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  Tuesday  July 16  2002    02: 16 AM

Comix

A piece by a great comix artist.

Comix 101
BALLBUSTER
by ART SPIEGELMAN

Anyone interested in crossing the ever-narrowing divide between High and Low culture ought to contemplate the work and troubled career of Bernard Krigstein (1919-90), a postwar comic-book illustrator who had the privilege and the misfortune of being an Artist with a capital "A" working in an Art Form that considered itself only a Business. Krigstein was never associated with a specific character (the most sure ticket to comics success), and he never wrote his own stories (a handicap in a narrative medium). He wasn't beloved by publishers, editors, or readers. What reputation he has rests on a handful of short stories he illustrated in 1954 and 1955 for EC comics (the folks who brought you Tales from the Crypt and Mad), but one of those stories, "Master Race," was an accomplishment of the highest order—a masterpiece.
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thanks to Robot Wisdom