The Mishkin Saga by Kim Deitch & Simon Deitch (No. 28)

The Mishkin Saga (1992-1994)

by Kim Deitch & Simon Deitch

REVIEW BY TOM SPURGEON:

(from The 100 Best Comics of the Century! in The Comics Journal #210, 1999)

With The Mishkin Saga, Kim and Simon Deitch manage the near impossible: an affecting story about the creative process that neither drowns in nostalgia nor avoids showing how its characters participate in their own personal tragedies. The heart of the story is animator Ted Mishkin, his family and loved ones, and their interaction with Waldo, a cartoon cat who is both a character in their successful animated series and an actual spiritual presence in the lives of Ted and his nephew Nathan. Through an impressive shorthand, The Mishkin Saga spans the history of American animation, from Winsor McCay to modern Disney, making the Deitch brothers story in many ways a cutting commentary about the nature of creative enterprise in 20th Century America.

The emotional core of The Mishkin Saga is so realistically depicted it seems almost brutal, but is the rock-solid basis from which the rest of the story emanates. Central figure Ted Mishkin is a completely stunted character - a horrific alcoholic with a naive artistic soul, who faces debilitating frustrations in both his professional and personal lives. There is no hope for redemption - Mishkin's worst and best qualities flow from the same well - and little hope for solace, but when those moments do occur, in flashes of uncompromised artistic vision, they are among the most beautiful in comics history.

Ted Mishkin's tragic personality is mirrored in the surrounding characters: his eventual wife Lilian Greer, his brother Al, even relatively minor characters like studio head Fred Fontaine and psychiatrist Dr. Milton Reinman. Similarly, each independent series in the saga covers some of the same ground, but add weight and detail to the events. When the searing insight of such writing is added to the delightful two-dimensional quality of the art, amazingly successful in depicting the relationship between the artistic enterprise and madness, what one experiences is a rare combination of great truth and great beauty.

ART SPIEGELMAN:

(from the backcover blurb to The Boulevard of Broken Dreams, 2002)
At last the general public will be allowed to discover Kim Deitch, one of the best-kept secrets in comics for over thirty-five years. He's an American Original, as spinner of yarns, whose beautifully structured pages and intricate plots conjure up a haunting and haunted American past.

FURTHER READING:
Kim Deitch at Fantagraphics Books

TCJ Interview: Kim Deitch (2019)

TCJ Article: Filing Kim Deitch (2011)