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 Andy's daughter Emma Kubert and many of Kubert's former students, including Stephen R. Bissette, Amanda Conner, Rick Veitch, Eric Shanower, Steve Lieber, and Scott Kolins. Kubert's other granddaughter, Katie Kubert, became an editor for both DC and Marvel Comics.
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), urged Kubert to visit the company, where he began an unofficial apprenticeship 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".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. Throughout the decade, Kubert's art would appear in comics from Fiction House, Avon, and Harvey Comics, but he worked primarily 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 one-shot publication The Big All-American Comic Book (1944).: "Artist Joe Kubert began his most memorable work on the gravity-defying superhero Hawkman in this issue...'The Painter and the $100,000' written by Gardner Fox marked the start of a long and fruitful run between illustrator and character." Kubert continued to draw Hawkman stories as a back-up feature in Flash 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.: "In Robert Kanigher's story, featuring art by Irwin Hasen and Joe Kubert, a cabal of villains united as the Injustice Society of the World and took revenge on the JSA's assembled do-gooders." The Kanigher/Kubert team created the Thorn in Flash Comics #89 (Nov. 1947).: "Writer Robert Kanigher and artist Joe Kubert presented a female twist on Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with the Thorn."
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).: "Together Schwartz, Kanigher, Infantino, and Kubert would set a tone for the Flash that was both cinematic... and influenced by Schwartz's first love of science fiction." 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.: "The arrival of the second incarnation of the Flash in [Showcase] issue #4 is considered to be the official start of the Silver Age of comics." 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.: "DC's... renaissance soared to new heights with the return of Hawkman and Hawkgirl. Writer Gardner Fox and artist Joe Kubert... ushered in a pair of Winged Wonders that, costumes aside, were radically different from their Golden Age predecessors.": "Hawkman took a little longer to get off the ground. He showed up initially in The Brave and the Bold #34 (February/March 1961), but had to wait three years for Hawkman #1 (April–May 1964)." Kubert's work on Hawkman and Sgt. Rock would become known as his signature efforts. Kubert's main collaborator on the war comics was writer/editor Kanigher.: "With the cancellation of EC's legendary war titles in the wake of the Comics Code, DC's war comics were the finest being published in the second half of the decade. And this was largely attributable to their editor and chief writer, Robert Kanigher." Their work together on Sgt. Rock is considered a memorable contribution to the comics medium.: "The most famous Kanigher-Kubert collaboration involved Sgt. Rock, who has gone on to become a part of our collective mythology as the archetype of the gruff, cynical, good-hearted noncommissioned officer." They introduced Enemy Ace in Our Army at War #151 (Feb. 1965).: "This landmark issue...presented a very different look at war through the eyes of Enemy Ace Rittmeister Hans von Hammer. Writer/editor Robert Kanigher and artist Joe Kubert based von Hammer on German WWI pilot Manfred von Richthofen a.k.a. the "Red Baron"."
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): "This war anthology series found its most recognizable face when Joe Kubert wrote, drew, and edited the first of a slew of... Unknown Soldier [stories]." and initiated titles based on such Edgar Rice Burroughs properties as Tarzan: "Tarzan enjoyed a prolific period in comics when DC acquired the rights to novelist Edgar Rice Burroughs' iconic ape-man. Much of that success should be attributed to writer, artist, and editor Joe Kubert, a lifelong Tarzan fan whose gritty, expressive style was perfect for the jungle hero." 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 edited a number of comic books for DC, including taking over as editor of Sgt. Rock and other military titles and editing Tarzan and other books based on Burroughs' characters. While performing supervisory duties he continued to draw for some books, notably Tarzan from 1972 to 1975 and drew covers and layouts 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. Kubert and Kanigher created Ragman in the first issue (Aug.–Sept. 1976) of that character's short-lived ongoing series.: "Writer Robert Kanigher's origin of the frayed hero was pieced together into moody, coarse segments by Joe Kubert and Nestor, Frank, and Quico Redondo."
The Kubert School The Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art was founded in September 1976 by Kubert and his wife Muriel in Dover, New Jersey's old Baker mansion on 45 Lehigh Street; then, from 1984, in the former Dover high school, whose tall windows offered optimal lighting. Its first graduating class of 1978 included Stephen R. Bissette, Thomas Yeates, and Rick Veitch. Kubert taught a number of students who later became notable professionals, including Amanda Conner, Eric Shanower, Steve Lieber, and Scott Kolins.
In addition to The Kubert School, in the late 1990s, Kubert was offering "Joe Kubert's World of Cartooning" correspondence courses to prospective students.
Later career