{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"1054 Jules Feiffer, cartoonist, "Explainers"","description":"The word that comes to mind when I think about the comic strips of Jules Feiffer is this: My Microsoft Word dictionary - hey, it's convenient! - defines it as \u201cthe act of speaking while alone, especially when used as a theatrical device that allows a character\u2019s thoughts and ideas to be conveyed to the audience.\u201d That sounds about right to me, because the best of Feiffer\u2019s strips \u2013 known, incidentally, as \u201cFeiffer\u201d \u2013usually consisted of one character looking at the reader \u2013 breaking the so-called fourth wall - and going on for six or eight panels. The results weren\u2019t always funny, but they were always sure to be thought provoking. This month, Fantagraphics published Explainers, the first of four dense collections of Feiffer\u2019s entire run of weeklies in The Village Voice. This volume of 500 strips is from 1956 through 1966; the strip ran through 1998. Oh, and he won a Pulitzer Prize for his comic strip, too. JULES FEIFFER podcast excerpt: "The whole point of Explainers, always, was to make a point about something or other. And to find a way of doing it that would not be polemical and would be entertaining. And to get a smile at the end of it."  Jules Feiffer is one of comics\u2019 great characters himself. He famously got his start with Will Eisner, creating and drawing a children\u2019s strip called \u201cClifford\u201d and eventually writing during the last years of \u201cThe Spirit\u201d\u2019s original run in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Besides his long-running strip \u201cFeiffer,\u201d he might be best-known for his children\u2019s work, from illustrating The Phantom Tollbooth and writing the original screenplay for the Robin Williams film, Popeye, to his book The Man in the Ceiling, which is being adapted as a musical by Disney. He also wrote the original screenplay for Carnal Knowledge, starring Jack Nicholson. Feiffer\u2019s also just completed his memoirs, which will be published in 2009. I could keep going, but then you\u2019d never get to hear from the man himself. Jules Feiffer Wikipedia \u2022 IMDB \u2022 Order Explainers from Amazon.com ","author_name":"Mr. Media Interviews by Bob Andelman","author_url":"https:\/\/mrmedia.com","html":"