almost magical word "meanwhile" to change the scene he is in, putting him outside the range of his mother's call. Raymond's use of "meanwhile," however, does not work out well. First, he is transported to a pirate ship. Forced to walk the plank, he manages to invoke the scene-changing word just in the nick of time. When his next scene turns out to be the wild west, he finds himself chased by a determined posse. Saving himself at the last moment, he goes to outer space, where his ship is destroyed by marauding Martians. Things look bleak until Raymond applies a pair of even stronger magic words from storytelling: "The End." Reviewer Mary M. Burns, writing in the Horn Book Magazine, called Feiffer's book "great fun, action filled, and a solid invitation to create one's own series of meanwhiles." Booklist reviewer Stephanie Zvirin noted that younger readers would enjoy Feiffer's "funny, freewheeling, action-packed" artwork, but also observed that older readers would best be able to "spot the irony and appreciate the wit and the careful interplay between fantasy and reality" that Feiffer weaves into the story.

I Lost My Bear recounts what happens when a youngster suffers the trauma of losing her stuffed bear. "With great comic insight, Feiffer captures the high drama that ensues when a child misplaces a beloved possession," commented Lauren Adams in the Horn Book Magazine. Thoroughly distressed at her predicament, the young protagonist searches and searches, but is unable to locate her beloved teddy bear. Her mom is too busy to help, and advises her to think like a detective and remember where she left it. Her father tells her to find the bear herself as a lesson in responsibility. Irascible big sister at first wants nothing to do with her little sister's troubles, but later offers some sage advice, telling her to close her eyes and throw another stuffed animal, hoping that it will land in the same place. The narrator follows this advice, which leads to other happy discoveries, but still no bear. Finally, at bedtime, she locates the missing toy. "The girl's palpable concern for her bear … will evoke both amusement and empathy among readers of all ages," commented a reviewer in Publishers Weekly.

The young male narrator of The House Across the Street, frustrated and angry at restrictions placed on him by his parents, begins to imagine a story about the boy in the house across the street, where things are better. For that young man, life is free and easy. His parents dote on his every whim, immediately reacting to his requests and buying him anything he wants. He has a pet lion, and a shark in the swimming pool. He does not have to observe table manners, and he can boss around his big sister and babysitter. Best of all, he can come and go as he wishes, and is not restricted by his parents. Soon, the boy reveals that the house across the street is actually empty and the boy who lives there does not exist, but the mild power fantasy has its desired effect of helping him deal with his negative emotions. In the book, Feiffer "gets a child's anger about the adult authority that holds him at home exactly right," remarked Hazel Rochman in a Booklist review. "Children will be willing participants in this larger-than-life fantasy, even as they recognize it for what it is," commented School Library Journal reviewer Wendy Lukehart.

The Daddy Mountain finds a young girl facing a daunting task: climbing to the top of Daddy Mountain, her father transformed into a large and imposing hill. Beginning at his feet, the girl traverses the difficult geography of ankles, knees, belt, shirt, and more as she climbs upward. She offers running commentary on her ascent, describing the difficulties of navigating each body part. Climbing while grabbing a shirt is fine, for example; grabbing skin is not. Feiffer depicts the scene in muted grays for the father, bright colors for the daughter. Finally, she reaches the very top and perches on her grinning father's head, even as her mother disapproves of the heights she has scaled. Adults will "nod in recognition of daddies' special fondness for roughhousing," observed Jennifer Mattson in Booklist. A Publishers Weekly critic called the book "lighthearted, affectionate fare," while a Kirkus Reviews contributor named it "another crowd-pleaser from Feiffer."

A Room with a Zoo is based, in part, on Feiffer's experiences when his youngest daughter started her campaign to get a puppy. In the book, young Julie is a dedicated animal lover who desperately wants a dog, but her parents tell her she is still too young to care for a canine. Her parents do their best to accommodate her wishes for a pet, however, allowing her to have a wild variety of lower-maintenance creatures. Among the pets that occupy the family's Manhattan apartment are a fish, a kitten, a turtle, a hamster, a hermit crab, and a rabbit. Julie has no trouble taking charge of her smaller pets in her quest to prove herself responsible enough to own a dog. Despite all best intentions, pet ownership comes with its downside, including vomiting cats, cannibalistic fish, and scampering hamsters. After the long travails, including a chaotic scene involving her parents, the cat, the hamster, and an injury requiring an emergency room visit and stitches, Julie finally gets the dog she has been wanting. "This is briskly written with lots of amusing moments, though some of them will be funniest to adults," wrote Booklist reviewer Ilene Cooper. Susan Hepler, writing in School Library Journal, noted that children are likely to be charmed by the "tone of the narration, the childlike logic, and the winning way she takes charge of her pets and herself by story's end." A reviewer in Publishers Weekly observed that "young animal lovers should have no trouble identifying with this spunky heroine's intense range of emotions, brought on by her menagerie."

