THE ROAD NOT TAKEN - JOE KUBERT ON YOSSEL

[MattBrady]

Every so often, one of the masters of the comics medium will release a project which reminds the entire industry and beyond of both their vitality, as well as the power the medium holds. Joe Kubert’s Yossel coming in October from iBooks, is just that.

Speaking in comic-ese, Yossel is Kubert’s own Elseworlds or What If? story. IN this version, rather than becoming one of the all-time great creators in comics, Kubert was a teen in Poland, and saw the final days of the month-long Warsaw Uprising.

It’s an idea that has haunted Kubert in many ways over the years, one that has its genesis in his own story of how his family came to America. “My mother and father attempted to come to the United States from Poland just before I was born, but they sent my parents back to Poland because they thought my mother was so close to giving birth that they didn’t want that happening on the boat,” Kubert said. “My mother and father went back to their hometown in Poland after coming all the way to Southampton in England, my mother eventually gave birth to me. They went back to England after that, and I was about two or three months old when I arrived in the United States.”

The questions Kubert has found himself asking over the years flow along the lines of what if, for whatever reason, his parents had not left their town after they were refused passage the first time? What if they had been refused passage the second time as well? What would life have been like for the Kubert’s young son in 1930s and 1940s Poland?

It was something that Kubert didn’t have to guess at, really. “While I was growing up, some of the people that had lived in my father’s town in 1939 or 1940 had come to tell my father and mother the things that had occurred in the town after they had left,” Kubert said. “They described to them the events and actions which were the beginnings of the real heavy part of the Holocaust. Neighbors and family – uncles, brothers, sisters, cousins, and so on, were killed. They were just decimated.

“At the time, it almost sounded like a bad fairy tale. I really didn’t understand the significance of what was going on. Later on, my father and mother would sit and tell my sisters and me about their upbringing and what it was like, and made it very clear that neither my father nor mother came to the United States to run away from anything. They came here in 1926, which was a good deal of time before the actual occurrences of the Holocaust began to happen.

“My father’s parents were pretty well off. They had a small business with something similar to a general store, and they did well. They weren’t in need for anything, and neither was my father because of that. My mother’s family too was pretty well off. My grandfather was a veterinarian and he had cattle, so everyone was pretty comfortable where they were. However, my father insisted when he got married, that he wanted more opportunities for his children. So, despite the fact that they were pretty well off where they were, my father insisted that his family come to America. My mother had family here already, but my father had nobody. He was leaving his entire family back in Europe.

“Years later, I often thought about what the heck would have happened if, for whatever reason, my father hadn’t insisted on coming to America. In all probability, I’m sure what happened to most of our family in Poland would have happened to us as well. Within the last couple of years, I felt that I wanted to put this down, and do a story based on what might have happened had my folks not come to the new world. Yossel is the result.”

(For those wondering, it’s pronounced “Yuh-sell,” with a short u sound, rather than an o.)

The 128-page graphic novel is set up not as a linear comic book story, but rather, as a sketchbook, a view of the events of the Uprising, as well as life in the Warsaw Ghetto through the eyes of a young boy, roughly the same age Kubert would have been, had his family stayed. Like Kubert, Yossel likes to draw, and loves the adventure of American comics.

“My intent was to get into the head of somebody, like myself, who might have been in that kind of a situation and had the same kind of love for drawing that I have,” Kubert said. “Putting myself in that kind of situation, I imagined that I would still be interested in cartooning and comic books, and they were available at that time in Poland – things like Flash Gordon and Tarzan were printed in European publications. I felt that I still would have had that kind of an interest that I had when I was a kid here in the United States. At the age of two or three, that was the kind of stuff I was starting to draw.

“I figured that in that kind of a situation, I’d be drawing things that were around me, as I do today – whenever I got to a museum or if I’m traveling, I always have a sketch book with me, and I’m always drawing.”

In Yossel’s case, what’s around him is much more stark than museum displays. Shown in flashbacks, Yossel describes what has happened to him to bring him to Warsaw on April 19, 1943. From being forced from their home shortly after Kristallnacht, and seeing his parents sent to a concentration camp, to learning of their fate from a camp escapee, and joining with the Uprising, Yossel’s images are emotionally charged and heartbreaking in their clarity. The story’s ending is known, which only amplifies the tragedy.

