Joe Kubert

Joseph Kubert (; September 18, 1926 – August 12, 2012) was a Polish-born American comic book artist, art teacher, and founder of The Kubert School. He is best known for his work on the DC Comics characters Sgt. Rock and Hawkman. He is also known for working on his own creations, such as Tor, Son of Sinbad, and the Viking Prince, and, with writer Robin Moore, the comic strip ''Tales of the Green Beret''. Two of Kubert's sons, Andy Kubert and Adam Kubert, themselves became recognized comic book artists, as did many of Kubert's former students, including Stephen R. Bissette, Amanda Conner, Rick Veitch, Eric Shanower, Steve Lieber, and Scott Kolins.

Kubert was inducted into the Harvey Awards' Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1997, and the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1998.

Early life

Kubert was born September 18, 1926 to a Jewish family in Jezierzany in southeast Poland (now Ozeriany in Ukraine). He was the son of Etta (née Reisenberg) and Jacob Kubert. He immigrated to Brooklyn, New York City, United States, at age two months with his parents and his two-and-a-half-year-old sister Ida. Raised in the East New York neighborhood, the son of a kosher butcher, Kubert started drawing at an early age, encouraged by his parents.

In his introduction to his graphic novel '' Yossel'', Kubert wrote, "I got my first paying job as a cartoonist for comic books when I was eleven-and-a-half or twelve years old. Five dollars a page. In 1938, that was a lot of money". Another source, utilizing quotes from Kubert, says in 1938, a school friend who was related to Louis Silberkleit, a principal of MLJ Studios (the future Archie Comics's een-humor feature'' Archie''". Author David Hajdu, who interviewed Kubert and other comics professionals for a 2008 book, reported, however, that, "Kubert has told varying versions of the story of his introduction to the comics business at age ten, sometimes setting it at the comics shop run by Harry "A" Chesler, sometimes at MLJ; however, MLJ did not start operation until 1939, when Kubert was thirteen".Hajdu, David. ''The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How it Changed America'', page 357. New York, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008. ; .

Kubert attended Manhattan's High School of Music and Art. During this time he and classmate Norman Maurer, a future collaborator, would sometimes skip school in order to see publishers. Kubert began honing his craft at the Chesler studio, one of the comic-book packagers that had sprung up in the medium's early days to supply outsourced comics to publishers.

Career

Early career

Kubert's first known professional job was penciling and inking the six-page story "Black-Out", starring the character Volton, in Holyoke Publishing's '' Catman Comics'' #8 (March 1942; also listed as vol. 2, #13). He would continue drawing the feature for the next three issues, and was soon doing similar work for Fox Comics' ''Blue Beetle''. Branching into additional art skills, he began coloring the Quality Comics reprints of future industry legend Will Eisner's ''The Spirit'', a seven-page comics feature that originally ran as part of a newspaper Sunday supplement.

1940s and 1950s

Kubert's first work for DC Comics, where he would spend much of his career and produce some of his most notable art, was penciling and inking the 50-page "Seven Soldiers of Victory" superhero-team story in ''Leading Comics'' #8 (Fall 1943), published by a DC predecessor company, All-American Publications. Throughout the decade, Kubert's art would appear in comics from Fiction House, Avon, and Harvey Comics, but he otherwise worked exclusively for All-American and DC. Kubert's long association with the Hawkman character began with the story "A Hot Time in the Old Town" in ''The Big All-American Comic Book'' (1944). Kubert drew several Hawkman stories in that title as well as in ''All Star Comics''. He and Irwin Hasen drew the debut of the Injustice Society in ''All Star Comics'' #37 (Oct. 1947) in a tale written by Robert Kanigher. The Kanigher/Kubert team created the Thorn in ''Flash Comics'' #89 (Nov. 1947).

