Authors and Artists for Young Adults on Joe Kubert
Joe Kubert is, as a Publishers Weekly contributor noted, "one of the mainstream comics' most talented and celebrated interpreters of the horrors of war." Such interpretations have come not only in the "Sgt. Rock" series, but also in Kubert's graphic novels, Fax from Sarajevo: A Story of Survival and Yossel: April 19, 1943. An illustrator and cartoonist since the 1930s, Kubert has witnessed and been a part of the evolution of comics from the Golden Age of superheroes in tights to the rise in popularity of edgy graphic novels at the turn of the twenty-first century. Through it all he has retained, as a Publishers Weekly critic noted, a "signature graphic style--brisk, precisely rendered, emotionally charged linework in dramatically composed panels." The winner of a Will Eisner Hall of Fame Award, Kubert has passed his love for comics to his two sons, Adam and Andy, who are also professional illustrators and comic book artists, as well as to new generations of artists he has trained at the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art in New Jersey. "Kubert," wrote Michael Gilman on the Dark Horse Comics Web site,"is one of the greatest comic-book artists of all time."
From Golden Age to Postmodern Age
Born in 1926 to parents newly arrived from Poland, Kubert grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and began illustrating at an early age. By the time he was eleven years old he was already apprenticed to a comics production house where he learned the basics of the industry, starting out as an inker. In 1942 Kubert published his first story, "Volton," in "Cat Comics." Thereafter, he broadened his artwork, both inking and illustrating the stories of other writers; working for DC Comics, he also began writing his own stories. During what has become known as the Golden Age of comics, from the 1930s to the late 1940s, Kubert contributed to comic-book series such as "Hawkman," "Batman," "Enemy Ace," "The Flash," and a host of other superhero books. Bob Gough, writing in the Mile High Comics Web site, called Kubert "the definitive artist of the Aerial Ace," Hawkman. Returning from military service in Korea in 1952, Kubert began drawing for "Our Army at War," a series that ultimately evolved into the well-known "Sgt. Rock" comic book, most of whose stories were written by Robert Kanigher. Those comic books feature the lantern-jawed hero and his men of Easy Company who are fighting their way through Europe during World War II. Kubert continued to illustrate "Sgt. Rock" for thirty years, telling Michael Sangiacomo of the Cleveland Plain Dealer: "For me, it was not about war and fighting but about the people, the characters." These characters include, in addition to Sgt. Rock: Wild Man, with his raging temper; Little Sure Shot, the Native American marksman; Ice Cream Soldier, who remains cool in times of stress; Bulldozer; and the rest of Easy Company.
Kubert also worked as director of publications for DC Comics from the late 1960s to the late 1970s, and for the Chicago Tribune he penned the comic strip "Tales of the Green Berets" for two years. In addition to his work for DC Comics and his focus on war comics, Kubert also created the early graphic novel Abraham Stone. In 1976, he branched out as a teacher, opening the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art, in Dover, New Jersey. Housed in a former middle school, Kubert's academy offers a three-year residential course for professional cartoonists and artists, and, since 1998, it has also offered a correspondence course. Classes such as "Story Graphics," "Horror," "Penciling," and "Inking" prepare young artists for a professional career. Noted graduates include Rick Veitch, Tom Mandrake, and Steve Bissette, as well as Kubert's own sons. "'It's a tough three years to go through,'" Kubert told Bill Radford of the Colorado Springs Gazette. "'Students are drawing from ten to twelve hours a day . . . six to seven days a week. The studies are really, really intensive.'"
