First contributor Ty Geltmaker steered your editor to “The Life of Gad Beck”—a graphic biography of a gay Jewish hero who fought Nazis in Germany during World War II (and survived). (The image below is from the body of the work…)
Geltmaker himself noted that he’d learned of the “Gad Beck,” which he prefers (per Italians) to call a fumetti rather than a comic, from his former colleague Maura Hametz. She passed on a link to The Nib where it appeared in January, knowing of his interest “in no-nonsense LGBT stuff with ‘just-the-facts-m’am historical context over time and place,’” as well as his background in German history. Geltmaker allowed he’s not an expert in the long tradition of graphic novels/biographies (“as someone all too constantly caught up in words, words, words”), but “Gad Beck” reminded him of what he used to tell students when he was a Critical Studies/Literature/History prof at California Institute of the Arts: “I always encouraged brilliant students whose eyes and ears click in ways my two senses do not together always do — to DRAW not WRITE. Dorian Alexander and Levi Hastings do both in ‘The Life of Gad Beck: Gay. Jewish. Nazi Fighter’.”
What follows are the opening panels of Alexander’s and Hasting’s work. Please go here for the rest of “The Life of Gad Beck.”
