Comics that matter: Master race

Trigger warning: This musing includes images of a comic book story about the Holocaust.

About three weeks ago, The New York Times had a short article about a famous comic book, or, more precisely, a famous comic book story called The Master Race, whose original art was up for auction. The comic was written by Al Feldstein, one of the greats from EC Comics (and Mad Magazine), and illustrated by Bernie Krigstein. It presents a damning and vivid story of the Holocaust.

The initial estimate was that it would bring $150,000. I checked today, and it sold for $600,000.

What’s the story like? People more articulate than I have written a lot about it; not just the subject matter, but also ways in which Krigstein takes advantage of the medium. I’ll just say that I find it moving and I appreciate the standard EC twist. But you don’t have to read the opinions of others. The original art is still available to browse on the auction site, which means that you can browse it yourself. Click on the images below [1] to see the full-size versions.

[1] I have not made local copies. Both the thumbnails and the full-size versions reside on the Heritage Auctions site.

Version 1.0 of 2018-11-26.