People of the (Comic) Book

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here they were, on the display table at Borders alongside the newest pick for
Oprah’s book club and the latest political thriller: three books about comic books
and cartoonists: Kirby: King of Comics, The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book
Scare and How It Changed America, and Schultz and Peanuts: A Biography. The next
table over had a shrink-wrapped copy of the first volume of Heroes, the graphic
novel based on the TV series by the same name, as well as a handsome special edition of Joe Sacco’s documentary-style graphic novel Palestine.
Comic books have come far from the days of dime-store spinning racks, and in some
venues they receive recognition as “real” literature. Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer Prizewinning novel of 2000, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, brought a new recognition for the artists and writers who launched the comic book industry. The book ignited a passionate interest in the subject and just since its publication, there have been
scores of books and magazine articles that examine the history of superheroes and the
Jewish connections between the creators and the stars of comic books.
It is widely accepted that the comic book industry was filled with Jews because it was
one of the only businesses open to them and other immigrants during the Depression.
These artists created superheroes that embodied their desires to assimilate. When Jerry
Siegal and Joe Schuster, two Jewish teenagers from Cleveland, Ohio, launched Superman
on a country hungry for a hero, they never dreamed that their creation would change the
face of comic books. Readers interested in a more in-depth history of the comic book
industry should read Gerard Jones’ Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the
PART I: CREATION, CONTROVERSY,
AND CREDIBILITY
Summer 5768/2008
JEWISH BOOK WORLD
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FEATURE: PEOPLE OF THE (C0MIC) BOOK
Comic Book. Danny Fingeroth’s book, Disguised as Clark Kent: Jews,
Comics, and the Creation of the Superhero, provides a close look at
the Jewish artists and their involvement in comic books, while
Simcha Weinstein’s Up, Up, and Oy Vey! How Jewish History, Culture, and Values Shaped the Comic Book Superhero is a must-read for
its enlightening descriptions of superheroes and how they
embody Jewish values. For a detailed discussion of the controversy and subsequent censorship surrounding comic books during
their heyday in the 1950’s, see David Hajdu’s The Ten-Cent Plague.
Just as Jews were instrumental in creating comic books, Jewish
authors of graphic novels have helped to
elevate the medium’s status in
the literary world. The last few
years have seen the publication of
many graphic novels that deal with
the Jewish themes of anti-Semitism,
the Holocaust, belief, and survival.
There have been articles about
graphic novels in Haddassah and Reform
Judaism magazines, and Hebrew
Union College in New York City
held a major exhibit devoted to
Jewish graphic novels. The website JBooks.com features a fantastic
history of Jews and the graphic
novel by David Gantz, the author of
Jews in America: a Cartoon History. The term graphic novel is
misleading since many such
books are not novels at all, but
are memoirs or other nonfiction.
Art Spiegelman, creator of Maus,
has described graphic novels as
comic books long enough for a bookmark.
Harvey Pekar and R. Crumb have
been
producing
“alternative
comics” or “comix” for years.
Issues of superhero comics that
have been bundled together are also
sometimes referred to as graphic
novels. The late Will Eisner, often
called the “grandfather of graphic novels,” used the term
“sequential art” to describe the format that showcased some of
his best and most mature work.
The story of Will Eisner and his growth as a graphic novelist
exemplifies the development of the graphic novel as an accepted
form of literature. Eisner started out in the comic book industry,
and his superhero, The Spirit, had a long run of popularity in both
newspaper comic strips and comic books. By the 1970’s, Eisner
felt that the format of a comic strip was too restricting, and he
wanted to express himself artistically without being constrained
by a limited number of panels in each story. He focused on what
he knew best: the immigrant experience in the teeming
tenements of the Bronx. His fictional Dropsie Avenue
became the setting for his first book, which he subtitled “a
graphic novel” in order to attract the attention of big-name
publishers. A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories
(1978) features Jews and other recent immigrants during the
Depression and War years. His characters are depicted “warts
and all,” their vices prominent, their losses heartbreaking, and
their successes few and far between. This was a place that Eisner would revisit many times in his succeeding graphic novels,
most of which have been republished as handsome compilations by Norton. Eisner’s work showcased his talent as an artist willing to take
risks, and the impact he made on the
comic book and graphic novel industry is
still felt today, when authors vie each
year for the coveted Eisner Award.
