[Note: The interview was conducted before the death on July 8th of Muriel Kubert, Joe Kubert's wife and partner of 57 years.]
Though he'll turn 82 later this year, Joe Kubert maintains the schedule of a hungry, young artist. As many as seven days a week, Kubert will go to his School of Cartoon and Graphic Art in New Jersey to either teach a class or work on an overflowing slate of projects.
Talking over the phone from the school recently, Kubert even sounded much younger, his gravelly voice slipping easily into laughter. Which he promptly did after exclaiming, "Thank God, I'm busy as hell."
Kubert, who started drawing comics in the late 1930s when he was just into his teens, has recently finished a revival of his classic series Tor, with the first few issues currently on shelves. He's also creating a six-issue anthology series for DC, a second book in the planned Jew Gangster trilogy and a fact-based graphic novel on an early Vietnam battle.
"I'm fortunate in this stage of the game to pretty much be able to call my shots," Kubert said. "It's funny, [DC publisher and president] Paul [Levitz] at one time was my assistant when I was editor. Having him now as factotum of the whole place works out really nice. The relationship has been a great one.
"I have free reign. In fact, nobody sees the work until I'm ready to have it published."
With Tor, Kubert said he had wanted to revisit the character almost since his last appearance in 1959. Back then, the prehistoric character was more fun and frivolous than anything, Kubert said. "Being comparatively as young as I was, I treated it I thought in a kind of comic book manner. My approach this time was to inject in it a little more depth. A sense of perhaps credibility in the character himself. I hope I'm able to hone the writing down to where it's a little bit effective."
The main project taking up Kubert's time now is a fictional retelling of the battle of Dong Xoai in June 1965, as the Viet Cong guerrillas launched their first large-scale attack against South Vietnamese forces. A group of U.S. special forces soldiers had been training the South Vietnamese army ¾ this was before the United States officially entered the conflict ¾ and they were caught in the firefight, with 35 U.S. soldiers being killed in the Viet Cong's rout.
Kubert started on the project late last year after a chance encounter with a former Army corporal who served as a captain at Dong Xoai. They talked at length about the battle, and it piqued the interest of Kubert, who gained much of his recognition through his famed Sgt. Rock war comics.
"It's something that I put everything aside for, because the story hit me really hard," Kubert said. "The connection that hit me about the story was not the battle, but how 12 men who had served together ¾ and in fact the survivors are still connected. It was a band of guys who were involved at the very beginning who depended so much on one another. It's like Band of Brothers."
DC will publish the graphic novel, which is tentatively titled Dong Xoai 1965, and is planned at about 225 pages. Kubert hopes to complete it around the end of the year. He's relying heavily on writings, photographs and other historic materials supplied by the former corporal to make the story as accurate as possible. "It's very important in doing a story like this that the side arms, the lay outs, everything has to be right," he said.
And after that on Kubert's schedule is an all-ages anthology series for DC that grew out of his dislike for the harsh elements of many contemporary comics. "A lot of the comic books I've seen, what's happened in the industry is the subject matter has gravitated to a more specific and older reader," he said. "I don't think you have to write down or draw down [to the audience], but the subject matter could be done so it could touch any number of levels. I don't think that's happening today."
The anthology series, which will be finished in about a year, will be 40-page issues and will feature Hawkman and Enemy Ace stories from Kubert, as well as stories from his sons, Andy and Adam. On the spot, he also mused that he'd like to try his hand at a Western, and he wants to keep learning more about computer coloring.
While Kubert doesn't act his age, he has no problem recognizing the nearly seven decades he's put into comics. "I'm convinced any achievement or success depends in part on longevity. So I have no problem with that," he said.
