About

When discussing CHUTZ-POW!, we use the term “up-stander,” one who speaks up when they see something is wrong and acts to make the situation right. Every real-life hero featured in CHUTZ-POW! is an up-stander, and these stories are designed to encourage readers of all ages to be up-standers too!

A panel from Page 20 Volume One from Fritz Ottenheimer's story

Panel from Volume One; Art and Lettering by Christopher Moeller

CHUTZ-POW! SUPERHEROES OF THE HOLOCAUST is an acclaimed and ongoing comic-book series created and published by The Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh. Its mission is to place up-stander's stories OF courage, resilience, and sacrifice at the forefront of Holocaust awareness.

Each volume is an anthology by award-winning creative collaborators, telling true-life stories of heroic survivors who brought light into some of the darkest recesses of WWII. Created for audiences ages 12 and up, CHUTZ-POW! unravels the larger narrative of the Holocaust through the use of comics.

Creators

Marcel
Walker

Project Coordinator; Lead Artist; Writer; Letterer

Marcel (M.L.) Walker has provided cover and story artwork for all four volumes of CHUTZ-POW! SUPERHEROES OF THE HOLOCAUST and also currently serves as the project coordinator. He graduated from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and, during the 1990s, was a graphic-prose instructor at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. Currently, he is the board president of Pittsburgh's ToonSeum, The Museum of Cartoon Art, and has contributed artwork to their NORTH and OAKLAND anthology comic books. He is the creator/writer/artist of the independent comic book HERO CORP., INTERNATIONAL. In 2017, he was voted Best Local Cartoonist in The Pittsburgh City Paper's annual readers' poll; in 2018, he was a recipient of the BME Genius Award.

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Wayne
Wise

Lead Project Writer; Inker

Wayne Wise is a freelance writer/artist living in Pittsburgh. He's been the lead writer for all four volumes of CHUTZ-POW! SUPERHEROES OF THE HOLOCAUST. In the '90s, he co-created the Xeric Award-winning comic GREY LEGACY and worked as an inker for Malibu Graphics. For 22 years, he worked at Phantom of the Attic Comics (an Eisner Award-nominated comics retailer). He has four novels available, has served as an Executive Board Member for Pittsburgh's ToonSeum, has taught "Comics and Popular Culture" as an adjunct professor at Chatham University, and continues to give lectures and presentations on comics history.

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Mark
Zingarelli

Artist

Mark Zingarelli is a native of Pittsburgh and has been a freelance cartoonist and illustrator for over 35 years. He has also worked as a lecturer, teacher, and journalist. He has had art studios in San Diego, California, Seattle, and Washington and now lives and works in Western Pennsylvania. His award-winning illustrations have been published internationally, and he has worked on all four volumes ofCHUTZ-POW! SUPERHEROES OF THE HOLOCAUST. His graphic novelSECOND AVENUE CAPER, published by Farrar Strauss & Giroux, won the Lambda Literary Award for the Best Graphic Novel of 2014.

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Howard
Bender

Artist

Howard Bender is a professional comic book illustrator who has worked for many top publishers, including Marvel, DC, Disney, Harvey, and Archie. Characters and titles include SUPERMAN, SPIDER-MAN, THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES, GHOSTBUSTERS, ARCHIE, CASPER, and RICHIE RICH. He has also worked as an art instructor and created and drawn his own original characters and titles, MR. FIXITT, BILLY & POP, and THE SHERLOCK HOLMES MINUTE MYSTERIES.

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Lewis
Braham

Writer

Lewis Braham's writing has appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Bloomberg, Reuters, Ekphrastic Review, Tuck Magazine, Barron's, and the Wall Street Journal. He has an MFA in creative writing from Brooklyn College.

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Erica
Chan

Artist

Erica Chan is an illustrator and comic artist from New York City and an alumnus of Carnegie Mellon University and the School of Visual Arts. Her comic work has been featured in Margin Publishing's DATES! anthology series, ComicMix's MINE! anthology, and the graphic novel QUEEN OF KENOSHA.