“The date in the title sets the story during the Warsaw Uprising, when the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto rebelled, knowing that they were going to be wiped out, anyhow, they tried to fight back,” Kubert said. “The whole story, while there are flashbacks, it all takes place during that one day when the last vestiges of the rebellion were put down by the Germans.

“I tried to design this book to get across the impression to people who would be reading it that these were graphic notes that ‘I’ had taken while all of this stuff was going on. That was also the reason why I chose to do the entire book in pencil, as opposed to finished inks. I tried to combine more of the story with the art as well – I have no word balloons in this. I tried to make it different. I wanted it to be a hardcover, and I wanted to use the medium, but not have it look like a comic book. I wanted it more to look like a sketchbook and I wanted it to convey a feeling of immediacy. I wanted people to be looking at these drawings and feel like they were looking over my shoulder as I was drawing them. That was my intent.”

The words of the story, while not appearing in word balloons, are a combination of dialogue, description, and Yossel’s inner thoughts, and are used effectively by Kubert as the story progresses to give a feeling of urgency. Try as they might, Yossel and his fellows know the end is coming, and cannot stop it.

The sense of urgency is also something Kubert sought to express in the art as well. “When I started out, the drawings were more sketchy and less finished,” Kubert said. “None of them would be what I would consider as ‘roughs’ – there is enough detail and information in those illustrations to convey what I was doing and where I was and what was happening to Yossel at the time.

“As the book progresses, I started doing more and more images in detail, and I felt that intensified the entire story and kind of pushed it just a little bit more. I tried to pace the drawings so that the intensity increased as the climax of the book became more and more apparent.”

To give Yossel its accurate look, Kubert dove into research of the tiem period, plowing through book after book. “I must have gone through at least half a dozen different books on the Holocaust, the pre-Holocaust, what the city streets of Warsaw at the time looked like, what the wall around the Ghetto looked like, what the people looked like, what the guards at that time looked like.

“The time sequence, incidentally, of the entire story is factual – it’s ‘as it happened, when it happened.’ There are mentions made to the people who were leading the rebellion in the Ghetto, and I refer to them. There were a group of people who were put in as figureheads by the Germans to ‘take care of’ the people, so to speak, like a pseudo-Mayor and whatever. I included all that information that’s I’d garnered – the things that had happened, and the people that it had happened to.”

While Yossel recorded dozens of horrific images in his sketchbook, there were some, in particular that were very difficult for Kubert to draw – after all, if he was projecting himself back to this time, he had to project his parents back as well.

“My father and my mother had told me the details of what happened to members of my family during those times,” Kubert said. “Now, because of how I had placed myself in the story, was to put my father and mother in those very same positions. It was a strange feeling, because I felt…funny. If this had happened to my mother and father…I have four sisters, and once is older, and she’s in the story. My three other sisters, who are younger than myself, would have never come to be if we had remained there. It was difficult in doing this, to juxtapose myself, and my parents and my sister in that kind of a situation, and in order to convey that, and put that into pictures, was a little…jarring.

“Just as an aside, having come here from the Old Country, I’d been drawing since I was maybe two or three years old. Most people from the Old Country, if they saw a kid drawing pictures at that age would have tried to dissuade them, not wanting them to waste their time. It was a baby thing to do. One or two of my friends in school who liked to draw were pushed by their parents to do something, to study at something that would one day allow them to make a living. After all, how the hell were they going to make a living drawing?

“My father was different My father always encouraged me. My mother as well. They saw how much I loved to draw, and they would do anything they could to help me and push me more to do what I was doing. This was during the Depression when there wasn’t much extra for doing such things, but they were very proud of the fact that I could draw. Putting them back into that kind of a position, and thinking of what might have happened otherwise…I recall very vividly all of the things that I did while I was drawing – the fact that I was able to get my first job as a cartoonist when I was eleven or twelve years old…and to think of what might have happened, or what might have been, if I was eleven or twelve years old in Poland – that was what really pushed me to do this.”

Expanding, Kubert said that his desire to tell this story didn’t come from a desire to tell the story about the Holocaust as much as it was to explore what could have happened to individuals, namely, himself, at that time in history had they been there.

