Charlie Rose's Wednesday, May 19, 2010 conversation with Jules Feiffer, Cartoonist and Author

CHARLIE ROSE: Jules Feiffer is here. He is a Pulitzer Prize winning
cartoonist, a playwright, he is an author. His self-titled comic strip ran
in the "Village Voice" for 41 years. Now he’s written a memoir about his
life and his art. It is called "Backing into Forward."

I am pleased to have Jules Feiffer at this table. Welcome. Great to
have you here.

JULES FEIFFER: I’m delighted to be here, Charlie.

CHARLIE ROSE: So why did you finally decide to do this memoir?

JULES FEIFFER: I didn’t decide. I backed into it. I was nagged by
friends.

CHARLIE ROSE: Right.

JULES FEIFFER: I would tell these stories over the years, usually a
drink or two and my tongue would unroll, and somebody would say "You’ve got
to write that down." And I would say "I don’t want to write down anything I
already know."

What I loved in my work in doing it was that I could start out not
knowing what I was going to do and tell the story. And I wouldn’t know how
it would come out anywhere more than the reader or the audience would
eventually know.

Read the full transcript of the show here, or watch the full episode here. See also: Explainers: The Complete Village Voice Strips (1956-1966), A Barrel of Laughs, A Vale of Tears