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Leela
Corman

Artist

Leela Corman is an illustrator, cartoonist, and Middle Eastern dancer. She won a Xeric Grant in 1999 for the publication of her first graphic novel, QUEEN'S DAY. Her latest graphic novel, UNTERZAKHN, was published by Schocken/Pantheon in the spring of 2012 and has been nominated for the L.A. Times Book Award, the Eisner Award, and Le Prix Artemisia in France. In 2014, her comic YAHRZEIT won a silver medal from the Society of Illustrators. Her clients include PBS, the New York Times, and BUST Magazine.

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Vince
Dorse

Artist

Vince Dorse is an illustrator, cartoonist, and the creator of the Reuben Award-winning long-form comic UNTOLD TALES OF BIGFOOT. His work has an all-ages appeal and has appeared in books, magazines, newspapers, games, online, and in CHUTZ-POW! Volume 3. He specializes in cute animals and kid-friendly monsters. In between illustration jobs for clients, Vince publishes books, comics, and art through his Long Lost Friend Studio small press imprint.

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Yona
Harvey

Writer

Yona Harvey is an award-winning poet and writer. She won the 2014 Kate Tufts Discovery Award and the 2016 Carol R. Brown Creative Achievement Award for Established Artist. Her published work includes the poetry collection Hemming the Water from Four Way Books, and she has written for Marvel Comics on two of their Black Panther-related series, World of Wakanda and Black Panther & The Crew.

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Yang
Zhen Lee

Artist

Yang Zhen Lee is an illustrator and tattoo artist that works in the beautiful city of Pittsburgh, PA. They draw comics, do performance art, and think about ways art affects community and vice versa.

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Rachel
Masilamani

Writer & Artist

Rachel Masilamani is a Pittsburgh-based comics creator who has been quietly amassing a unique and significant body of work since the dawn of the century. She started strong, being awarded a Xeric Grant for the first issue of her series RPM COMICS, and has continued to craft her finely nuanced, personal works in small-run self-published comics and anthologies like The Indiana Review, Graphic Classics, and Aster(ix). She is currently working on a new graphic novel, NONPARTUM, which is being published in installments in Mutha Magazine.

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Chris
Moeller

Artist

Chris Moeller's work includes JLA: A LEAGUE OF ONE, JLA: COLD STEEL, and a trilogy of creator-owned IRON EMPIRES graphic novels. Moeller was the cover artist for the monthly series LUCIFER from Vertigo Comics and BATMAN: SHADOW OF THE BAT for DC Comics. He has provided illustrations for Marvel Comics, IDW Comics, Virgin Comics, FASA Publications, Topps, West End Games, Wizards of the Coast, Blizzard Entertainment, WizKids, and White Wolf games.

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Deesha
Philyaw

Writer

Deesha Philyaw is a Pittsburgh-based writing professor and freelance writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Essence magazine, and other outlets. She holds a B.A. in economics from Yale, as well as an M.A. in teaching. She writes, blogs, and tweets about race, parenting, and pop culture (sometimes all at once). For The Rumpus, she inaugurated and curates an interview column, VISIBLE: Women Writers of Color. She's recently released her first novel, THE SECRET LIVES OF CHURCH LADIES, from West Virginia University Press.

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Donald
Simpson

Artist

Donald E. Simpson illustrated Al Franken's 2003 bestseller LIES AND THE LYING LIARS WHO TELL THEM: A FAIR AND BALANCED LOOK AT THE RIGHT and earned a Ph.D. in art and architectural history from the University of Pittsburgh in 2013. His science fiction saga BORDER WORLDS will be collected with a new conclusion by Dover Publications later in 2016. He is currently at work on MEGATON MAN: RETURN TO MEGATROPOLIS, an all-new graphic novel of his famous satirical character.

