On February 21, 2004 at the 56th Annual WGA Awards in New York, Jules Feiffer received the Writers Guild of America, East's Ian McLellan Hunter Award for Lifetime Achievement in Writing.

Jules Feiffer is one of America's most influential screenwriters, in addition to political cartoonist, playwright, novelist, and author and illustrator of children's books. In 1961 Feiffer's Munro received the Oscar for best animated short-subject. His films include I Want to Go Home, Popeye , and Little Murders and Carnal Knowledge , both based on his plays. His best-selling children's book Bark, George! has recently been released as an animated cartoon.

Feiffer is the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning (1986) and won Best Screenplay at the Venice Film Festival for I Want to Go Home, He has also written two novels, thirteen plays, and nine children's books. He also illustrated the children's classic The Phantom Tollbooth.

For more information visit the Writers Guild web site at www.wgaeast.org/

Kurt Vonnegut Tribute to Jules Feiffer

Mr. Feiffer, sir, I almost feel as though I am in the presence of Sir Isaac Newton, who invented the reflecting telescope and calculus and quantified the laws of motion and so on.

You, sir, have in turn given us world-class drawings, world-class plays and novels and scenarios, and on and on.

And it is not as though we are tonight rescuing you from fifty years of neglect and obscurity. You have so far won an Obie and an Oscar and a Pulitzer and a Polk Award, and who knows what else.

H.L. Mencken said of Nicholas Murray Butler, then president, I believe, of Columbia, that he had received so many honors that nothing remained to be done for him but wrap him in sheet gold, and burnish him until he blinded the sun itself. Such is your situation tonight, sir, and mine as well.

You are seven years my junior, born in 1929, when capitalism went smash all over the world so, during your formative years, you never got to see a prosperous America. You were only twelve when the Japanese sank most of our Pacific fleet at anchor in Pearl Harbor.

But then Fate provided you with a war of your own. You served for two years during the Korean War, and it is often said that yours was the finest army we ever had. So, again, congratulations.
I note that dance has been important to you as a spectator. Your cartoon characters are so often dancing. This could be in part a result of your having worked when a young man with Will Eisner, who introduced ballet and modern dance into comic strips. When his characters have to move, they move like Baryshnikov.

And the importance of dance for your became explicit at the recent memorial service for Al Hirschfeld, of St. Louis, Missouri, incidentally. And thank goodness this is not a memorial service.

With typical grace and wit, you said Al Hirschfeld “ was the Fred Astaire of cartooning.”

Sir, I tonight, in contemplation of how elegantly you yourself have danced through so many of the arts, both fine and popular, I pronounce you nothing less than Fred Astaire himself. You are Fred Astaire!

And who are we? We are those who have had such fun for so many years, doing our best to keep in step with your choreography. You are Fred Astaire. We are Ginger Rogers.

Mr. Astaire, sir, would you kindly accept this Lifetime Achievement Award from your most grateful Ginger Rogers