Loss Of A Comic Book Icon

                                                 Joe Kubert passes away at age 85

Hey Otakus and Geeks Fans, Today we morn the loss of a comic book icon Joe Kubert. Kubert was one of the creators of Sgt. Rock, a World War II Army soldier character that debuted in 1959, as well as the prehistoric Tor, one of the first comics presented in 3-D. He also famously drew Hawkman, starting in the 1940s. Here is a quick history about Mr Kubert:

Kubert was born September 18, 1926 to a Jewish family in a shtetl called Yzeran (Jezierzany), in southeast Poland (now Ukraine). He emigrated 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), urged Kubert to visit the company, where he began an unofficial apprentice and at age 12 "was allowed to ink a rush job, the pencils of Bob Montana's [teen-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".

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 quirkily named Harry "A" Chesler's studio, one of the comic-book packagers that had sprung up in the medium's early days to supply outsourced comics to publishers.

* Joe Kubert history from Wikipedia

Myself and the staff at Otakus and geeks would like to send our condolences to the Kubert Family.

 
                                                          R.I.P Joe Kubert  (1926-2012)