Drawing on the Jewish experience

by Ron Kaplan
NJJN Staff Writer

After an absence of more than 20 years, Sgt. Rock and the men of Easy Company are back. Their new assignment: Parachute into World War II Poland and bring back — at all costs — a special package — human cargo in the person of a young rabbi.

The story line of The Prophecy, a six-part series from DC Comics, is the product of cartoonist Joe Kubert, whose body of work includes such characters as Superman, Batman, Tarzan, Enemy Ace, and his most familiar figure, Sgt. Rock. (Rock, a hero in the John Wayne mold who made his debut during the Korean War, was actually created by Bob Kanagher, one of Kubert’s mentors.)

“Anyone who’s trying to write is affected by those things that they read, those things that they learn about,” said Kubert, explaining how his latest project evolved.

“I had read a book about Rabbi [Menachem] Schneerson” — Rescue from the Reich: How One of Hitler’s Solders Saved the Lubavitcher Rebbe — “who was ferried out of Europe in 1939. He had recognized all the things that were going on and wanted to speak to the world and the Jewish people and let them know what the hell was going on. And so the Americans — and even some Germans at that point — were leaning toward getting this guy out…. I felt that might be a good story.”

Kubert changed the older, established rabbi into a “young kid who is perhaps a little bit obnoxious, a little stiff-backed.” He laughed at the suggestion that his series could be subtitled Saving Rabbi Ryan.

Based on his long service with DC Comics, he was granted carte blanche to handle the project any way he wanted. This time, he decided, he would do it all himself.

“In today’s market, yes, it is unusual to write and draw. Not so much difficult, but time-consuming…. But at this stage of the game, my own feeling is — and it’s really rather strong, for good or for bad — I want the results of my efforts to be mine, all of it. And, thank God, I’m in a position where I’m able to do that. It’s not a common position, and I’m fully aware of that, and I count my blessings every day — with my children, with my family — and here I’m able to do all those things that I want to do at a rate I want to them, the way I want to do them.”

The first installment of The Prophecy was released in mid-January; the rest of the series will hit the comic book stores once a month. All six parts will be combined at a future date into a hard-cover edition.

Old school, new school

The parking lot outside the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art is testimony to his renown. There are license plates from at least 10 states beside New Jersey, including California, Wyoming, Arizona, Texas, Indiana, Illinois, Oklahoma, and Michigan. And that doesn’t take into account students from overseas who have come to study at the school, located in Dover.

“I didn’t open the school in lieu of a career,” said the artist. “When I started out, the only way you could [learn] was from the guys who were already in the business. I always had in mind, wouldn’t it be great if there was one place that somebody who had the feeling they wanted to be a cartoonist could come to learn all the things they have to learn?”

So in 1976, Kubert, who has lived in Dover for more than 40 years, bought a 23-room mansion five minutes from his home; the first class consisted of fewer than 25 students.

Increased interest over the next decade required increased space. Fortunately, Kubert didn’t have to look far for a new facility. About 20 years ago, the Dover High School building was on the market. “My kids went here,” he said, “but there weren’t enough young people to keep the school going so they were looking to get rid of it.” Now it serves as a home base for about 140 cartoonists-in-training, Kubert said, seated in a spacious conference room that serves as his office/studio.

Two of his kids — Andy and Adam — followed in their father’s footsteps.

“I’m very proud of them, kinahore,” he said. His wife, Muriel, a graduate of Rider College, handles the school’s administrative duties from their home. “She oversees everything that goes on here, including me.” The couple has three other children: Lisa, a stay-at-home mom; Danny, a dealer in antique toys; and David, vice president of the Electrical Union of the State of New Jersey. All together Joe and Muriel have 11 grandchildren.

Kubert, his parents Jacob and Ettie, and an older sister came to America from their native Poland in 1926, two months after his birth. Unlike many immigrant parents of the time, for whom hard work and education were priorities for their children, Jacob Kubert was happy to encourage a budding artist.

“People of that time wanted to make sure that their kids were learning to do something where they could make a living. Now, who could make a living drawing these little crazy pictures? He saw how much I loved this, and he encouraged me all the time, never dreaming that I’d be able to make a living doing this.”

Joe Kubert is similarly proud of his accomplishments in the field of education.

“The fact that [Adam and Andy] have gotten into it is nothing short of a miracle to me. That they love what they’re doing as much as I love what I do is even more of a miracle.” Both sons teach at his school, which, he said, “is like having the cherry on top of the whipped cream. I couldn’t ask for more.”

Kubert, 79, embraces the new technologies of his industry. “I think the changes are very positive if they’re taken advantage of in the right way. You’ve got to start out with the basics to begin with. All the machinery, all the equipment, all those extra things are just tools. But if you don’t know the basics — anatomy, composition, story telling, all those things that are necessary to know — then the tools themselves don’t do the job. It’s the person who’s holding them that does the job.”

His school offers a rigorous program. “We probably turn away more than we accept,” he said. “Motivation is about 90 percent of what it takes to make it. And that’s not unlike any other profession. You want to be a dancer, a musician, an artist, you’ve got to work at it. Not because anyone’s pushing you, but because you want to do it. Where that motivation comes from I have no idea.” According to Kubert, 90 percent of the school’s graduates have found work in the field.

Working in relative solitude versus providing an education and a future livelihood for hundreds of students? “It’s been a lot more than I expected. I never thought I would take personally some of the travails that some of [them] have to go through, how they’ve sacrificed to be able to come here. I never thought I’d feel so good at the successes they’ve made.”

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