Out of Line

Everyone knows a Feiffer illustration when they see one: simple, black lines depict images of dancers leaping across the page, characters argue back and forth, or an exasperated expression belies psychological insight. How such images became iconic and the story of Feiffer's artistic influence is explored in Out of Line: The Art of Jules Feiffer, the first illustrated biography of this celebrated artist. Over Feiffer's prolific seventy year career, his work has displayed a remarkable ability to move between biting satire about politics, love, marriage and religion, and the hopeful, fanciful and sometimes frightened perspective of a child. Feiffer's varied career began when he worked as assistant to the comic artist Will Eisner and later developed his own style to encompass many different mediums, including children's books (The Phantom Tollbooth), plays (Little Murders), movies (Carnal Knowledge and Popeye) and comic strips (most notably in the Village Voice for 42 years). Feiffer has written numerous children's books, plays and comic strips. His extraordinary career has been celebrated with such awards as an Academy Award for Best Short Subject Cartoon (1961), the Special George Polk Memorial Award (1961), a Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning (1986) and the Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award (2003), among many others. Out of Line: The Art of Jules Feiffer is a long awaited overview of Feiffer's career, providing a revealing glimpse into Feiffer's creative process, and his role as America's foremost Renaissance man of the arts.