Career Continues in the New Millennium
A new direction in Kubert's career began in 1996 with publication of Fax from Sarajevo: A Story of Survival, a graphic-novel presentation of the siege of that city by Serbians from 1992 to 1994. Kubert based his tale on the actual faxes that his friend, Ervin Rustemagic, managed to send almost daily during those turbulent times. Rustemagic, born in Sarajevo, had been living with his family in Holland, where he ran Strip Art Features, a company he had founded. Shortly before the outbreak of civil war, he and his family returned to Sarajevo and then were stuck in that city during hostilities. "That's when the height of all the killing and carnage the U.N. told us would never happen again was going on," Kubert explained to Gilman on the Dark Horse Comics Web site. "During that time, the only way that [Rustemagic] could get messages out was by fax. Fax from Sarajevo is that story . . . what he experienced in those two years, what had been happening in Sarajevo, his frustrations trying to get out, what we, his friends had been doing to try and get him out."
Ultimately, Rustemagic was able to leave Sarajevo, and later got the rest of his family out, as well, settling in nearby Slovenia. Kubert, meanwhile, realized that he had a powerful story to tell. He decided on the graphic-novel format and pared down the tale to twelve chapters, including many of the original faxes he had received. "The tale," wrote Bob Ivry in the Bergen County, New Jersey, Record, "told in classic comic book style, is powerful and unsparing." But far from being a simple comic, Fax from Sarajevo "is a beautifully produced hardcover book," according to Ivry, "complete with full-color art, replications of Rustemagic's faxes, and a gallery of photos that attest to the veracity of the story." Many of these photos were taken by a young photographer who died during the conflict. Reviewing the graphic novel in the Albuquerque Journal, David Steinberg noted that "Kubert's book vividly describes the struggles of the trapped family." And for Booklist's Gordon Flagg, the book is a "highly effective work of agitprop." Flagg went on to comment that Kubert's "outrage shows on every page, and he makes genuine drama out of this story of war's effects on civilians." As Kubert told Ivry, "'It was tough for me to record something that is so important to me. It's also important to my children--and their children--to know about, so it doesn't happen again.'"
Kubert employs a more autobiographical approach in his 2003 work Yossel: April 19, 1943. Here Kubert develops a tale of what might have happened to him had his parents not immigrated to America in 1926. In this imagined biography, set in Warsaw, Poland, during World War II, Kubert becomes the ghetto youth Yossel, whose artistic talents have made him a pet of the Nazis and provide him access denied to other Jews. When he overhears the Nazis' plans and manages to get the information to the resistance, Yossel ultimately launches the heroic--but unfortunately fictitious--Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943. Booklist's Flagg praised Yossel for its "shocking vividness" and for containing a "straightforward, heartfelt" depiction of Nazi barbarism. Flagg also commended Kubert's "visual looseness" in the graphic novel. Unlike most comic art, the illustrations of Yossel are not highly finished ink drawings, but rough penciled artwork that lends a "potent intimacy" to the story, according to Flagg. Dan Nadel, writing in Publishers Weekly, also lauded Kubert's "atmospheric" artwork in the same title.
Kubert returns to familiar territory in another title from 2003, illustrating his first "Sgt. Rock" story in many years. Working with writer Brian Azzarello, he reprised the cast of characters from Easy Company in this tale set in November 1944 on the border between Germany and Belgium. With intense combat underway, Sgt. Rock and his men go behind enemy lines to capture some German intelligence officers, only to watch them be killed while attempting an escape. One of the officers does get away, however, and Sgt. Rock's job is now twofold: to find the missing officer and discover whether the unarmed German prisoners were killed by his own men or by friendly fire from the Germans. "The whole point of the story is how Sgt. Rock and Easy Company react under terrible, stressful conditions," Kubert told Tim O'Shea in an interview for Silver Bulletins Online.
Kubert's long career has encompassed the full gamut of work in comic books, from artwork to writing and teaching to publishing. Each new project presents a specific challenge. As Kubert told O'Shea, "My approach to each book is to do the best job I know how." And speaking with Gough, Kubert summed up his philosophy on comic book art and artists: "Every artist should try to improve for as long as he can draw. We need to be continually learning, changing, adapting. It's what every artist should strive for, and I continue to do so."
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