Posted in: Comics, Editor's Picks Comic News | Tagged: Comics, entertainment

Bringing Lost Yiddish Stories To Graphic Life With A Minyan Yidn By Trina Robbins

Hope Nicholson writes,

How did the story start? It starts this way, and it starts that way.

It might have started by a poolside in San Diego in 2016.

It might have started a year before as a daughter gave her mother a long-lost book.

It might have started even decades before that as a man set words to paper. Or decades before that as a child in Belarus.

I'll start with the beginning, which is really not the beginning at all. As the flipside to Barcon at comic-cons, there is also a lesser-known form of networking where comic book professionals escape the hot crowded excesses of the convention hall to relax by the mostly-deserted pool areas in the hotels nearby. Maybe there are margaritas involved, or maybe it's just iced tea, but whatever happens it's always pleasant and comfortable and never so far have any stories worthy of gossip come from these get togethers. (Ahem- Rich) And as things happen, sometimes relationships are formed that lead later to exciting new projects.

In this case it was San Diego 2016, and I was in the pool swimming over to Trina Robbins who was happily chatting to Babs Tarr about her latest Wonder Woman cover for the show's catalogue. Trina mentioned a new project she was developing, based on her father's collections of short stories he had written in the 1930s.  Her daughter had found a printing of this collection that was thought to be lost and brought it to Trina as a gift. SHE then had it translated from Yiddish and adapted it herself into a graphic novel script.

I'm a comics historian and absolutely adore Trina in all ways, and to work with her on a collection of stories about Jewish culture just before the second world war was immensely interesting! In her words, it is a portrait of lives that were just about to change in all measurable ways, taking place in her father's childhood home of Duboy, Belarus, and later adopted home of Brooklyn, NY. And so we began, and the process itself isn't terribly interesting as it revolves around a lot of emails and print quotes, budget analysis and timeline expectations.

Trina chose the artists, who range from experienced to newer comic creators but all of whom have a passion for the project. They range from political cartoonists, to those who got their start in the underground comix scene, to webcartoonists and superhero artists. Willy Mendes, Queen of Cosmic Comix has provided an immensely detailed cover in her unique style that showcases snapshots from each of the stories within.

The artists in this project are immensely talented, but for the most part they are also private people. There will be no wide social media surge of their fans posting and sharing the link for the Kickstarter. But the book is good, the book is tender, and sweet, and hurts to read in parts. It's a book that should be made, and should be read.

The stories are GOOD. They are immensely, wonderful, silly strange, fantastical and mundane portraits of life. Trina has an immense gift for bringing out the beauty of her father's stories, and maintaining all of the humour that permeates the stories. These are stories about people, real, human people, and is similar in so many ways to the way that Will Eisner presented his own imaginings in A Contract With God.

These are stories of lives. Of boastful lives, and regretful lives, of sweet young children, cranky old men, and wise women.

And if you want to read these stories, you can make it happen now.

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