“Every one of us, finds ourselves at a point where maybe two or three different directions could have been taken at a particular point in your road. Take one, and your experiences and life will be completely different than the others. Yet, whatever the outcome, it’s all happening to the same person. That same person might have the same kind of feelings, the same kind of emotions, and reactions, but under entirely different settings. That’s why I did the book as I did. It was a journey for me – it is a what if? story, but a journey for me to see what kind of things might have happened, had I been on that other road.”

Yossel is Kubert’s first major solo work since 1998’s Fax from Sarajevo, but continues along with his more human themes. While Kubert’s war stories were often notable for being quietly anti-war, Fax and Yossel go deeper, with the latter being his most powerful statement without making a statement. There are no anti-war monologues in Yossel, only a world seemingly gone mad as seen through a young man’s eyes.

“I find that currently, with Brian [Azzarello] and the story he’s written for Sgt. Rock, and the things that I’ve done before, like Fax and now Yossel, I’m more interested in the characters and what happens to them, than I had been before,” Kubert said. “So far, the few reviews that we’ve had point it out, this is a person that has gone through some terrible experiences, and the reader can feel those experiences to some degree. That’s what I think is effective, as far as the story is concerned. The Holocaust again, is a backdrop. Everybody knows the story – everybody knows what happened during that time. But I think if it can be described in terms of how it affected different people, or how different people were affected by it, that’s a much more interesting story.”

And Yossel won’t be his last in this particular vein. Kubert is working on a new graphic novel set in Brooklyn of the 1930s. “It will cover the full decade between 1930 and 1940, and will be set where I grew up in Brooklyn,” Kubert said. “It will look at what happens when people grow up in that kind of a milieu and what was going on during that time, and focus on the crime aspects of it. Having grown up in East New York and Bensonhurst, there were a lot of things that were happening at that time, again, which I was not really conscious of until I got a little older and started reading about all of this and recognizing what the heck was going on.

“My family – some of the members who were already here that greeted my parents at Ellis Island, they were involved in the garment industry, which was rife with stealing and graft, and murder, and beatings. All this stuff was going on while I was a kid. I would often hear people talking about a nice dress or shoes that they got because they fell off the back of the truck. In my mind, as a kid, these were some of the luckiest people around. But I later learned a little better. I’m just getting into it now, and I’m really excited about it.”

Like his contemporary, Will Eisner, the 77-year-old Kubert can still amaze even creators half his age with his output and mastery – as well as work ethic. Yossel will be one of two graphic novels coming out by Kubert in October, with the other being the aforementioned Sgt. Rock, which he penciled, inked, lettered and colored.

“I just keep working. I’ve said it over and over again, but I’m probably one of the luckiest people in the world, because sitting and doing this stuff is not work to me. This is a matter of choice. This is where I’d rather be, and this is what I would rather be doing. It’s not difficult for me, and I count my blessings every day. What’s amazing to me is that despite the fact that I’ve been in this godammed business so long – and I say that lovingly – people are still calling and asking virtually every other day if I have time to do another project. To still have my work be viable enough to be requested at this stage, I really count my blessings.”

Yossel is due in stores in October from iBooks, and will be priced at $24.95.

[notmertz]

Thanks, Joe, for making this book.

[chuck gibson]

SOLD! You had me at "Joe Kubert".

best
chuck

[OM]

...The interesting thing about this one is that after all these years of drawing war books, not only is Joe actually drawing himself in one out in the open, he's also going to be fighting as well! Without a question this will be a must-read book alongside Maus.

[Simon DelMonte]

Originally posted by OM
...The interesting thing about this one is that after all these years of drawing war books, not only is Joe actually drawing himself in one out in the open, he's also going to be fighting as well! Without a question this will be a must-read book alongside Maus.

I think this is what I've been waiting for for. Unlike Maus, this will be free of the author's neuroses about his father and his faith, and being that it's about the Warsaw Uprising, Jews will be portrayed as fighters and not as victims. (While it is historically true that few Jews could do anything, I like the idea of showing that sometimes Jews did not go to their deaths without fighting.)

[MichaelCoughlin]

Not to sound to insensitive, though I'm sure that's how I'll come across, but does anyone else feel, i dunno, "numb" to Holocost-setting stories? I know it's a powerful topic, and one that shouldn't be forgotten, but at times I feel like everywhere I turn there's another story about the Holocost. Be it "Schindler's List" to the most recent "The Pianist". Again, it all is incredibly moving, but sometimes I don't want to read this stuff anymore. Not because I don't care, but because I just can't take it anymore.

