Man of Rock: A Biography of Joe Kubert Review

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Man of Rock: A Biography of Joe Kubert ReviewBack in May 1962 I was a young teenager getting seriously interested in comic book collecting. That was a magic time which saw the revival of numerous super heroes from the 1940s. In some of the Julie Schwartz edited books I was finding intriguing ads for The Brave and the Bold starring a character called Hawkman. This I was later to learn was a revival of another hero from the Golden Age of Comics. When I visited the local drugstore that carried comics I purchased a copy of The Brave and the Bold #42. As the ad had proclaimed Hawkman was star feature in this issue. Hawkman was a flying policemen from another planet who with his wife and fellow law enforcement officer had come to Earth to learn our planet's police techniques. Hawkman's methods were to use ancient Earth weapons to subdue alien and supernatural foes.
However it wasn't the character but the artwork that made Hawkman a standout among the super heroes of the early 1960s. Most of those super doers were drawn with a very slick line and the spotting of blacks were used sparingly. The artist on Hawkman, however, used a deceptively rough line and made liberal use of blacks which gave the artwork a rather foreboding atmosphere. I learned that this artist was Joe Kubert. As a young teenager just beginning to look at comic book art seriously I gravitated toward the more slick work of people like Murphy Anderson and Sid Greene. A year later I started to become aware of emerging comics fandom. One of the first rallying cries of this young movement was "Save Hawkman by Kubert" The Brave and Bold issues of Hawkman that I had purchased were the second tryout for the Winded Wonder and apparently the sales were not warrant giving the character his own book. Fans began besieging National Comics (now DC Comics) with a letter campaign to not only publish Hawkman but to keep Kubert as the artist. Part of Kubert's appeal as artist was that he had drawn the strip years earlier during the Golden Age. It was natural for the fans of the older comics to want to see one of their favorite artists work on a strip that he had cut his eye teeth on years earlier. However that was not to happen. Hawkman next appeared as a backup strip in Mystery in Space with the very slick Murphy Anderson doing the art. Eventually in 1964 Hawkman received his out bi-monthly title again with Anderson doing the art chores. I'll have to admit I preferred Anderson's Hawkman work at that time to Kubert's.
However over the years I became more and more to appreciate the virtues of Kubert's wonderful storytelling abilities. I even began to like his work on things like Enemy Ace. He was (is) simply a great comic book designer and even his use of blacks and that not so slick line worked very well. He is truly a master of the comic book medium.
In 1977 at the San Diego Comic Convention had the pleasure of sitting at his banquet table and told him that I'd grown to really appreciate his work.
Bill Schelly has written an excellent and thorough summary of Kubert's life. He starts his story with Kubert's grandparents in Poland setting the stage for Kubert's parents emigrating to America in 1925 shortly after Joe was born. Schelly skillfully weaves the tapestry of Kubert's life with anecdotes, comic book history, his family context and how Kubert approaches his craft. How do you critique a living legend's work. Schelly does a commendable job in describing and analyzing Kubert's growth as a artist. Kubert wasn't always the flawless visual storyteller. Kubert grew and improved in his craft from the very start in 1938 as a 11 1/2 year old boy visited Harry "A" Chesler's comic book production shop and began asking the artists a lot of questions and actually doing some work. Schelly follows Kubert's career trajectory through the 1940s with his work on Hawkman to the 1950s with his friendship/partnership with Three Stooges manager Norman Maurer and his part in launching 3D comics and his caveman strip Tor. The late 1950s saw him returning to National where he teamed up with writer Robert Kanigher to create one of comic's most enduring war heroes, Sgt. Rock. Then came the revival of Hawkman. Why didn't Kubert stay with Hawkman? Mostly Sgt. Rock was a much more popular character and Kubert was needed to chronicle his adventures. Then came the amazing Enemy Ace and in the late 1960s he got his chance with a syndicated newspaper strip called the Tales of the Green Berets. In the early 1970s DC Comics acquired the rights to publish Tarzan and Kubert produced some of his greatest work--a homage to one of his artistic heroes-Hal Foster. After that we discover the circumstances behind founding of the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Arts in New Jersey. In more recent years Kubert has been involved in writing and drawing excellent and well-received autobiographical graphic novels such as Fax from Sarajevo and the alternative reality biography Yossel April 19, 1943.
Bill Schelly has matured as a writer and toward the end of the book renders a profound, sensible and articulate summary to a man who has given much to his family, his profession, his art and society. For anyone interested in comics history or Joe Kubert this book is highly recommended. While this reviewer believes in divine providence I appreciate Joe Kubert's positive estimate of his own life, "I really am the luckiest man on earth."Man of Rock: A Biography of Joe Kubert OverviewJoe Kubert's extraordinary career spans the history of the comic book in America: he began drawing comics in 1938, just as Superman made his debut in Action Comics #1, and continues to be one of the most vital cartoonists working today, writing and drawing both mainstream comic book characters as well as, more recently, graphic novels of his own conception. Kubert made his name working for DC Comics on acclaimed series starring Sgt. Rock of Easy Co., Hawkman, Tarzan, and has worked on many of DC's most commercially successful properties (Superman, Batman, Flash, et al.). Kubert has created comics for virtually every major publisher over an incredible 70 years in the business, including Marvel and EC. He started the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art in the 1980s. In the 1990s, he wrote and drew his own graphic novels, including Fax from Sarajevo, which won the Will Eisner Comics Industry Award for Best Graphic Novel. He was subsequently inducted into both the Harvey Awards' Jack Kirby Hall of Fame and the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame.

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