#2#2 •• SummerSummer 20132013 presentspresents aa tributetribute toto thethe Editor’sTable Preface: of Contents Joe Kubert and the Power of Example .......................... 8 Making His Mark: Christopher Irving’s Visit with Joe Kubert ................. 10 Bill Schelly’s Top Ten Joe Kubert Comics ................... 19 Keepers of the Flame: Adam & Andy Kubert on Facing the Future ................ 22 The Making of a Master of Sequential Art ................. 40 Arlen Schumer: Joe Kubert’s Five Comic Stars ......... 57 Ervin Rustemagic’s Fax from Sarajevo Postscript ..... 63 The Wizard Remembers Joe: An Interview with Frank Thorne ................................... 67 The All-American Cartoonist: A Chat with Irwin Hasen by Michael Aushenker ...... 72 Fred Hembeck’s Dateline: ??!!@# ................................ 77 That Other Man of Rock: Russ Heath Interview by Richard Arndt ...................... 78 “Gargoyles” by Joe Kubert/Colors by Joe Panico ........ 80 Day-In, Day-Out: Working with Joe Kubert An Interview with Peter Carlsson ................................ 82 George Pratt on Teaching the Teacher ....................... 90 Rick Veitch’s Journey with Joe .................................... 93 Giving Back: Teaching at the Kubert School ............. 96 Timothy Truman: Joe Kubert’s Heart & Fire .............. 106 Paul Levitz on Kubert Taking Care of Business ........ 111 Fans, Friends & Students Remember the Master ... 116 Ivan Snyder’s Wonderful World of Heroes ............... 142 Harry Brod on the Anti-War War Comics Artist ...... 144 A Portrait of Joe Kubert by Greg Preston ................. 149 Comic Book Creator Contributors .............................. 149 Joe’s Return to Jewish Roots by Rafael Medoff ...... 150 Creator’s Creators: The Aushenker Effect ................ 159 Coming Attractions: Comic Book Creator #3 ............ 159 One Picture is Worth a Thousand Words ................. 160 ABOUT OUR COVER: Sergio Cariello, himself a comic book professional who graduated the Kubert School, expertly delineates a pastiche of Joe Kubert’s iconic Our Army at War #220 [June 1970] cover, no doubt itself a sly homage by Joe to his beloved caveman creation, Tor. Colors by Tom Ziuko, who recaptured the startling orange/blue color motif! Thanks to Sergio and Tom. Making His Mark: A Visit with Joe Kubert Christopher Irving interviews the comic book creator on a life well lived by CHRISTOPHER IRVING CBC Contributing Editor of organized crime, eager to make something of him- self to provide for his family… no matter the cost to Inset right: Courtesy of Bill Joe Kubert stood up from the art table in his his conscience or soul. Kubert admitted the family Schelly and the Kubert family, a office at the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon in the book was “closely aligned” to his own, and detail of Joe dressed in top hat and and Graphic Art, a warm and bright room a departure point for the more dangerous child- tails for his bar mitzvah party. Yes, with a long table in the center, and framed hood that he might have had. by the time he was 13, Joe was a artwork of Joe’s on the far wall. On the wall “In fact, in the neighborhood where I grew professional comic book artist alongside the door, and to the left, is a flat file, up, it was not unusual to see who would be and Joe’s art table. Wearing a long-sleeved considered a crime figure today, walking around gray polo shirt and blue jeans, Joe Kubert’s and looked at in terms of being a kind of hero,” Kubert youthfulness belied his age of 82. reflected. “Here was somebody who, through his own This was an early Spring day in 2009 and I endeavors and efforts (what was described by arrived to finally interview Kubert in person, other civilians) had the guts to go ahead and unlike the several times I’d chatted with do what it was he felt he had to do in order him through a telephone receiver over to make a buck. Everybody else would have the years. The man had a presence. loved to do the same thing to make that kind And not just physical, but authorita- of an income, but were never willing to tive, yet kindly. overstep the bounds for whatever reason.” It was a presence on par with I asked him if he was ever tempted to the authority and power of his overstep those bounds, and there was an work, work that started at 12 awkward pause. For a fleeting second, I years of age in 1938 that went reminded myself that even in his octoge- from awkward to masterful. The narian years, Joe Kubert could probably older Joe Kubert got, the better still kick my 32-year-old butt. his work