introduction
Jews and comic books.
A curious topic. One wouldn’t group the two subjects together as readi-
ly as, say, Jews and comedy or African Americans and hip-hop. But
there it is. Those in the know realize that Jews almost single-handed-
ly built the comic-book industry from the ground up. And I should
know. For the past five years, I’ve immersed myself in this topic.
In 2002, I was approached by one of my freelance clients to write a
series on Jews in comic books. I’d been writing for MAD Magazine for
two years, and apparently I was the guy to write this series. After all,
MAD started out in 1952 as a comic book published by EC Comics.
EC was once a flourishing line of comics published by Bill Gaines,
who took over from his father, Max Gaines. And Max invented the
comic book. Invented it. So, by virtue of my being a MAD writer, I’m
bound to this history. Makes you think.
Needless to say, I took my quest seriously. The first person I inter-
viewed was my MAD colleague Al Jaffee, he of the “MAD Fold-In” and
“Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions.” Turns out that not only is Al
an amazing interview subject, he’s also the Zelig of comics. He knows
everyone! “You know who you should interview next?” he asked. “Will
Eisner. Want his phone number?” I nodded dumbly, amazed that he
was just giving me the phone number of Will Eisner, the father of the
modern graphic novel. Every marquee name in comics—Stan Lee, Joe
Kubert, Jerry Robinson—has some connection to Al Jaffee. His name
opened up a lot of doors, and for that I’m eternally grateful. I went on
to re-interview many of those same people when the time came to
expand the “Jews in comics” magazine series into a book. So unless
I’ve noted otherwise, the interviews in this manuscript were conduct-
ed by yours truly. But this book isn’t merely a series of interview
quotes. There’s a real story here. Some of the same names—Lee,
Kirby, Siegel, Shuster, Eisner, and some dude named Kurtzman—
reappear throughout, giving the story its spine. Like many narratives
about the Jewish people, this is the story of a tradition. A tradition
that was handed down from one generation to the next. Only in this
case, that tradition is comics. (As opposed to, say, textiles.)
The story of Jews’ involvement in comic books is a reflection of Jews’
changing status in American society. Early Jewish cartoonists, street
kids with no formal artistic training, wrote and drew comic books to
feed their families. It came from an instinct for survival, and this is
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evident in the thousands of crude superhero yarns that were so
hastily churned out during the industry’s so-called Golden Age.
When one thinks of a Jewish comics artist during the Golden Age,
one thinks of the legendary cartoonist Jack “the King” Kirby
hunched over a desk in some mythical bullpen, green cigar
poking out of his mouth, wiping cigar ash off the pages as he
curses to himself in a thick “Noo Yawk” accent. And even
before it became okay to discuss one’s ethnicity in the pages of a
comic book, Jewish artists and writers like Kirby and Jerry Siegel
were concealing subtle Jewish signifiers in comic-book characters
such as Captain America and Superman. But more on that later.
Young Jewish comics professionals who emerged during the ’60s and
’70s were the first generation to have grown up on the idiom itself,
and thus they had a vocabulary to work from. They were second-gen-
eration comic nuts, and like their Baby Boomer brethren in the film
and TV industry, they would sometimes put Jewish supporting
characters in their stories. Their underground comics colleagues,
however, often brought their Jewish characters center-stage, telling
stories that were shocking in their audacity and sometimes just as
crude as their Golden Age predecessors.
Then we come to the current crop of Jewish comic-book writers and
artists. Gone completely are the green cigars, the street-kid lingo,
the reliance on old-fashioned superhero convention. Absent, too, is
the self-consciousness about Jewish identity. Today’s Jewish comics
professionals wear their ethnicity proudly on their sleeves. They tell
stories of Jewish life in their comics as though it were no big deal.
And to them it isn’t. Some of them work on intimately personal
graphic novels with one hand while crafting high-concept superhero
yarns with the other. They’re intellectual virtuosos, stylishly
dressed, and perhaps even a tad overeducated. If they own the rights
to their characters, an unthinkable notion in the Golden Age, said
characters have probably been optioned by a production company or
film studio with an eye toward developing a movie franchise. Yes,
times have changed for the Jewish comics professional. If only the
King could see them now.
Arie Kaplan
Queens, New York
November 2007
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