Irwin Hasen: A New York Story

Artist Irwin Hasen was the co-creator (with writer Gus Edson) of the long-running comic strip Dondi, the poor little orphan boy who never aged in his 30+ year run (1955-1986).

But Hasen’s career goes back to 1940 when he started in comic books, drawing for Harry "A" Chesler’s shop. His later work includes Green Lantern, Justice Society and Johnny Thunder for DC and he’s credited with creating one of my favorite old-school DC characters, Wildcat.

Now he’s the subject of a new documentary: Irwin: A New York Story that’s debuting as part of FilmColumbia in up in Columbia County (about two hours north of NYC) this weekend, October 24 at 1 pm at the Morris Memorial Theater.

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Jules Feiffer and Danny Fingeroth

I met Jules Feiffer once at a party some years ago. He seemed uncomfortable (long before meeting me, thank goodness), but friendly and talkative, if that makes any sense. I can’t say we really had a conversation or that he’d remember I was even there - the best I could do was to mumble out that I was a big fan. I read his work in The Village Voice for a number of years when I used to commute into Manhattan, his book The Great Comic Book Heroes was one of my early Rosetta Stones for comics and I’ve probably seen his animated short Munro as many times as I’ve seen What’s Opera, Doc?

Continuing my series on cartooning and cartoonists, Jules Feiffer wrote about himself and his work back in 1964. This is pulled from an oversized saddle-stitched magazine from Allied Publications with the creatively-challenged title These Top Cartoonists Tell How They Create America’s Favorite Comics. It featured an introduction by Beetle Bailey’s Mort Walker and was compiled by Allen Willette.

Here’s Feiffer on Feiffer:

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