As Feiffer revealed to Baker, the best part of being a children's author is the honest response from his young readers: "It's much more direct even than in the theater, so much more heartening. You create something out of love and devotion, and when you get it back, you can't believe it."

In addition to his prolific output of children's books, Feiffer has also remained active as a playwright over the years. In The Bad Friend, Feiffer recreates an intensely Stalinist Jewish family in the 1950s. Mother Naomi is adamantly dedicated to the cause, though father Shelly sometimes wavers in his dedication to Stalin and communism. Their daughter, Rose, rejects the tenets of communism and rebels against both of her parents. To cope, Rose associates with a man she meets on the Brooklyn Heights esplanade: Emil, a painter and photographer, who allows Rose to air her frustrations and come to terms with her own thoughts and feelings about her parents and their communism. Rose also frequently encounters Fallon, an FBI agent who tries to coax information from her about her Uncle Morty, a suspected communist and Hollywood screenwriter. Viewers "come to see how her parents' stark worldview, dividing humanity into good guys and bad guys much the way the Westerns Uncle Morty pens do, has shaped Rose's nature almost against her will," observed Charles Isherwood in Variety. In the course of the play, Naomi begins to see Shelly's questioning of Stalinism as a personal betrayal; Naomi's brother gives in to pressure and names names at the anti-communist House Un-American Activities Committee's hearings; and, inadvertently, Rose betrays her own best friend. Though the play takes place in the early 1950s, "its themes continue to resonate," commented Irene Backalenick in Back Stage. "False illusions, true betrayals, and, most of all, threats to civil rights are not unfamiliar in today's political climate."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Anobile, Richard J., Popeye: The Movie Novel, Avon (New York, NY), 1980.

Cohen, Sarah Blacher, editor, From Hester Street to Hollywood: The Jewish-American Stage and Screen, Indiana University Press (Bloomington, IN), 1983.

Contemporary Dramatists, 4th edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1988.

Contemporary Literary Criticism, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), Volume 2, 1974, Volume 8, 1978, Volume 64, 1991.

Corliss, Richard, Talking Pictures: Screenwriters in the American Cinema, Overlook Press (New York, NY), 1974.

Dictionary of Literary Biography, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), Volume 7: Twentieth-Century American Dramatists, 1981, Volume 44: American Screenwriters, Second Series, 1986.

PERIODICALS

Back Stage, June 27, 2003, Irene Backalenick, review of A Bad Friend, p. 48.

Booklinks, May, 2006, Shutta Crum, review of Bark, George, p. 32.

Booklist, December 1, 1997, Stephanie Zvirin, review of Meanwhile, p. 636; April 1, 1998, review of I Lost My Bear, p. 1331; March 15, 1999, review of I Lost My Bear, p. 1302; August, 1999, Stephanie Zvirin, review of Bark, George, p. 2052; January 1, 2000, review of Bark, George, p. 824; December 1, 2002, Hazel Rochman, review of The House across the Street, p. 673; May 1, 2004, Jennifer Mattson, review of The Daddy Mountain, p. 1562; September 15, 2005, Ilene Cooper, review of A Room with a Zoo, p. 66; September 15, 2006, Carl Hays, review of The Long Chalkboard and Other Stories, p. 35; September 15, 2006, Gordon Flagg, review of Passionella and Other Stories, p. 35.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, June, 1998, review of I Lost My Bear, p. 360; November, 1999, review of Bark, George, p. 91; December, 2000, review of Some Things Are Scary, p. 146; September, 2002, review of By the Side of the Road, p. 15; January, 2003, review of The House across the Street, p. 197; December, 2005, review of A Room with a Zoo, p. 179.

Chicago Tribune, August 5, 2002, "Feiffer Draws on Years of Experience," interview with Jules Feiffer.

Child, May, 2004, Julie Yates Walton, review of The Daddy Mountain, p. 47.

Commonweal, November 22, 2002, reviews of Bark, George, By the Side of the Road, I Lost My Bear, I'm Not Bobby!, and Meanwhile, p. 20.

Daily Variety, June 10, 2003, Charles Isherwood, review of A Bad Friend, p. 2.

Five Owls, Annual, 2002, review of I'm Not Bobby!, p. 76.

Hollywood Reporter, July 3, 2003, Frank Scheck, review of A Bad Friend, p. 5.

