“From Krakow to Krypton: Jews and Comic Books” by Arie Kaplan (225 pages, Jewish Publication Society, $25)
It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s … a book about Jews and comic books! And it is, admittedly, much more exciting than I thought it could be.
While comic books themselves still give me a heart-palpitating rush, I worried that dissecting their creation and connections to Judaism would ruin their simple fun. Luckily, that’s not the case with “From Krakow to Krypton.”
In the comic book world, superheroes created by Jews are everywhere, from Superman to Batman to the X-Men, with many minor and not-so-minor players in between.
In “From Krakow to Krypton,” Mad magazine writer Arie Kaplan has assembled a dream team of Jewish comic book characters, artists and publishers.
Following a foreword in comic form by Harvey Pekar and JT Waldman, the book is fat with quotes from famous comic book artists and writers such as Will Eisner, Stan Lee and Mad magazine’s Al Jaffee.
Kaplan quickly declares that Jews are at the core of the U.S. comic world. Jews created the first U.S. comic book, the first graphic novel, the first comic book convention and the first comic book specialty store, among other notable achievements.
“From Krakow to Krypton” spans from the creation of U.S. comic books in 1933 to the popularity of underground comix in the 1960s to the advent of popular films based on comic book characters.
In between are highlights such as the 1952 creation of Mad by Jewish writers, the 1962 creation of Spider-Man by Stan Lee (born Stanley Lieber), and the 1978 X-Men revelation that Magneto was a Jewish Holocaust survivor. This aspect of the book is neatly organized into the Golden, Silver and Bronze Ages of comic book history.
The book is a fun and surprisingly thought provoking read. Along with the history of comic books, there are plenty of asides, factoids and colorful graphic images.
Kaplan doesn’t just focus on these comic creators having been Jewish. He delves into their Judaism, their careers and how their background affected their alternate realities.
Kaplan describes Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster’s humble beginnings and feelings of inadequacy, which led them to create a man of undeniable strength — a super man, if you will.
An early version of the Man of Steel was more interested in fighting social injustices than strange, unearthly figures. He fought abusers and crooked government officials in an effort to preserve the goodness of the human race.
“It’s not too far of a stretch to surmise that Siegel and Shuster’s obsession with social justice came from their Jewish background,” Kaplan writes.
“Jewish ethics largely revolve around the concept of tikkun olam, or healing the world, and though this isn’t an exclusively Jewish ideal, a strong concern for social ills is found in the work of many Jewish writers, artists and performers.”
The book also discusses why the world of comic books was so enticing to young Jewish writers and artists.
“I think the factor that brought all the Jewish guys into [comic books] is that there was a tremendous amount of anti-Semitic bigotry as far as a lot of [other] industries were concerned,” Mad’s Jaffee writes in the book. “We couldn’t get into newspaper strips or advertising.”
Kaplan excels at setting the early comic book scene — the dank Brooklyn walk-up buzzing with creative, Jewish up-and-comers, creating a new type of entertainment.
It is an exciting world, despite the obvious anti-Semitism that forced many of the originators to conceal their backgrounds and secularize their names.
In the comic world, Jews could vent their frustrations about anti-Semitism. Early comics were a subtle (and not-so-subtle) way of fighting injustices.
The Holocaust, for example, was the subject of several vengeance storylines, such as the first issue of Captain America (created by Jewish cartoonists Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, born Jacob Kurtzberg), which showed the spangle-suited hero punching Hitler in the face.
Though the comic world has come a long way in acceptance of minorities, Jews still occasionally hide under pseudonyms and behind their superheroes.
Kaplan comes back to this point toward the end of the book when he discusses the 2004 comic book “The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist.”
“In the story we see the Escapist’s Captain America-esque origin,” Kaplan notes, “and all the Jewish metaphors contained therein: the themes of escaping from bondage; the ultra-WASPy hero created by a Jew; the hero who wears a mask to hide his true self.”
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