became: something rare “Not really,” he answered, breaking in even old comics masters, and the silence. “But the question is a pro- still on display in his final work vocative one, and I’m not sure if you really done for DC Comics, published expect me to answer that honestly.” posthumously in Joe Kubert The tense moment gave way to a laugh, Presents and, to a point, his inks and he went into a story that has stayed on the Before Watchmen: Nite Owl with him since he was a kid: comics drawn with his son Andy. “But what it provokes right now is that This profile takes my essay I think of the reasons a lot of us stayed from that recent spring day and straight. Some of my friends ran into a lot of merges with past talks with Joe problems, in terms of the law and so forth, to give a glimpse at the man and it wasn’t a difficult thing to do. I was and artist. lucky in the fact that my parents were strict when it came to stuff like that, I recall, Joe Kubert’s parents and sister when I was six- or seven-years-old. tried to flee Poland in 1926, but his “When people bought newspapers, mother, pregnant with Joe, was denied they’d put the pennies on the newsstand, passage. Only after Joe’s birth were they take the newspaper, and just walk away. able to board and steam for the American One time, I took the pennies off the news- shore, thus avoiding the rise of the Third stand and put them in my pocket. I was Reich. Settling in the Lower East Side of with my kid sister, who was three years Brooklyn, Joe’s father became a local younger than I, and the moment we walked by Joe Kubert. ©2013 the Estate of Kubert and Strip Art Features. butcher, while Joe and his sister grew up into my father’s store (my father owned during the Great Depression in one of New This piece, our opening article for a butcher store at the time), she told my this special Joe Kubert tribute, is York’s toughest neighborhoods. father I took the pennies off of the stand. by Ye Ed’s friend and confidante, “I think that people now have a difficulty She immediately reported it to my father. Christopher Irving, and it appeared in understanding what was going on at that My father, who was quite a disciplinarian, slightly different form in the Irving/ time, compared to today,” Joe explained. “It instead of making a big to-do about it, took Seth Kushner tome, Leaping Tall was a simpler time, money was more difficult me by the hand and walked me back to the Buildings: The Origins of American to come by, values were quite different, there newsstand, and made me give the pennies Comics. The title was selected by were less people around, but competition was to the owner. I was mortified. That was Abraham Stone: Country Mouse, City Rat yours truly and it refers to Joe’s heavier… It’s like trying to describe what’s going quite a lesson to me, but that was the kind introduction to his masterpiece, on on Mars. It was a different world.” of thing that happened, and one of the things Yossel: April 19, 1943, where he The world of Jew Gangster, Kubert’s that kept me straight. It was not because I wrote, “I started to draw as soon as I 2005 graphic novel based on that other- wasn’t tempted, but because that’s how it was old enough to hold anything that worldly childhood environment, follows worked out. would make a mark.” Background image from the initiation of a teenager into the world “Another thing was that I was occupied, 10 JOE KUBERT: Creator & Mentor Comic Book Creator Tribute an opportunity to show that I did haiku writing, as captions were broken over several panels improve over the years,” specu- to create a narrative tempo that accompanied the visual one lated Joe. “For some weird engineered by Kubert: it was alchemy in comics, created by reason, as a kid, the fact the team-up of a visual genius with a literary one. Kubert’s that you don’t know any- art took on a grit that reminded us, practically every story, thing… gives you the that war was not to be glorified. There could be acts of valor courage to do things and heroism, and Sgt. Rock reminded us that they always that, if you really came at a price. realized how bad “My attitude in my job is that the person that I tried to you were, you please was not the audience, and not the editor I worked for: would have the person I tried to please was myself,” Kubert admitted. thought twice “I love to draw, and I love to do this kind of work as a comic about it. book artist. Being a comic book artist is not the means for “It did me to become a fine artist, or to become an illustrator or give me an anything else, but to be a cartoonist.