Bernard Krigstein's colorful book jacket painting for Richard Condon's The Manchurian Candidate first edition hardcover (McGraw-Hill, 1959) resurfaced in this advance cover comp for the forthcoming biography by Greg Sadowski. Note these are actually two different paintings, with alterations in color and placement of figures. Curiously, the painting not used for Condon's novel is obviously more vibrant.

The Sadowski book, due in 2013, is a continuation of his earlier B. Krigstein (Fantagraphics, 2002), which was followed by B. Krigstein: Comics (2004). Reviewing the latter, Publishers Weekly noted, "Famed as one of the great innovators in comics history, Krigstein was one of the first cartoonists to consciously experiment with pacing and layout for psychological effect."



Above is Pepper Young's Family, Krigstein's unsold 1950 comic strip adapted from Elaine Carrington's long-run radio soap opera. I first wrote an essay about Krigstein's work in 1954. Below are the front and back covers of an interview John Benson and I did with Krigstein 48 years ago. Krigstein lived in Jamiaca, Queens, and we recorded the interview there on August 16, 1962. It was mimeographed in 1963 with no interior illustrations. As far as I know, this 27-page interview was the first extended Q&A interview with a comic book artist ever published.

Labels: condon, john benson, krigstein, piracy, talk

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