Joe Kubert’s Yossel: April 19, 1943

Abstract

In analyzing Joe Kubert'sYossel: April 19, 1943, this essay argues that the 1943 Jewish uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto only peripherally propels the story forward, despite the book’s title. Nor does Kubert’s tale about his alter ego reign solely supreme, even as concern about Yossel’s welfare in the festering ghetto factors into how readers receive the story. This essay centers on a third theme that runs through the graphic narrative, as important but more subtly conveyed: one of faith during the Holocaust, and consequently how Kubert employs tropes from art history’s history to make points about the challenges of belief and the agony of its loss. While doing so, this essay argues that Kubert upends those visual tropes in order to expose how the Holocaust mercilessly upended humanity, transforming and displacing even the most devout.