[minmin]

One of those Udon or Dreamwave guys need to come out with a comic about the Rape of Nanking or something...

but this looks like a really cool book and concept.. especially the part about the drawings becomming more detailed as we get closer to the climax

[L'Zoril]

Originally posted by MichaelCoughlin
Not to sound to insensitive, though I'm sure that's how I'll come across, but does anyone else feel, i dunno, "numb" to Holocost-setting stories? I know it's a powerful topic, and one that shouldn't be forgotten, but at times I feel like everywhere I turn there's another story about the Holocost. Be it "Schindler's List" to the most recent "The Pianist". Again, it all is incredibly moving, but sometimes I don't want to read this stuff anymore. Not because I don't care, but because I just can't take it anymore.

Well, you have a point. It's up to you to pick this book or not. But the holocaust is possibly the biggest human tragedy to take place in the last century. It affected millions of people in so many different ways. Yossel is Kubert's take on the holocaust as Maus was Spiegelman's. This is a story I'm sure Kubert just had to tell. Listening to sotires from his parents sure must have had huge effects on the man. What he is doing is portraying himself in the story. The same with Polanski's The Pianist.

These people are putting their hearts in their stories and besides, we all know the great quality of Joe Kubert's work. As I said, it's up to you if you feel saturated with the Holocaust and don't want to pick this book. As for myself, this is definitely a must buy (dependenig if there's enough money in my wallet of course). Great work indeed.

[Duke Stratosphere]

Originally posted by L'Zoril
Yossel is Kubert's take on the holocaust as Maus was Spiegelman's. This is a story I'm sure Kubert just had to tell.

Good point, and I'm glad Joe is taking the time to tell his story. As the years go by, those who were eye witnesses to events like the Holocaust will pass on, leaving us only their stories. We need to get the stories out now (as Joe is, in a sense, getting his parent's and relative's stories out) before the event in question becomes too distant. Not that this will stop any future spin doctors, but at least there will be something to counteract the eventual crap.

A lot of the history lessons I got in school (Civil War as the sole exception) were watered down and whitewashed. I'm not sure if they're doing any better today, but it's good to have any and all forms of literature, art, etc. that can help us fill in the whole picture.

Anyone know if other "never forget" events (e.g. Stalin's purges, the Armenian Holocaust, Wounded Knee, etc.) have been tackled by the comics field?

[MichaelCoughlin]

Originally posted by Duke Stratosphere
Good point, and I'm glad Joe is taking the time to tell his story. As the years go by, those who were eye witnesses to events like the Holocaust will pass on, leaving us only their stories. We need to get the stories out now (as Joe is, in a sense, getting his parent's and relative's stories out) before the event in question becomes too distant. Not that this will stop any future spin doctors, but at least there will be something to counteract the eventual crap.

A lot of the history lessons I got in school (Civil War as the sole exception) were watered down and whitewashed. I'm not sure if they're doing any better today, but it's good to have any and all forms of literature, art, etc. that can help us fill in the whole picture.

Anyone know if other "never forget" events (e.g. Stalin's purges, the Armenian Holocaust, Wounded Knee, etc.) have been tackled by the comics field?

You almost never hear about Stalin's purges ANYWHERE! I know this'll start a fight, but oh well. I think it's probably because it paints communism in a light that is impossible to defend, and I think that many in the media/art world are more sympathetic to the communist regimes than they really should be, and perhaps don't want to mention things like this.

As horrible as the Holocaust was, and I'm really not trying to diminish it's horror, what Stalin and later Mao did were so far worse most people wouldn't believe it. I mean, the slaughters in China amount to TEN TIMES the number of Jewish people dead from the Holocost, but it's hardly ever mentioned. 60 million to 6 million.


PLEASE don't flame me for any of this, but I know it'll come because people will probably misread the spirit of my post as anti-semetic, but is it POSSIBLE (and i'm just trying to open debate here) that part of the reason the Holocaust gets more coverage than over genocides of the 20th century, is because there is a seeming "Jewish influence" in Hollywood?

[Ganter]

First of all, this looks fantastic and I'm really looking forward to it.

