The Man Who Couldn't Be Reached-Bernie Krigstein-1956
Here's quirky stylist Bernie Krigstein with a sci-fi tale that might almost be called--visually at least--a superhero tale! The anti-climactic ending seems to be that way on purpose, which makes for a most interesting story.
Krigstein's almost cinematic-frame-like paneling, in full force here. Page 3 is a brilliant example of it's use, and you can see all the extra work involved, and you wonder why he got so miffed at the lower page rate at Atlas!
As Daniel said, the story is a bit muddled, it leads you in one direction only to spring the "democratically elected" stuff at the end, which nullifying everything that came before, even though it was technically all a trick to find a replacement. That's a whole lot to swallow!
The face on the 3rd panel of the triptych at bottom Pg. 2 is a ringer for Caniff. I know you could place Krigstein in a general Caniff school with the likes of Meskin, (early-ish) Sekowsky, Toth, Robbins (obviously), and more but it's still a jarring Steve Canyon likeness given how loose the faces are in most other panels. Overall something about the generic costume of the protagonist rendered with that Krigstein / Caniff style kinda gives the story the look of a parody to me.
3 comments:
…for those who want to have their individualism and technocratically eat it too.
Krigstein's almost cinematic-frame-like paneling, in full force here. Page 3 is a brilliant example of it's use, and you can see all the extra work involved, and you wonder why he got so miffed at the lower page rate at Atlas!
As Daniel said, the story is a bit muddled, it leads you in one direction only to spring the "democratically elected" stuff at the end, which nullifying everything that came before, even though it was technically all a trick to find a replacement. That's a whole lot to swallow!
The face on the 3rd panel of the triptych at bottom Pg. 2 is a ringer for Caniff. I know you could place Krigstein in a general Caniff school with the likes of Meskin, (early-ish) Sekowsky, Toth, Robbins (obviously), and more but it's still a jarring Steve Canyon likeness given how loose the faces are in most other panels. Overall something about the generic costume of the protagonist rendered with that Krigstein / Caniff style kinda gives the story the look of a parody to me.
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