35 – A Birthday Remembrance of Joe Kubert

Today would have been Joe Kubert’s 86th birthday. He missed it by about five weeks, having left this world and us on August 12. This humble Birthday Remembrance is intended as a respectful appreciation of his masterful creativity as an artist and the absolute effervescence of his presence.

The image displayed below, the Front Cover of PS Magazine Issue 719 (October 2012), is the last PS cover that is attributable to Joe, even though it does not bear his iconic sig. He penciled the entire piece and inked the principal foreground character in what turned out to be his last session at the drawing board before he went into the hospital.

This final Joe Kubert cover for the U.S. Army’s famous graphic communications pacesetter publication is the second in a two-step introduction process for a new female character named Cloe. (No! It’s not supposed to have an “h” in it.) The name is an acronym representing Common Logistics Operating Environment. The lady herself says it stands for Cool Logistician and Operator Extraordinaire!

Joe’s death occurred just a little more than halfway through his twelfth year (beginning in February of 2012) as the PS contractor for creative art, design, and pre-press services. His organization continues to meet all production schedules.

I had the pleasure of getting to know Joe over a three-day span in June of 2011 in Huntsville, Alabama, where we participated in the official celebration at Redstone Arsenal of the sixtieth anniversary of PS Magazine. The formalities took place in a roadhouse-style steak-joint where the floor was covered with discarded peanut-shells.

We had made reservations at the same hostelry and were supposed to have met there, but tremendous thunderstorms 

intervened and delayed the arrival of his flight. My driver, bodyguard, and general factotum (who also was my youngest son, Clay) and I seized the opportunity to leave word for Joe at the check-in desk and hustle on foot during a lull in the downpour to the most readily available establishment.

A similar subsequent interlude in the storm heralded the arrival of Joe and his Segundo, Pete Carlsson, threading their way around tables and shuffling through the peanut-shells.

It was a confabulation of kindred spirits.

To paraphrase the diplomatic dispatches, the talks were far ranging and productive.

I was surprised to learn that Joe and I both belonged to the Crop of 1926, but even more so when he disclosed that he was ten weeks older than I—his vibrant vitality had me thinking that he was ten years younger, what with me and my cane and my keeper.

The meter did not rise to “raucous” or “ribald,” but it hovered around “rousing.” Joe was at his liveliest when he was discussing his adventures as an infantry “ground-pounder” during the Korean War.

And, it set the tone for our interface during the entire event. Especially enjoyable—and it surely must have been mutually so because we both kept coming back to it—were conversational meanderings down the Memory Lane of changing graphic 

production technology, from acetate overlays to “bogus” four-color separations to the simple logistical challenges of getting a product from an artist in Podunk to a printer in Oshkosh.

In my eyes, Joe was a “people” person. He liked them, and they knew that he liked them.

Whether he was signing posters…

…or chatting with General Dennis Via (center) and Colonel William (Pat) Sullivan…

…or hamming it up with one of his drawings of Master Sergeant Half-Mast…

   

…or presenting a serious speech…

…it was always the “real” Joe Kubert and with a twinkle in his eye.

If you would like to see a video clip of the speech Joe was making in the picture above, just click here.

The icing on the cake was our continued collaboration in presenting this blog. I shall endeavor to continue it in the spirit in which it was created.

—p.e.f.

UPCOMING POSTINGS:

¶ Key military leaders’ presentations complete Video Collection

¶ Best of PS by Perspective Instructional Communications

¶ A Covey of Connies—World War II to Today

—The photos in this post were taken during the Sixtieth Anniversary Celebration of PS Magazine, June 27, 2011, at Redstone Arsenal, by Pete Carlsson and Clay Fitzgerald.

34 – Video: Fitz Describes Early PS Perils, Challenges, and Near Crib-Death

My invitation to participate (above) in the official U.S. Army celebration of PS Magazine’s 60th Anniversary on June 27, 2011, at Redstone Arsenal, Huntsville, Alabama, included the request that I address the early trials and tribulations of that famous publication, “back in the day.” That was a tough task, considering the parameters of time and propriety.

Viewed through the prism of fifty intervening years, the precarious period in which PS tottered close to being strangled in its crib and then struggled through an almost probationary continuance is readily understandable. In the fifth and early-sixth decade of the last century, PS itself was marching through unmapped conceptual terrain while tasked with serving an array of virtually autonomous authorities scattered across the logistics landscape of that time.

My greatest pleasure at the event derived from sharing the platform with Joe Kubert and two sterling representatives of the U.S. Army Logistics Command (AMC), the overarching control element whose creation addressed the systemic springs from which many of the magazine’s early problems flowed. Both Lieutenant General Dennis L. Via, Deputy Commanding General of AMC, and Colonel Robert P. (Pat) Sullivan, who as the Commanding Officer of AMC’s Logistics Support Agency (LOGSA) is the immediate military commander of the PS program, voiced in ringing terms their enthusiasm for, and support of, PS Magazine.

It truly was a great day.

—p.e.f.

It was a thrill for me to be present at the warm reception given to Fitz, at the 60th Anniversary of PS, having been involved in the publishing business for most of my life. I really appreciated the wide swath and accomplishments of this man, who made it over some very, very rough roads and accomplished so much.

