Jules Feiffer, the brilliant creator and tireless creator died earlier this week. He made such an impression on so many comic fans – with this children books, the “first” comic book book, and his work ethic in later years. It was always so incredible to see how he was still publishing new works in his twilight years. Wow! That’s the way I want to live my life.

This week’s With Further Ado is a bit of re-run. I’d like to run two early columns I ran about a half dozen years ago. They detail how important Feiffer’s The Comic Book Heroes was to me. And my entire generation. Today, I can go to any comic store and choose from hundreds of comic book books. Or even to a discounter like Ollie’s and find a plethora of books about comics. But when I was a kid – there was only one book. And it was by Jules Feiffer.

The Great Comic Book Heroes

In Ithaca NY, there’s a “famous” twice-a-year used book sale. The Friends of Thompkins Library convince local book lovers to donate about a zillion books and then sell them to other book lovers for peanuts.  This generates revenues for the library because there’s an incredible volume of books, magazines, comics and calendars that change hands.  A guy like me, who loves old mysteries, men’s adventure paperbacks and comic-related books can always stumble across treasures at this sale for just a buck or two.

They are always treasures to be found in “them thar hills”.

This year, I snagged one of the quintessential comics- related books: The Great Comic Book Heroes by Jules Feiffer.  Before trade paperbacks, Marvel Essentials, Masterworks, DC Archives or omnibus editions were ever a thing – this book was it.  And by “it” I mean that essentially this book was the only one that collected old comic stories in a hardcover format. That’s not technically true, but it sure seemed like that.

As a young kid, once in a while my mom would take us to one of the first indoor malls in the area. It was called Fairmount Fair but to an expert shopper like my mom, it was Shangri-La and Nirvana rolled-into one.  This shopping Mecca was such an important place back then that my brother and I had to get “dressed up” to go. No jeans and sneakers to for this mall trip; we had to wear Sunday “church clothes”.  Nice pants and nice shoes. And yes, I know how nutty that sounds today.

On these trips, I’d beg my mom to let me wander around the mall’s bookstore. You see, they had a copy of Feiffer’s The Great Comic Book Heroes. Back then, it had some exorbitant price tag, like 14.95. One simply didn’t squander a huge amount of money like that on a silly book about comics.  On every trip to Fairmont Fair Mall, I’d spend as much time as possible in the bookstore and read a little more of this wonderful book. I knew right where it was on the shelf, and thankfully, no one else in the area was eager to buy it either.

When I spotted this epic tome on sale in at the Ithaca used book sale, I felt like the tip of my mining shovel struck gold. The dust jacket was long gone, but what do you want for a buck?

And then I had a follow-up

Last week I wrote about the incredible Use Book Sale that Ithaca hosts twice a year. One of the treasures I brought there was a copy of The Great Comic Book Heroes by Jules Feiffer.   I just started I digging into it and found quite a surprise.

This book contains many different stories reprinted from the Golden Age of Comics. On the splash page of the Flash’s first adventure is an autograph by Flash co-creator Harry Lampert!  As you can see, it reads “To my dear friends, Jim & Benita    Harry Lampert   July 7, 1996.”   Jim Whiting, the book’s original owner, was an illustrator and cartoonist who traveled in the same circles as many of that first generation of comic artists.

Jim Whiting, bless his heart, also tucked away an old interview with Harry Lampert in this section of the book from the December 1995 issue of the old Comic Source. It was entitled, ‘When Lightning Strikes – An Interview with Harry Lampert”.  You can see that Lampert is gracious and humble. A brief excerpt:

“The creation of the Flash was not really a big deal — I think it was Gardner Fox’s idea.  After I was given the assignment to draw the character, Gardner and I put our heads together. If I correctly recall, (it WAS a few years ago) we based the Flash on Mercury, the god of speed and the messenger of the gods. We developed the costume, and I drew it.”

Lampert also worked on two other features for the company that would later become DC: Red, White and Blue and The King.   I never was a big Lampert fan (his work seemed a bit stiff and unnuanced to me), but I admit… I am a fan of Harry Lampert now.

The power of an autograph!

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I had the pleasure of meeting Jules Feiffer a couple of times. What a gracious and classy guy he was. He will be missed and he will be remembered.