Spring Fling

It's Spring! and time for cartoonist extraordinaire Jules Feiffer, and A Dance to Spring. 

Jules Feiffer's "Sunday Morning"
(another version)

I'm getting ready to go to New York, a trip I've taken in spring for the past three years. The realization that I'm leaving soon has manifested itself in weird dreams and mental confabulations. I feel turned upside down, rushing forward, towards what, I'm not sure. Which brings to mind this drawing by James Thurber, of a crowd stampeding through the streets of Columbus, Ohio, during the imaginary flood of 1913:

 From Thurber's, My Life and Times, "The Day the Dam Broke."

I have a special fondness for Thurber, and bring him out whenever I need a good chuckle. In a shameless copy of his style, I drew this picture many years ago, of children running in all directions, holding flashlights, looking for a wild dog named Fatima:

I bring this up because, lately, I've been thinking about the act of drawing and how a drawing can disappear into the dustbin of history, only to be found in a box hidden in the back of a closet, high on a shelf, or on an obscure website, like this one by Zuni Maud, a Yiddish illustrator, cartoonist and puppeteer. (To see his amazing puppetry and more drawings, click here.)

What possibly could the name of this drawing be? "Jews gathering moss uphill?" "Sisyphusberg?" In his subtle comic style, Maud illustrates hopeless labor, like the Sisyphus myth, something artists, cartoonists and bloggers know well. But the mere fact that one can find humor in the act of hopelessness, is in itself, not hopeless, and a trait I much admire, which brings me back to Thurber, which makes me think of Feiffer...which reminds me that it's Spring!

See you in NY!