The Comics Journal Vol 4, winter 2004

[fiefoe]

In this special edition billed as "Conversations Among Four Generations of Cartoonists", the most interesting segment so far was Spiegelman's interview with Al Hirschfeld. The two ended up talking shop, comparing their favorite drawing tools. (Spiegelman said he couldn't bring himself to use four-ply Strathmore paper that cost $8 a piece.)

Hirschfeld's work mostly speaks for itself, but it also inspires others to wax eloquent to an unusual degree:

    Arther Miller: "People in a Hirschfeld drawing all share the one quality of energetic joy in life that they all wish they had in reality. .. The sheer tactile vibrancy of the lines and their magical relationships to each other make you feel that all is not lost, that you still have a way to go before bed, ... that he has found a wit in your miserable features that may yet lend you a style and a dash you were never aware of in yourself. .. he makes us all seem like a purposeful, even merry, band of vagabonds whose worst features he has redeemed..."

    Kenneth R. Smith's closing line: "(Nina's father's) largess of love and spirit ... is at one and the same time a beautiful and tragic inheritance. Nothing is truly rarer than a human being who can see the secretly burning wonders, the ineffable value unique in all eternity, of other human beings."