As for other forgotten tragedies... how many people have really covered the Killing Fields and the genocide by the Khmer Rouge?

I think the oppression of Koreans by the Japanese has been tackled in some Eastern comics, but I'm not totally sure...

[minmin]

are there are a lot of jews in the comics book industry?

[Cpt.Americafan]

PLEASE don't flame me for any of this, but I know it'll come because people will probably misread the spirit of my post as anti-semetic, but is it POSSIBLE (and i'm just trying to open debate here) that part of the reason the Holocaust gets more coverage than over genocides of the 20th century, is because there is a seeming "Jewish influence" in Hollywood? [/b][/quote]

No I think it is from the fact that six million were cattled off to die inhumanly.I don't believe in that jew media master crap.It is a easy stigma, like saying mexicans are lazy or something but they are working hard just like everyone else.People look for excuses to soften their own failures or lack of ambition.My opinion only but you wanted debate.

[Cpt.Americafan]

Originally posted by minmin
are there are a lot of jews in the comics book industry?

[minmin]

Originally posted by Cpt.Americafan

i'm just asking an honest question...

[Cpt.Americafan]

I am sure,but I am just as confused I don't think anyone has ever taken a census in the comicbook community.I think that would require extensive research.

[minmin]

i have no clue either...

i'm not too familiar with jewish last names..

anything that ends with "berg"?
or "man"

is that correct?

if that's the case.. i don't know of many comic book creators with those names...

not that i really care or anything.. but since most people say jewish rule the media.. i was wondering if this was the case in comics too.

[Device]

I'm incredibly fascinated by WW2 and how humanity led to such a point. It's so easy to look at it as something from the far outside, but all those people, on either side, were people just like you see them every day. The stories about these people are so fascinating and moving.

With someone as talented as Joe Kubert on this subject, I will be picking up this book for sure.

[db]

Originally posted by minmin
are there are a lot of jews in the comics book industry?

Yup - Stan Lee, Jack Kirby (who both changed their names), Neil Gaiman, Peter David...
Erm... Lots more - but I can't remember who...

[db]

Originally posted by db
Yup - Stan Lee, Jack Kirby (who both changed their names), Neil Gaiman, Peter David...
Erm... Lots more - but I can't remember who...

Oh yeah - Brian Michael Bendis, Danny Fingeroth, Will Eisner...
J. M. Dematteis? (In Brooklyn Dreams his autobiographical 'analogue' was half Jewish and was Barmitzvahed...)

[Mellow Doubt]

Joe Schuster, Jerry Siegel, Chris Claremont (if I'm not mistaken), Joe Rubinstein, Greg Rucka...

[Frankie Thirteen]

Aside from Truth, I don't know if I've ever seen very many African-American-themed historical stories in mainstream comics. Can anyone help fill me in?

(note: I said mainstream, not small-press or alternative.)

[Ganter]

Frankie, I would go NUTS for some dramatic comic about the lives of slaves, the underground railroad, and their struggle for freedom. I love those stories! The injustice to african americans for all those years is just baffling.

not to put down learning more about the holocaust. I enjoy those stories as well!

[db]

Actually - are there many African American comic book creators?

I can only think of Kyle Baker, and Chris Priest - and I'm not absolutely positive in either case.

[MichaelCoughlin]

I'm not even talking specifically comic books either, for the record. I think it's kind of unsettling that the artistic community hasn't gone out of it's way to show us the horror's of Stalin and Mao.

It seems like every other day there is a story about the Holocaust, and I understand the importance of making sure such things never happen again and how amazing the struggle of many Jews was at the time. But I'm sure there are as equally amazing stories about the, sadly, many genocides of the 20th century. Hell, Pol Pot killed ONE FOURTH of his countries population.

Oliver Cromwell, several hundred years ago, was a madman who did everything in his power to eliminate the Irish, yet it's a story never told. In fact, I've seen textbooks that talk of Cromwell as if he was an "OK" ruler and barely pay lip service to this horror.

EVERYONE knows about the Holocaust, but there are other injustices that still haven't been told.

I know this will sound incecitive, but I've heard the "All the Holocaust survivors are dying, we need to get their stories written down" line before. And yes, it's very important, but all the people who survived Mao and Pol are dying as well, what about their stories? Why doesn't the artistic community take up their causes?