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Contribution to Book
“Master Race”: Graphic Storytelling in the Aftermath of the Holocaust
The Palgrave Handbook of Holocaust Literature and Culture
  • Victoria Aarons, Trinity University
Document Type
Contribution to Book
Publication Date
1-25-2020
Abstract

This chapter argues that an early graphic story, “Master Race,” published in 1955 by comics artist Bernie Krigstein and scriptwriter Al Feldstein, considered “one of the finest stories ever to appear in the comics form,” anticipated the emergence of the evolving and expanding genre of Holocaust graphic narratives. With memory as the controlling trope, graphic novelists and illustrators, through the juxtaposition of text and image, extend the narrative of the Holocaust into the present, creating a midrashic imperative to reconstruct and reanimate the experience of the Shoah. In recreating moments of traumatic rupture, dislocation, and disequilibrium, graphic narratives contribute to the evolving field of Holocaust representation by establishing a visual testimony to memory.

Editor
Victoria Aarons & Phyllis Lassner
DOI
10.1007/978-3-030-33428-4_27
Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN
9783030334284, 9783030334277
Citation Information
Aarons, V. (2020). 'Master race': Graphic storytelling in the aftermath of the Holocaust. In V. Aarons & P. Lassner (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of Holocaust literature and culture (pp. 493-510). Palgrave Macmillan. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33428-4_27