With the publication in 1986 of
the first volume of Maus, arguably
the best-known Jewish graphic
novel, Art Spiegelman emerged from
the realm of underground comics,
where he and his wife had published
their magazine Raw, and became
a sensation in the literary world.
The two-volume set of Maus (volume two was published in 1991)
can rightfully be called a masterpiece. It is the only graphic novel to
have won a Pulitzer Prize, and there
have been scores of articles, both in
the popular and scholarly presses,
devoted to Spiegelman’s exploration of his father’s experiences in
the Holocaust. Using animals to represent people—mice for Jews, cats for
Germans, pigs for Poles—Spiegelman
pushed the limits of what people would
accept as literature. Some critics complain
that by using animals Spiegelman has trivialized the Holocaust, causing it to look
like something out of a Looney Tunes cartoon; others have said
that the only way readers can digest the horrors of what he
describes is to have the characters as animals, so that readers are
one step removed from observing the horrors that real people suffered. However it is argued, Spiegelman’s intentions seem quite
clear when he opens Maus with a quote from Hitler: “The Jews are
undoubtedly a race, but they are not human.”
Though it is a daunting task for a new author to follow in
Spiegelman’s footsteps, there have been many graphic novels
published in the last few years that have been inspired by Maus.
Bernice Eisenstein’s I Was a Child of Holocaust Survivors, Miriam
1930
He Done Her Wrong
1938
Superman
1976/2007
American Splendor
1978
Contract with God
1986/1991
Maus
2005
Jew Gangster
2006
I Was a Child of
Holocaust Survivors
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JEWISH BOOK WORLD
Summer 5768/2008
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These and other newcomers
Katin’s We Are On Our Own, and Martin
took
the
influence
of Eisner and Spiegelman, and
Lemelman’s Mendel’s Daughter are memoirs
S
BOOK
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delivered
graphic
novels
into
the
waiting hands of mainstream
based on true events. Joe Kubert, a contemN/M
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readers.
When
graphic
novels
can
win major awards and be
porary of Will Eisner, started out in the comic
named
book industry and is best known for his Sgt. Rock and Hawkman
Time Magazine’s Book of the Year, as Alison Bechdel’s Fun
comics. In 2003 he produced Yossel, April 19, 1943: A Story of the Home did in 2007, it is clear that there are no longer taboos about
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, a graphic novel in which he imagined being seen in public reading a book with word balloons.
what his life would have been like had his parents not left Poland
before the Holocaust. His namesake, Yossel, chronicles his time in
the Warsaw Ghetto by illustrating the life and death around him.
Jew Gangster, Kubert’s 2005 graphic novel, sheds light on a relatively unknown period of time, when Jewish gangsters violently
ruled the streets of New York. In 2006, Jewish cartoonist Neil Wendy Wasman has been a professional librarian since 1988. She is currently working
Kleid wrote Brownsville, another graphic novel which depicts the in the libraries of Anshe-Chesed Fairmount Temple and The Temple-Tifereth Israel, both
lives of Jewish gangsters.
in Beachwood, OH.
to be continued...
Summer 5768/2008
JEWISH BOOK WORLD
29
By
Wendy Wasman
ith graphic novels making headway with mainstream publishers and readers
across all genres, and Jewish graphic novels becoming a burgeoning category
in their own right, fans of the format have welcomed the publication of many
high-quality books in the last few years. Some old friends have made appearances in new editions, such as the Will Eisner compilations from Norton; other
writers who have been around since the beginning are finding wider acceptance
in the graphic novel world, such as Harvey Pekar and his wild popularity following the movie version of his comic American Splendor. Pekar has also branched out into political areas, and his newest books examine war in Macedonia and political activism in Students for
a Democratic Society. Some new acquaintances have made their way from Europe and Israel in
expert translations, and readers are eagerly awaiting sequels of many of their favorite works.
