EC Comics' magnum opus: Master Race

[alicemacher]

"Krigstein's formal qualities as a storyteller—not the story's subject matter—make 'Master Race' a tour de force. He encapsulates the decade of Nazi terror powerfully but with restraint, never slipping into the Grand Guignol that made EC notorious. The two tiers of wordless staccato panels that climax the story have become justly famous among the comics literate. They have often been described as 'cinematic,' a phrase thoroughly inadequate to the achievement: Krigstein condenses and distends time itself."
--Art Spiegelman, "Ballbuster: Bernard Krigstein's Life Between the Panels," The New Yorker, July 14, 2002


Warning for anti-Semitism.


From Impact #1 (Mar.-Apr. 1955). Story by Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein, art by Bernie Krigstein.


Although it attracted little attention when first published, "Master Race" was an unusual story. It dealt with the Holocaust at a time when, a mere ten years after the war, almost no fiction media were ready to do so. (The Nazi genocide didn't even have a universally-recognized name yet; "Holocaust" wouldn't become common usage until the late sixties.) Then there was the art, which I'll let speak for itself.

Comments

[kamino_neko]

I disagree with the description of it as 'cinematic', but Reissman's death was impressively illustrated - in a way that could really only be pulled off in comics.

[lissa_quon]

Somewhere I had the full scans of this story - I could probably write a whole essay about it. I usually hate second person narration but it works so well here, in the building climax of the reveal.

I can sort of see the argument that this is cinematic, if only cause the art feels like a German Expressionist piece. Most people's exposure to this style is probably the German silent films like Cabinet of Dr Cagliostro. That art style was banned in the rise of Hitler, so it's sort of interesting it's aped here to show the atrocities.

The ending though I always sort of wonder if the man legitly knew him - or it was just a hallucination from the pent of guilt the man had? I'm not arguing for either angle, I just feel like there's some sort of meaning to the last panel of "he was a perfect stranger" that I've never quite grasped.

[cricharddavies]

If the man in black is telling the truth, then there's no hidden meaning here, and he's as bewildered by Reissman's actions as anyone else -- the man was a perfect stranger to him, and he can't understand why he panicked the way that he did.

If he is the man of Reissman's nightmares, then his last words are a very calculated way of ensuring that Reissman goes to his grave without any post-mortem notoriety. Here, his use of the word 'perfect' might relate to the concept of the Master Race, who viewed themselves as superior and perfect. Might.

[shrug] There's not supposed to be a definitive answer.

[sara]

Daaaaaaaaaaaamn. I'd like to read the whole thing sometime, is it in reprint somewhere?

[alicemacher]

Yes, in Master Race and Other Stories published last year by Fantagraphics as part of their black-and-white EC Library series.

Apart from that, there was a full-colour paperback reprint of all five Impact issues from Gemstone sometime in the 1990s, but as with the other titles in that reissue series, it's long out of print.

[ozaline]

It's also included in We Spoke Out: Comic Books and the Holocaust (IDW)

[tripodeca113]

You know the original post of this issue was one of the first scans-daily posts I happened to come across. That was about 2013, and at the time I was interested in EC comics.

Still a great issue.

[crinos]

I am reminded of a bit from the Night Gallery movie where a former concentration camp officer is in hiding in a city and comes to an art gallery, and discovers he has the ability to project himself into the paintings of said gallery, and begins spending time fishing inside an idyllic pond scene. Then in the end he is confronted and chased to the museum by police and he tries to project into the painting to escape them, only to find he didn't look to see WHICH painting he was projecting himself into, and ends up projecting into a painting of a concentration camp where he gets crucified.

[starwolf_oakley]

I've wondered if the Cold War had more to do with the Holocaust in popular culture than we are willing to admit. Because the Russians are the ones liberating the camp in this story. The Russians also "save the day" in Schindler's List and Jacob the Liar.
Were people less willing to have the Russians "save the day" when the Russians were our enemies?

It can be argued the Russians are our enemies again, but I'd rather not worry about that.

[bradygirl_12]

Wow, extremely powerful.

A Twilight Zone episode focused on the Holocaust with a camp commandant visiting the old camp. He's proud of his work and is enjoying memories of 'the good old days' until he starts seeing inmates from those days. Needless to say, it doesn't end well for him.

[wizardru]

The original pilot movie for Serling's "Night Gallery" featured a story about a Nazi who encounters a former prisoner at an art shop somewhere in South America, killing him to keep him quiet and then, well, you know.

[icon_uk]

I've seen this before, but it never loses it's power.

The ambiguity of the ending is perfect.

[arilou_skiff]

"Tales designed to carry an impact" sure is a title. But true in this case.

[riddler13]

Wow. Just... wow. Very, very good.

And his influence on Frank Miller cannot be overstated. This comic is pretty much Miller's standard 1980's page and pacing. And he even made a reference to the title "Master Race" - albeit for an inferior piece of work.