From Booklist
The latest semiannual Comics Journal monograph special spotlights cartoonists from four generations, whose only commonality is elite status in the cartoon world. Art Spiegelman, creator of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus, interviews legendary caricaturist (particularly of theatrical luminaries) Al Hirschfeld and fellow Pulitzer honoree Jules Feiffer, whose social-commentary strip distinguished the Village Voice for 42 years. Editor Gary Groth conducts additional interviews with Feiffer and Spiegelman and moderates a panel discussion featuring Feiffer and young innovator Chris Ware, of Jimmy Corrigan (2000) fame. Other subjects include Ben Katchor and his urban fantasies, early-twentieth-century cartoonist Lyonel Feininger, and editorial cartoonist Bill Mauldin. The book's second section consists of strips depicting "the Shock of Recognition"--an event, experience, or work of art that profoundly affected the artist--by Ware, R. Crumb, Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez, Bill Griffith, Gary Panter, Phoebe Gloeckner, Ho Che Anderson, and 23 more leading alternative-comics artists. Like previous CJ specials, matchless critical and historical coverage of comics as art. Gordon Flagg
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FROM THE PUBLISHER

Jules Feiffer, Art Spiegelman, Chris Ware, and the late Al Hirschfeld talk with each other about their art.Four of the greatest cartoonists of the 20th Century come together to talk about their lives, careers, influences, passions and preferences in art, literature, comics, film, theater and more, reflecting the rich well of their 200+ years of collective experience as artists in a series of once-in-a-lifetime conversations and interviews. Maus author Art Spiegelman chats with the late, great Al Hirschfeld and interviews fellow Pulitzer-prize winner Jules Feiffer, who is also interviewed by TCJ founder Gary Groth and chats with young lion Chris Ware. The only thing more extraordinary than these conversations taking place at all is to have so many of them between two covers! If that weren't enough: The issue also includes essays and criticism on a broad range of topics—including The Simpsons, Lyonel Feininger, Phoebe Gloeckner, Milt Gross, Ben Katchor and William Blake—written by the Journal's finest critics, such as Donald Phelps, Robert Fiore, Bill Blackbeard and R.C. Harvey, as well as short "Pass It On" essays on rising cartoonists you need to know about and a massive tribute section to Hirschfeld and Bill Mauldin, from their peers and admirers in the fields of art, literature, film, politics, theatre and beyond! Last but hardly least is our "Cartoonists On" section, boasting of comics-form essays, short stories and vignettes from today's finest cartoonists—including the likes of R. Crumb, Chris Ware, Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez, Arnold Roth, Phoebe Gloeckner, Bill Griffith, Gary Panter and dozens of other cartooning English-language cartoonists, as well as new work from European and Japanese comics greats for the very first time—on the topic of "The Shock of Recognition" (the event, experience, or work of art that had a profound effect on them and their art).