Customer Reviews

Yossel April 19, 1943

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Joe Kubert has created war stories for DC comics. His stories echo the echo of the human spirit. In Yossel, his storytelling is an a high arc

This case study of the effects of war is done in pencils. It is war storytelling with a heart.


It would seem this graphic novel was Kubert's sketches and rough drafts. However, as he explains "This book is pencil rendering, rather than inked drawings". This is Kurbert, the artist and storyteller at work..This is his Maus (see the review).., It has power from his pencil drawing. I would stack this against any other war graphic novel from the Nam, Kubert's Sgt, Rock: Between A Rock and a Hard Place (see the review) to Maus as this is one of the best War fiction books

With such power, you would be foolish not to read this and see for yourself

Bennet Pomerantz AUDIOWORLD

Basically, Joe Kubert, the author and artist of this graphic, is doing a "what-if" story based on if his family did not make it to America when they originally left Poland. It works well as a historical peice because all of the things that happen in the story are based on interpretations of what COULD have happened to a young man in the Warsaw Ghetto. Additionally, the author makes the story very believable because Kubert looks at it from a VERY personal perspective in that it's a first person narrative. The graphics in this book are absolutely beautiful in their rough form. The pictures are reproduced to appear as pencil drawings, and the unfinished look and rough style of 50+ year comic veteran, Kubert, do nothing but enhance this already impressive story. His sketches are amazing. They're rough, but very detailed. They have such a human characteristic in their rendering, in that they're very detailed but also very 'flawed.' It makes them perfect for the story. They reflect the narrator's emotions and feelings throughout the story and also manage to change as the story goes on, as the narrator's views and beliefs change throughout the story.

This is basically what a graphic novel is SUPPOSED to be. A great story told through both pictures and words. It's also a heart-wrenching view into a very sad time and place in our history. Normally, I'd say that being a comic book fan would create a bias towards a graphic novel. This is not your average comic book/graphic novel. This is an amazing tale of heroism and sadness told through words and images. If you care at all about good, heartfelt storytelling, then you should purchase this Graphic Novel. It will not disappoint...

Yossel is a young Jewish artist living a decent life in Poland with his family, until a horrendous event will forever change his life. This incredible book follows the story of an innocent Jews trying to survive the horrors of the Holocaust; from the terrible conditions of the Warsaw Ghetto to the inhumane and atrocious environment of the work camps.

The story is narrated by Yossel, and the captions are very moving; but the phenomenal illustrations is where the story really shines. Kubert opted to use only pencils to tell this story and the result is magnificent. The rough sketches help to establish a dour, dark tone and really add to the level of realism.

"Yossel" is highly recomended for people with an interest in WWII or the Holocaust, fans of movies such as "The Pianist", or anyone looking for a powerful, moving work of art.

The themes of time and place are everywhere in this graphic novel. The author, Joe Kubert, a successful comic book artist, imagines what his life would have been like had his Jewish family not left Poland in 1926. Instead of growing up in the relative safety of the United States, drawing his favorite super heroes, Kubert's alter-ego Yossel sketches horrifying scenes from the Warsaw Ghetto. His parents and sister have been deported to a concentration camp, but his artistic skills impress the Nazis enough to temporarily save him from the same fate. When his former rabbi appears and tells what is really happening in the camps, Yossel and a ragged band of survivors turn on the Nazis and launch the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Yossel's sketches are made in the depth of the sewers, to which the ill-fated group has retreated to fight their last battle. Although Yossel is fictional, the leader of uprising is based on a real person. There are many novels for young adults about World War II, but this one is unforgettable, capturing through simple text and stark black and white drawings the despair of one teenage boy, who against insurmountable odds fights for survival in the Warsaw Ghetto. The book was written in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto and should be on every list of Holocaust literature.

I had high hopes for this book: a well known artist turns his attention to the tragic events of the Holocaust. There are some fine moments in the artist's portrayal of the Warsaw ghetto in his persona as a youth who loves to draw. But, and here are my problems. 1) the artist spends too much time obsessing about his own gifts as an artist. Far from creating a kind of meta-artistic aura, this insistent preoccupation begins to look more like narcissism and self-regard (look at me).
2) The book is divided between the Warsaw ghetto and Auschwitz. The only problem is that Jews from Warsaw were sent not to Auschwitz, which is narrated at length in the second half, but to Treblinka. This glaring inaccuracy is probably due to the fact that the Warsaw ghetto and Auschwitz are the two best known Holocaust sites and the artist wanted to combine them, but this is hardly a justification for misrepresenting the facts. 3) From a technical standpoint, the account of Auschwitz told by an escapee is second hand -- but Kubert makes no distinction in style between the narrative of the artist character and what he hears from another. Hence instead of two levels of graphic representation, there is only one. I believe that this detracts both from the book's credibility and its artistic ambitions.
I taught this book last year in a university course on Children in War, but would not use it again.

In the preface to this heartrending graphic novel, author Joe Kubert describes how his family, having failed in its first attempt to flee the small Polish town of Yzeran, finally succeeded in coming to America in 1926. He then wonders what fate would have befallen him and his family if they had been forced to remain in Poland during German occupation in World War II. This book is, in essence, an alternate-history autobiography of the teenaged cartoonist Yossel, as his family is sent to the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw. Because his abilities as a cartoonist entertain the German guards, Yossel is given special favors and permitted to stay behind in the ghetto while his parents and sister are sent to the concentration camps. As he struggles for survial in the ghetto, Yossel first bears witness to and chronicles the horrors of the Holocaust in his drawings, and finally joins the Ghetto Uprising of 1943.

Kubert's raw pencil renderings provide an incredible emotional impact as they depict the anguish of the residents of the Warsaw ghetto, the inhumanity of the concentration camps, and the courage of the Warsaw ghetto resistance fighters. This story is amazingly personal, since Kubert bases it on letters his parents received from war survivors and since he places himself in the story. It is a moving account of a very painful period in history, but it is a story that needs to be told and retold because its events must never be forgotten.

Eileen Rieback

stunning..kubert goes beyond 'fax from sarajevo' to explore his own roots and what would have happened if his family had never left eastern europe....don't miss ...