Krigstein" (Fantagraphics $49.95), as are a few other key stories and some sample pages, but the entire project is as quixotic as the career it describes. What reputation he has rests on a handful of short stories he illustrated in 19 for EC comics (the folks who brought you Tales from the Crypt and Mad), but one of those stories, "Master Race," was an accomplishment of the highest order-a masterpiece.Īll eight pages of "Master Race" are exquisitely reproduced in Greg Sadowski's new coffee-table biography, "B. He wasn't beloved by publishers, editors, or readers. Krigstein was never associated with a specific character (the most sure ticket to comics success), and he never wrote his own stories (a handicap in a narrative medium). Barely an eyebrow now raises when cartoonists receive serious academic and critical attention, museum exhibitions, MacArthur grants, and Guggenheim fellowships.Īnyone interested in crossing the ever-narrowing divide between High and Low culture ought to contemplate the work and troubled career of Bernard Krigstein (1919-90), a postwar comic-book illustrator who had the privilege and the misfortune of being an Artist with a capital "A" working in an Art Form that considered itself only a Business.
(Oct.The current "Spider-Man" movie will sell more Spider-Man toothbrushes, action figures, and frosted Spidey-berry-filled Pop-Tarts in its wake than actual Spider-man comic books: comics are simply not the popular form of popular culture that they were in their mid-twentieth-century heyday, though what the bastard form has lost in popularity it has been gaining in legitimacy. That the vocabulary and the matchup of dialogue balloons to the action are geared to beginning readers is icing on the cake. As with the other books from this publisher, the design is sophisticated, making elegant use of panels, an easy-to-handle small format and subtle, low-contrast hues. This book choreographs jokes with an exquisite understanding of climax and denouement. With Jack's parents out of the room, the toy performs Cat-in-the-Hat/Marx Brothers–like slapstick tricks timed to perfection. This jack-in-the-box can talk, and its appearance registers somewhere between goofy and clownlike sinister (see its crocodilian upper teeth) its features gain extra oomph by virtue of being the only ones in a spread to receive high-contrast color treatment. Sticking to his well-developed aesthetic, Spiegelman introduces a bunny hero, Jack, who receives a jack-in-the-box. A skeptic might not think that the Pulitzer Prize winner who made a graphic novel about Auschwitz could also write and draw for the not-quite-literate set-but rest assured, this comic gem of a picture book demonstrates Spiegelman's ability to conquer his audience, no matter its constituents.
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