Editor’s Note: Legendary comic book creator Stan Lee, who passed away this week, took a strong interest in the Holocaust in recent years. His final published essay appeared as the introduction to the recent book “We Spoke Out: Comic Books and the Holocaust,” by Neal Adams, Rafael Medoff, and Craig Yoe (IDW/Yoe Books, 2018). “We…
Dark times call for a great hero, and Gotham might just get one. We need her but have done nothing to deserve her: a Jewish, female, queer, justice-loving, semi-nocturnal vigilante with strong ties to bats. The CW has announced that it is working on a “Batwoman” TV show for its 2019 season, created by the…
I don’t know much about superhero movies, but I do know that if the brilliant director Ava DuVernay is going to direct a DC movie based on comics by Jack Kirby, the Jewish artist who created Captain America, that means we’re all going to see a superhero movie. Fresh off directing the major undertaking “A…
(JTA) — DC Comics’ newest writer says that the choices he has made for his new Superman series are “deeply connected to [the character’s] origins.” And those origins are very Jewish. Brian Michael Bendis, who recently jumped ship from Marvel to DC Comics, will start drawing new comic books with the iconic superhero in May….
A pioneer in 1970s underground comics, Trina Robbins has become a revered writer and “herstorian.” But her own history, as the child of Yiddish-speaking immigrants, eluded her. “I divorced myself from Jewish part of my parents,” she tells the Forward. “I was unappreciative of it – a dreadful daughter.” Her latest project changes that –…
Not everybody reads The New Yorker, but the magazine’s distinctive comic style is widely known and emulated. Bob Mankoff is largely to thank for that. Mankoff, who served as the magazine’s comic editor for 20 years, will depart his post this Sunday. During his tenure, The New Yorker cultivated a comic style marked by a…
Gary Cherkassky’s grandmother, who is 80 years old, isn’t on Facebook or Instagram. She doesn’t even have a smartphone. But if you are a Russian Jew, chances are you’ve probably heard what she has to say somewhere on the internet. That’s because she is the inspiration behind Baba Fira (“baba” is short for babushka, which…
You might not remember where you were when you first saw a panel from Art Spiegelman’s “Maus,” but you probably do remember how you felt: shocked. Jews as mice, Nazis as cats, the Holocaust presented in the form of classic cartoon enmity. What could be stranger, more unsettling? Here’s what: discovering that the first artist…
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