Horn Book Magazine, September-October, 1997, Mary M. Burns, review of Meanwhile, p. 557; March-April, 1998, Lauren Adams, review of I Lost My Bear, p. 212; January, 2001, review of Some Things Are Scary, p. 83; May-June, 2004, Joanna Rudge Long, review of The Daddy Mountain, p. 310; November-December, 2005, Sarah Ellis, review of A Room with a Zoo, p. 718.

Hudson Review, summer, 1967, John Simon, review of Little Murders.

Instructor, April, 1998, review of Meanwhile, p. 26; May, 1998, review of Meanwhile, p. 62; April, 1999, review of I Lost My Bear, p. 18; May, 1999, review of I Lost My Bear, p. 12; May, 2003, review of Bark, George, p. 56.

Kirkus Reviews, April 1, 2004, review of The Daddy Mountain, p. 328; December 1, 2005, "The Best Children's Books of 2005," review of A Room with a Zoo, p. S1; December 1, 2005, "Q&A with Jules Feiffer," p. S10.

Library Media Connection, January, 2003, review of By the Side of the Road, p. 78.

Maclean's, December 11, 2000, review of Some Things Are Scary, p. 59.

Magpies, November, 2000, review of Some Things Are Scary, p. 30.

Newsweek, June 14, 1999, review of Bark, George, p. 77.

New York, February 2, 1976, Alan Rich, review of Knock Knock.

New Yorker, May 18, 1987, Edith Oliver, review of Little Murders, p. 87; November 30, 1998, review of I Lost My Bear, p. 118; December 12, 2005, "For Kids," review of A Room with a Zoo, p. 109.

New York Times, March 4, 2003, Mel Gussow, "Jules Feiffer, Freed of His Comic Strip Duties, Finds a New Visibility," profile of Jules Feiffer, p. E1.

New York Times Book Review, December 19, 1982, review of Jules Feiffer's America, p. 8; November 14, 1993, Jonathan Fast, review of The Man in the Ceiling, p. 57; December 31, 1995, Daniel M. Pinkwater, review of A Barrel of Laughs, a Vale of Tears, p. 12; November 18, 2001, Dwight Garner, "Better Not Call Me Again. I'm a Monster," review of I'm Not Bobby!, p. 25.

New York Times Magazine, June 15, 2003, Deborah Solomon, "Playing with History," profile of Jules Feiffer, p. 13.

Parents, December, 1997, review of Meanwhile, p. 204; December, 1998, review of I Lost My Bear, p. 234.

People, October 30, 2000, review of Some Things Are Scary, p. 50.

Print, May-June, 1998, Steven Heller, "Jules Feiffer, Cartoonist, Author, and Playwright," interview with Jules Feiffer, p. 40B.

Publishers Weekly, October 25, 1993, John F. Baker, review of The Man in the Ceiling, p. 62; July 14, 1997, review of Meanwhile, p. 82; January 26, 1998, review of I Lost My Bear, p. 91; October 16, 2000, review of Some Things Are Scary, p. 76; September 29, 2003, review of Some Things Are Scary, p. 67; April 5, 2004, review of The Daddy Mountain, p. 60; August 22, 2005, review of A Room with a Zoo, p. 64; September 18, 2006, review of The Long Chalkboard and Other Stories, p. 43.

Reading Teacher, October, 2001, review of Some Things Are Scary, p. 180.

San Francisco Review of Books, April-May, 1994, Erin Smith, review of The Man in the Ceiling.

School Librarian, spring, 2001, review of Some Things Are Scary, p. 34.

School Library Journal, September, 1997, Lisa S. Murphy, review of Meanwhile, p. 180; March, 1998, Julie Cummins, review of I Lost My Bear, p. 179; September, 1999, Barbara Scotto, review of Bark, George, p. 182; December, 1999, review of Bark, George, p. 40; January, 2001, Maryann H. Owen, review of Some Things Are Scary, p. 101; February, 2003, Wendy Lukehart, review of The House across the Street, p. 111; June, 2004, Grace Oliff, review of The Daddy Mountain, p. 108; October, 2004, review of Bark, George, p. S28; November, 2005, Susan Hepler, review of A Room with a Zoo, p. 90.

Variety, November 18, 2002, "Jules Feiffer Returns to the Stage with His First Play in More Than a Decade," review of A Bad Friend, p. 51; June 16, 2003, Charles Isherwood, review of A Bad Friend, p. 35.

Village Voice, February 2, 1976, Carll Tucker, profile of Jules Feiffer.

Washington Post, August 17, 1979, Henry Allen, interview with Jules Feiffer.