One example of a European import is Joann Sfar, a very prolific French cartoonist who creates comics and graphic novels unlike any ever seen before. Best-known for his Little Vampire
books for children, Sfar has recently made his mark with the critically-acclaimed The Rabbi’s
Cat. Set in Algeria in the 1930’s, the story of a rabbi and his daughter is seen through the eyes
of their precocious cat. In the beginning of the book the cat eats the pet parrot and gains the
ability to speak. He immediately engages the rabbi in a discussion about his own Jewishness and
demands to have a Bar Mitzvah. The rabbi, confused about whether the cat can have a Bar Mitzvah, takes up the question with his own rabbi. And so it goes, until the cat loses his ability to
speak. He continues to narrate the rest of the book, and through him we learn about the rabbi’s
daughter and her marriage to a young rabbi from Paris. With the cat as our guide, we accompany the rabbi and his daughter to Paris, where the rabbi has a crisis of faith, and back again to
Algeria, to a time and place where Arabs and Jews peacefully coexisted. Likened to a foreign film
on paper because of Sfar’s captivating characters and flowing illustrations, The Rabbi’s Cat is a
splendid example of how the graphic format can be used to enhance a story. Sfar fans will be
happy to know that The Rabbi’s Cat 2 has just been published (see review on page 55).
PART II: CONTEMPORARY GRAPHIC
NOVELS FIND THEIR NICHE
Fall 5768/2008
Jewish Book World
41
People of the Comic Book
2005
Rabbi’s Cat
2006
Megillat Esther
2006
Klezmer
2007
Exit Wounds
comic book as a history text would have been
unacceptable a decade ago, when most people
would have assumed that something in a
cartoon format was intended merely
for entertainment or for people who
were too lazy to read “real” literature.
The original “real” literature for
Jews includes a book that is read out
loud each year amidst great revelry: the
Book of Esther. JT Waldman’s graphic
novel version of the Megillat Esther is a
unique combination of traditional
text and comic book. Met with
great acclaim when it was published by JPS in 2005, Waldman’s
illustrations burst from the page and
are intertwined with the original
Hebrew and an English translation.
Author Steve Sheinkin renders traditional Jewish folktales into comics set in the
Wild West. His Rabbi Harvey graphic novels
are met with applause by readers of all ages,
and since there seems to be an endless supply
of traditional stories that can be mined for
adaptation, Sheinkin can easily keep Rabbi
Harvey fans happy with future volumes.
If these traditional Jewish stories and texts,
such as the Megillat Esther, can share shelf
space with Eisner, Spiegelman, Pekar, and such
gifted newcomers as Sfar, Modan, Libicki, and
Sheinkin, then fans of the comic format are in
for an exciting ride in the coming years.
Wendy Wasman has been a professional librarian since
1988. She is the former Assistant Librarian at The
Temple - Tifereth Israel in Beachwood, Ohio, and is
currently the Librarian at the Cleveland Museum
of Natural History.
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novel, Jobnik!, a collection of the first six
issues of her comic series, provides an
unflinching look at her life as an American in
the Israeli army. As she enters the army, deals
with the language barrier, falls in and out of
love, and tries to understand the Palestinian
Intifada, Libicki offers readers a unique insider’s perspective by someone who considers
herself an outsider. Her bold pencil drawings
and honest text are worthy of greater study,
and readers will be eager for her to continue
her story in future publications.
In Germany, a new comic book about the
Holocaust is being used in classrooms to
teach eighth-grade students a part of their
history that has never been explicitly
taught before. The Search, which was created by a Dutch comic artist, Eric Heuvel, in conjunction with a team of experts,
and is available in five different languages, shows how far the comic book
has come from the days of Superman
and other costumed heroes. Using a
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Sfar’s second graphic novel to be
published in the U.S. is Klezmer: Tales
of the Wild East. Sfar takes his readers
away from the sunny Algeria of The
Rabbi’s Cat to the snowy shtetls of Eastern Europe, where they follow a ragtag
band of klezmer musicians on their
adventures. It is another stellar graphic novel, with unforgettable characters and imaginative illustrations.
Exit Wounds, by Israeli comic
artist Rutu Modan, is an impressive
graphic novel set in present-day Israel
that tells the story of a young man
searching for his father, who may have
been a victim of a suicide bombing at a bus
station. His companion on the search is a
female soldier who was his father’s lover
before he disappeared. Exit Wounds is notable
not only for the high level of achievement by
the artist and author, but also for its depiction
of everyday life in Tel Aviv. The bombing,
having taken place before the book begins, is
not a prominent part of the story. Readers are
given glimpses of the aftermath of the attack,
such as snippets of newspaper articles, a mangled ceiling in the bus station café, and one
gruesome scene of an autopsy. The message
seems to be that daily life in Israel goes on
despite acts of violence. The graphic novel
format is ideal for telling this type of story.
Miriam Libicki’s self-published graphic
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