American comic book artist (1926-2012). He was born in a small
town called Yzeran in southeast Poland (now located in Ukraine).
He and his family moved to Brooklyn when he was only two months old.
He started drawing when he was very young and was encouraged by his
parents. He got his first paid job in comics when he was just 11 years
old -- he sometimes remembered that he'd interned at MLJ Studios
(which eventually became Archie Comics), but it's more likely he
worked at Harry Chesler's studio, as MLJ didn't open until Kubert was
13. He attended the High School of Music and Art in Manhattan.
Kubert's first cartooning work as a pro was on a short story called
"Black-Out" in Catman Comics #8 from Holyoke Publishing in 1942. He
also drew "Blue Beetle" for Fox Comics and worked on coloring for
the newspaper comics supplement for Will Eisner's "The Spirit." He
drew his first work for DC Comics in 1943 -- a monumental 50-page
"Seven Soldiers of Victory" story in Leading Comics #8. He also drew
his first Hawkman story in 1945's Flash Comics #62. And he worked
on some stories for Harvey Kurtzman's "Two-Fisted Tales" for EC
Comics.
He became the managing editor of St. John Publications in the '50s,
where he helped produce the first 3-D comics. He also co-created a
caveman character called Tor, which he was soon writing and drawing --
Tor has appeared in comics from Eclipse, Marvel's Epic imprint, and DC.
Kubert really hit his glory days, however, with his work for DC
during the Silver Age. He began freelancing for DC in 1955 on "Our
Army at War" and was soon working exclusively for DC. His work on
Hawkman is considered some of the best ever done for that character. But
he'll probably always be remembered for his tenure on "Our Army at
War" and "GI Combat," which gave the world Sgt. Rock, the Losers,
the Haunted Tank, and Enemy Ace. Kubert's gritty action and hangdog
solders embodied everything that was awesome about good war comics.
Kubert co-created a syndicated comic strip called "
Tales of the Green
Beret" with writer
Robin Moore in the mid-1960s, and he served as the
director of publications for DC from 1967 to 1976, which gave him more
say in what DC would publish -- Kubert helped bring comics about
Tarzan and
Korak to life, and he co-created the superhero
Ragman
with his long-time collaborator
Robert Kanigher.
In the early 1960s, Kubert and his family moved to Dover, New
Jersey, where in 1976, he founded the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and
Graphic Art, which has been renamed in recent years as simply the
Kubert School. The three-year technical school is the only accredited
institution in the country focused entirely on cartooning, sequential
art, and comic illustration. The classes are often taught by well-known
comics pros, but the school has a reputation for being extremely
difficult -- failing a single class means you've failed the entire year,
and the dropout rate is around 30%. Still, the school boasts an
impressive number of alumni who have gone on to do great things in
comics -- some of the graduates include Stephen R. Bissette, Tim
Truman, Rick Veitch, Adam Warren, Karl Kesel, Alex Maleev,
Steve Lieber, Dan Parent, Scott Kolins, Rags Morales, Ed
Piskor, Eric Shanower, Damion Scott, Tom Raney, Pete Abrams,
Robert Campanella -- and Kubert's sons, Adam and Andy
Kubert, who have been very successful as comic artists.
Kubert's more recent work in comics included a nonfiction graphic
novel called "Fax from Sarajevo," released in 1996 and based on faxes
Kubert received from Ervin Rustemagić during the Serbian siege of
Sarajevo; several Sgt. Rock stories, including 2003's Sgt. Rock:
Between Hell and a Hard Place, Sgt. Rock: The Prophecy, and a
serialized story in 2009's "Wednesday Comics"; "Jew Gangster" and
"Yossel: April 19, 1943" (an alternate-universe autobiography
examining how life might have gone for him if the Kubert family hadn't
left Poland before World War II), a pair of pencil-illustrated (no
colors or inks, just Kubert's raw pencil illustrations) graphic novels;
and a stint as staff artist for an American military magazine called
"PS Magazine," which highlights preventative maintenance of
equipment, arms, and vehicles. Kubert was the artist for one of DC's
controversial "Before Watchmen" comics, focusing on Dan Dreiberg, the
Nite Owl.
Kubert died on August 12, 2012. August 12th is going to become one
of the days comics fans dread -- other comics pros who died on that date
were Marvel writer, editor, and executive editor Mark Gruenwald in
1996 and beloved artist Mike Wieringo in 2007.
DC has published other war comics in recent years, but I've never been
able to take any war comic seriously unless Joe Kubert was working the
pencils. Everything anyone else does just looks too glossy and romantic.
I've got no doubt that Kubert considered war something that sometimes
had to be done, but for Sgt. Rock,
Bulldozer,
Ice Cream Soldier,
Wildman,
Little Sure Shot,
Jeb Stuart,
Captain Storm,
Johnny
Cloud,
Gunner,
Sarge,
Hans von Hammer, and the rest, war was a
dirty, dreary, dangerous, and incredibly wearying job, something they'd
be pleased to never do again, if only they had the chance.
Research:
Wikipedia
Wikipedia again
The Kubert School