As a child in the 1930s, Jules loved radio dramas and newspaper comic strips. In his 2010 memoir, “Backing Into Forward,” he cited as influences the cartoonists E.C. Segar (“Thimble Theater,” the strip that introduced Popeye), Al Capp (“Li’l Abner”) and Milton Caniff (“Terry and the Pirates”), among others. He embraced the early comic books, which were comic-strip anthologies, and, after Superman’s debut in 1938, superhero comics as well.
At 16, having drawn for high school publications, he talked his way into the studio of his idol, Will Eisner, creator of the Sunday newspaper comic-book insert that featured the Spirit, a masked, non-superpowered sleuth. Mr. Feiffer flattered Mr. Eisner with his knowledge of his work and was hired as a gofer for the studio’s stable of artists. He was eventually entrusted with drawing panel rules and word balloons, filling in shadows and whiting out inkers’ mistakes. He later wrote dialogue and, eventually, entire Spirit stories. In 1947, Mr. Eisner gave him a humor strip at the rear of the section, “Clifford,” which ran until around 1950.
In 1951, Mr. Feiffer was drafted into the Army. It was there, he once recalled, that he developed the anger and distrust for authority that would long characterize his work.
In October 1956, Mr. Feiffer strolled into the office of The Village Voice, which had been founded the previous year, and offered to draw a regular strip for nothing. First titled “Sick, Sick, Sick,” it eventually became “Feiffer.” (He was not paid, he later wrote, until 1964.)
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