It’s hard doing stories about William Shakespeare. That was my main thought leaving Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet. When you present one of the greatest writers in the English language you almost set yourself to fail — whatever words you put in his mouth are going to be compared to the words heput in other people’s mouths.
With that being said … Do I need to tell you about Bernard “Bernie” Krigstein? You are reading The Comics Journal, which makes me assume this is as useless a gesture as explaining Napoleon to a French person. In brief: one of the best to ever do it. Comics, I mean. An artist so ahead of the curve most people today are still catching up to his tail lights. In a way it’s even more impressive than Shakespeare, who got to try his hand in both high art (poetry) and popular public art (theatre). Krigstein worked in comics when the field was (at best) a dirty word. And he lent his pencils and brushes to hacks of the lowest orders — editors who didn’t care, writers working to crunch time, inkers who couldn’t keep up with him and an industry that simply didn’t understand how he could even think in terms like “art.”
Talented artists working below-par are a dime-a-dozen in comics (back when a dime was worth something). One need only to leaf through the vast majority of stories illustrated by the likes of Alex Toth or Jack Cole and realize that all the talent in the world wouldn’t help you if the script sucked, the inks sucked, the reproduction sucked etc. there’s only so much an artist could do. Except Krigstein. Oh, there are bad Bernie Krigstein stories, Sturgeon’s Law and all that, but there is no other artist who could elevate a script quite like him. In the hands of B. Krigstein a potentially-mediocre thriller like “Key Chain” becomes an engrossing exercise in growing paranoia, an EC standard of criminals-turn-on-each-other tale can become the masterwork “Catacombs” and something as oddly staged as Four Color #1309 (a story that is impossible to explain without sounding like you are making it up on the spot) becomes an object of true beauty. All of that and “Master Race” too1.
Krigstein was one of a kind. Which means Joe D’Esposito’s new comics biography has its work cut out for it — trying to tell the story of a master of the medium, within the medium he mastered. An unconventional, or a “convention defining” artist deserves something that tries to live up to their standards. The Outsider is a fairly tame work, holding back where its subject struggled to break forward.
It might be unfair to say that Krigstein did more with any six random pages he worked on than the 150-plus pages here, but it is nevertheless true. Told in rigid prose and brush, D’Esposito gives us all the major signposts one would expect — the tough childhood in a poor Jewish family in 20th century New York, the impossible demands of the young comic book industry, the struggles to form a union, the tragedy of dying child, the creation of “Master Race”… everything that you assume would be there is there, and little more or less. This biography fails to surprise, and the information is presented with all the wonder of a well-arranged Wikipedia entry.
Krigstein played with time, stretching and contorting to the need of the story. Witness the carefully constructed opening of “Monotony,” giving us a sense of a crushing daily routine in six panels (the text is basically unnecessary), and contrast it with the fluid, flowing nature of “Pipe Dream.” In The Outsiderthere are very few such touches, everything is straightforward. Near the end of the book there is a scene of people simply talking that tries to enliven a visually dead moment with angle changes and POV shifts. Unlike Wally Wood, struggling against the dictums of scripters who didn’t understand they were working in a visual medium, D’Esposito is illuminating his own script. It was his choice to stretch the scene needlessly, to refuse to cut away. Krigstein bagged for freedom, D’Esposito throws his own away.
When one does see an exception — a page that tries harder to play with the limits of the medium — that exception is sure to be a quote from Krigstein; and that quote is sure to be from “Master Race;” apparently the only worthwhile thing the man ever did in comics. D’Esposito obviously adores his subject, yet gives so little credence to his achievements. The presence of “Master Race” seems to intrude into the text like an alien visitation: An early encounter with an odd-faced man in a bar and a scene in a train station are planted early enough to evoke realization in the reader2, “ahh that is where he got his inspiration.” There is little follow-through to the actual creation of the story (which was originated by Gaines and Feldstein), nor any exploration of Krigstein’s feelings. What does it mean for a Jewish man to make such a work? Did he touch something deep within his soul while making it? According to The Outsider the achievement was more mechanical than emotional.
“Master Race” is part of The Outsiderbecause it needs to be. Just like every other element. None of them are given a proper dramatic heft, the reader is left adrift in a sea of events. D’Esposito has a thesis that’s more interesting than the typical comics biography, trying to paint a broader picture than that of a lone genius. Some of the best scenes in the book are given over to Natalie Krigstein, especially her personal struggles following the birth of their child. There is also an attempt to connect Krigstein with graphic novel pioneer Matt Baker (the scene of the two meeting as children is so fantastic I must believe it is true, no one would make this up), as well as his struggle to form a union that is foiled by a mustache-twirling Robert Kanigher. Each of these moments couldbe compelling, but with the exception of a few moments with Natalie they fail to be. The whole is less than its parts, and it’s not like these parts are that good to begin with.
The Outsideris a decent primer for these who are not familiar with Krigstein (though I find it unlikely that anyone not already invested would seek it out), but D’Esposito does not have the storytelling chops to turn his tale into something greater, nor the research chops to go deeper than the surface. Greg Sadowski’s B. Krigstein(sadly out of print, and even more sadly unlikely to ever see a concluding volume) is still the superior book for these interested in the life and work of Krigstein. The Outsideris obviously a labor of love, but sometimes (oftentimes) love is not enough.
- Not that “Master Race” isn’t as good as everyone says it is – it isthat good and more – but the way it eclipsed all of Krigstein’s other considerable achievement is quite sad. Like thinking of Leonardo De Vinci only in terms of the Mona Lisa.
- I couldn’t help but think of the scene in the biopic Walk the Line in which June Carter tells Johnny Cash “You can’t walk no line” and a minute later the film transitions to him playing that song. Did you get it? Did you?!