—j.k.

UPCOMING POSTINGS:

¶ Video: Colonel ‘Pat’ Sullivan, Head of PS’s Home Command

¶ Video: Lieutenant General Via Salutes PS Program

¶ Best of PS by Perspective Instructional Communications

¶ Joe Dope Meets Beetle Bailey in PS

¶ A Covey of Connies—World War II to Today

¶ Wrap-Up: A Wonderful Year of Celebration

The close-up below shows Fitz at the lectern during the big 60th Birthday Party for PS Magazine. To view his entire presentation at that significant event, just click HERE.

33 - Video: Sequential Art Icon Joe Kubert Speaking At PS Magazine 60th Birthday Celebration

Joe Kubert, shown above, the sequential art icon who has been the creative artist and pre-press services contractor for PS Magazine since PS 579 in February of 2001, was one of four featured speakers at the impressive official Celebration of the magazine’s 60th Anniversary on June 27, 2011, at Redstone Arsenal, Huntsville, Alabama. Joe's moving remarks lifted up and lauded the creative ingenuity of the publication's initial artist, Will Eisner, and praised the U.S. Army's command vision and the magazine staff's dedicated professionalism in nurturing the program through six decades of tumultuous technological advancement in the arena of graphic communication. You will find a link, below, to a video that preserved Joe's complete remarks on that great day.

—p.e.f.

The only people who could really appreciate the feelings and emotions that grabbed me on June 27, 2011, are those (who like myself) were drafted into the Army.

I was inducted in 1950, during the Korean War. I acquired the vaunted rank of P.F.C. when my two-year hitch was up.

Then to be treated as an honored guest by high-ranking officers and officials at Redstone Arsenal just blew me away. If the guys who took Basic with me at Ft. Dix could see me now!

—j.k.

UPCOMING POSTINGS:

¶ Video: Fitz Describes Near Crib-Death of Early PS, ‘Back in the Day’

¶ Video: Colonel ‘Pat’ Sullivan, Head of PS’s Home Command

¶ Video: Lieutenant General Via Salutes PS Program

¶ Best of PS by Perspective Instructional Communications

¶ Joe Dope Meets Beetle Bailey in PS

¶ A Covey of Connies—World War II to Today

¶ Wrap-Up: A Wonderful Year of Celebration

The close-up below shows Joe at the lectern during the big 60th Birthday Party for PS Magazine. To view a video of his entire presentation at that significant event, just click HERE.

32 - Eisner / Kubert: Variations on a Visual Theme

The Front Cover on the recent December issue of PS Magazine (PS 709, December 2011, shown above) represented a daring change-up pitched by the publication’s staff and Joe Kubert, the current creative artist and production services contractor! For the first time in its 60-plus years as an international pace-setter in the use of sequential art for communicating technical and motivational information, the U.S. Army’s Preventive Maintenance Monthly has chosen to underscore the constancy of the medium’s effectiveness by utilizing Kubert’s adroit reprise of a seasonal scene set 56 years earlier by Will Eisner for the Front Cover of PS 39 in December of 1955 (shown below)

Joe Dope’s 1955 appearance (in this instance) as a paragon of sartorial propriety drips with Eisnerian irony, foreshadowing Joe’s quiet departure a few months later from the ranks of the U.S. Army and the pages of PS during 1956 “in the best interests of the military service,” and “in furtherance of good order and discipline.”

Both covers are presented (below) for your side-by-side analysis. The varying approaches to the detailing in the wreaths and styling of the street-light fixtures have evoked comments by some observers.

It’s a safe bet that my awareness of the tensions of the times in 1955 has an overarching influence on my comparative reaction to the Eisner version. His four characters seem to me to be static, staid, and constrained. A bit more movement is sensed with Joe’s group, especially with the hoe-down fiddle stance that Kubert gave to Half-Mast, as compared to the concert hall pose that Will provided for him.

—p.e.f.

Taking on Will's 1955 cover was a challenge I had no choice but to accept. The PS editorial staff at Redstone Arsenal gave an order, and that was that.

I set out not to copy Will's drawing style, but to get the sense of warmth (despite the wintry snow) and animation that he achieved. The humanness of the characters. The life-like qualities that master cartoonist could convey.

I borrowed the layout and the composition and went to work. The result only made me appreciate all the more the abilities of the guy who did it all, over fifty years ago.

—j.k.

UPCOMING POSTINGS:

¶ Video: Joe Kubert at PS 60th Anniversary Celebration

¶ Video: Colonel ‘Pat’ Sullivan, Head of PS’s Home Command

¶ Video: Lieutenant General Via Salutes PS Program

¶ Video: Fitz Tells About Early PS, ‘Back in the Day’

¶ Best of PS by Perspective Instructional Communications

¶ Joe Dope Meets Beetle Bailey in PS

¶ A Covey of Connies—World War II to Today

¶ Wrap-Up: A Wonderful Year of Celebration

We initiated this blog, The Best of PS Magazine 1951-2011, in February of 2011, promising you a “year-long salute” to PS during its Sixtieth Anniversary Year. We hope to fulfill that pledge by completing presentation of the projected postings listed above, prior to the end of March 2012.