In the 1950s, he became managing editor of St. John Publications, where he, his old classmate Norman Maurer, and Norman's brother Leonard Maurer produced the first 3-D comic books, starting with ''Three Dimension Comics'' #1 (Sept. 1953 oversize format, Oct. 1953 standard-size reprint), featuring Mighty Mouse. According to Kubert, it sold a remarkable 1.2 million copies at 25 cents apiece at a time when comics cost a dime.

At St. John, writer Norman Maurer and artist Kubert created the enduring character Tor, a prehistoric-human protagonist who debuted in the comic ''1,000,000 Years Ago'' (Sept. 1953). Tor immediately went on to star in ''3-D Comics'' #2-3 (Oct.-Nov. 1953), followed by a titular, traditionally 2-D comic-book series, written and drawn by Joe Kubert, that premiered with issue #3 (May 1954). The character has since appeared in series from Eclipse Comics, Marvel Comics' Epic imprint, and DC Comics through at least the 1990s. Kubert in the late 1950s unsuccessfully attempted to sell ''Tor'' as a newspaper comic strip. The ''Tor'' samples consisted of 12 daily strips, reprinted in six pages in ''Alter Ego'' vol. 3 #10 and later expanded to 16 pages in DC Comics' ''Tor'' #1. He contributed work to Avon Periodicals, where he did science-fiction stories for '' Strange Worlds'' and other titles.

For EC Comics, Kubert drew a few stories for Harvey Kurtzman's ''Two-Fisted Tales'' alongside EC stalwarts Wally Wood, Jack Davis, and John Severin.

DC Comics and Sgt. Rock

Beginning with ''Our Army at War'' #32 (March 1955), Kubert began to freelance again for DC Comics, in addition to Lev Gleason Publications and Atlas Comics, the 1950s iteration of Marvel Comics. By the end of the year he was drawing for DC exclusively. DC editor Julius Schwartz assigned Kubert, Robert Kanigher, and Carmine Infantino to the company's first attempt at reviving superheroes: an updated version of the Flash that would appear in ''Showcase'' #4 (Oct. 1956). The eventual success of the new, science-fiction oriented Flash heralded the wholesale return of superheroes, and the beginning of what fans and historians call the Silver Age of Comic Books. In the coming years, Kubert would work on such characters as the medieval adventurer the Viking Prince and features starring Sgt. Rock and The Haunted Tank in the war comic ''G.I. Combat''. He and writer Gardner Fox created a new version of Hawkman in ''The Brave and the Bold'' #34 (Feb.–March 1961) with the character receiving his own title three years later. Kubert's work on Hawkman and in ''G.I. Combat'' would become known as his signature efforts. Kubert's main collaborator on the war comics was writer/editor Kanigher. Their work together on Sgt. Rock is considered a memorable contribution to the comics medium. They introduced Enemy Ace in ''Our Army at War'' #151 (Feb. 1965).

From 1965 through 1967 he collaborated with author Robin Moore on the syndicated daily comic strip ''Tales of the Green Beret'' for the ''Chicago Tribune''.

Kubert served as DC Comics' director of publications from 1967 to 1976. He made the Unknown Soldier the lead feature of '' Star Spangled War Stories'' with issue #151 (June–July 1970) and initiated titles based on such Edgar Rice Burroughs properties as ''Tarzan'' and '' Korak''. Comics historian Les Daniels noted that Kubert's "scripts and artwork ranked among the most authentic and effective ever seen." DC Comics writer and executive Paul Levitz stated in 2010 that "Joe Kubert produced an adaptation that Burroughs aficionados could respect." Kubert supervised the production of the comic books ''Sgt. Rock'' and '' Weird Worlds''. While performing supervisory duties he continued to draw for some books, notably ''Tarzan'' from 1972 to 1975 and drew covers for '' Rima the Jungle Girl'' from 1974 to 1975. He edited ''Limited Collectors' Edition'' #C–36 which features stories from the Book of Genesis adapted by writer Sheldon Mayer and artist Nestor Redondo