Bernard Krigstein: The Most Influential Comic Book Artist 

never heard of krigstein is like never heard of starlin or adams or steranko to an old collector

This was thoroughly fascinating. Thank you.

@specialk2670 and @Rob S. My apologies, kick a guy while he’s down. I have heard of everyone of those guys, except I honestly had never heard of Krigstein, now that I have, I understand that it’s been my loss. I started collecting comics in the early 80’s as a kid, by now I thought I had heard of everybody. Chris always does this though, it’s why I look forward to his shows. I share them with my boys too, so hopefully they won’t be as ignorant as their dad’s been.

Thanks for that. This is exactly why I subscribe to this channel. And since I am not buying my usual monthly stack, this will be the substitute. How do you contribute. Good luck during the furlough.

Don't mind the snobs, a lot of us bought comics in our day and never turned it into an obsession. It's called enjoying being a kid. I grew up during the 90's boom, tried the whole "collect to collect" phase, and just found it wasn't for me. Way too expensive for a kid with 10 dollars in his pocket and no regular source of income. And then I found other interests, yet still love that time reading Superman, Transformers, and Archie. Yes, I said read, not collect. Read, dogears and all.

Yeah, he doesn't just talk about Superhero comics, which outside of this, Strip Panel Naked, and For the Love of Comics is incredibly rare.

Not my like

Do It Again Бall Бuster Кrigstein!! #MazelTovarishch

I noticed that too!! Was thinking of the cabinet of dr caligari....

​@@bloke1348I would _love_ a modern version of Dr. Caligari but they'd screw it up.

true

Same

Same

Ditto

I've watched pretty much every one of his Comic Tropes videos. I think the only one I had a hard time watching was the TMNT Christmas Special, but that was due to the audio problems in the video which I found to be distracting.

Do It Again Бomбer Harris!! #MazelTovarishch

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Seconded. Highly influential illustrator as well.

Hal Foster, Alex Raymond, Burne Hogarth, Milton Caniff...

the-wanderling.com/flying_machine.html

Alejandro Tejada Thank you. ☺️

Do It Again Бomбer Harris!! #MazelTovarishch

Yes! My parents got me that for Christmas when I was a kid and Krigstein's story Master Race was a standout among standouts. Brilliant artist.

He did that more than once 😂!

I'm reading it as two different hands. I think that the fingers are from his left hand and the thumb is from his right hand. It is awkward looking but the arms line up with how I'm seeing it.

Came here for this comment

Though not as influential as he SHOULD have been, his drawing techniques were out of this world. Using razors for the inking process is both crazy and genius.

Hell yeah! Alvar Mayor is the shit!

Any stories you can share? Was he as strict and humorless as the anecdotes suggest?

@@reprintranch Thanks for your question Tom. 1975 was so long ago, that I'm afraid what little recollection I have will not be an adequate reply to your question. While my memories of Krigstein's interactions with us was far from being "strict," he was a pretty serious, get-down-to-business sort of teacher. I have no vivid memories of him joking or being in any way "light-hearted" with the students as I recall other teachers were at Art & Design. I do remember though, as we all worked on our oil paintings, Krigstein himself was painting this gorgeous scene of the city of Jerusalem during class. The palate was amazing as the city was cast in either a sunrise or sunset setting. I don't know where the painting wound up, whether in a gallery, museum, private collection, or it's hanging on the wall of a family member, but I think we were all mesmerized watching him work on it in class whenever he took a break from correcting the dabs of paint we had on our canvasses wishing it were actually art. Thanks again!

@@donaldsanchez7099 Wow! Thanks so much for the detailed reply. You're the first person I've corresponded with who actually knew Mr. Krigstein personally. I'm fascinated by the fact that Mr. Krigstein was painting a scene of Jerusalem. As you may know, he illustrated quite a few books concerning Jewish history and folklore in the late 1950s and early '60s, and I assume that his own Jewish faith was a motivating factor in taking these assignments, as opposed to others.

@@reprintranch You're quite welcome Tom!

@@donaldsanchez7099 Mr. Sanchez, if I could trouble you to address one other topic -- as I understand it, Paul Cezanne was a big influence on Mr. Krigstein, probably more so than any other painter. I'm interested to know your perspective on this idea -- for example, was Cezanne a frequent topic of discussion in classes? Were there any characteristics of Cezanne's work, or any specific Cezanne paintings that seemed especially important to Mr. Krigstein? Were there other painters he discussed often, or seemed to hold in high regard? I'm a complete neophyte to painting, but realized I need to start learning a bit about it, so that I can get a better grasp of Mr. Krigstein's overall art background, and the things that may have informed his comics work. One obvious thing for me to look at, once I understand things better, is whether the coloring of any Krigstein EC stories might arguably have been informed by painters, notably Cezanne. At EC, Mr. Krigstein did his own coloring most of the time, according to EC staff colorist Marie Severin. (Which reminds me -- a more basic task I need to tackle is trying to find distinctions between the way Marie Severin colored EC stories and the coloring in the Krigstein EC stories.)