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Loran
Skinkis

Artist

Loran J. Skinkis is a full-time freelance illustrator and graphic designer based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He joined the United States Marine Corps Reserves in 1989 and served overseas in Saudi Arabia during the Persian Gulf War (1991). Upon returning home, Loran attended the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. His published work includes such titles as PHOTOCOPY COMIX ILLUSTRATED, THE ELECTRIC OWL, STAR & STRIPES, BURGH-MAN, and most recently, THE FIELD ON THE EDGE OF THE WOODS. He is currently working on many new and exciting projects both locally and overseas.

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Ann
Uland

Artist

Ann Uland is a visual story artist, freelancer, and co-founder of Arbitrary Muse Comics, with 7+ years of experience working, creating, and selling comics and art. Ann has a BFA in Sequential Art from Savannah College of Art and Design, and past credits include the charity anthology for PRINCELESS and the SPACE award-winner IF THE SHOE FITS.

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Dave
Wachter

Artist

Dave Wachter's professional career includes his artwork for Robert Bloch's THAT HELLBOUND TRAIN, GODZILLA and TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES, and the mini-series NIGHT OF 1,000 WOLVES (all from IDW Publishing). In 2012, he was nominated for the Russ Manning Most Promising Newcomer Award in comics, and he was the artist for the mini-series BREATH OF BONES: A TALE OF THE GOLEM for Dark Horse Comics. In 2014, Dark Horse released a hardcover edition of his Eisner and Harvey Award-nominated web-comic THE GUNS OF SHADOW VALLEY.

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Fred
Wheaton

Artist

Fred Wheaton's work includes writing, designing, and painting for trading card properties, including The Topps Company's WACKY PACKAGES, GARBAGE PAIL KIDS, and HOLLYWOOD ZOMBIES. He has also drawn sketch cards for Wax Eye (CEREAL KILLERS) and Breygent (RED SONJA). In the 1990s, he and co-creator Wayne Wise published the Xeric Award-winning comic book GREY LEGACY, and in recent years he has contributed to WACKY PACKAGES comics from Topps and GARBAGE PAIL KIDS comics from IDW.

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Birdie
Willis

Writer

Birdie Willis is a queer, nonbinary creator who has been writing comics for almost ten years now. Most recently, she has had two works published by BOOM! Studios - a five-issue mini-series for the Cartoon Network property OVER THE GARDEN WALL (2019) and a biography of renowned conservationist Rachel Carson, SEEN (2020) from Simon & Schuster. When she's not writing, you can find her on an adventure with her wife Ann or petting their two cats.

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Worked on Volumes:

Marcel
Walker

Wayne
Wise

Mark
Zingarelli

Howard
Bender

Lewis
Braham

Erica
Chan

Leela
Corman

Vince
Dorse

Yona
Harvey

Yang
Zhen Lee

Rachel
Masilamani

Chris
Moeller

Deesha
Philyaw

Donald
Simpson

Loran
Skinkis

Ann
Uland

Dave
Wachter

Fred
Wheaton

Birdie
Willis

Volume One

The UpStanders

Published in 2014, The Heart and soul of CHUTZ-POW! SUPERHEROES OF THE HOLOCAUST is driven by the commitment to honor those who perished, to celebrate those who survived, and above all else, to educate. We did not add special powers or fictional characteristics to the amazing lives of Les Banos, Moshe and Malka Baran, Dora Iwler, and Fritz Ottenheimer: instead, we chose to highlight the strength, courage, and love that exist inside all of us. We can all be up-standers... everyone has the power to be a superhero.

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Stories Featured

Les
Banos

Moshe & Malka
Baran

Dora
Iwler

Fritz
Ottenheimer

Volume Two

International Heroes

Published in 2016, this second volume includes stories of international superheroes, ordinary men, and women who challenged the dominant Nazi ideology and fought for the victims, proving that real people risked death to save lives during the Holocaust. Real heroes existed in one of the darkest periods of history... and it is possible to be a hero today!

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Stories Featured

Les
Banos

Raoul
Wallenberg

The Bielski
Brothers

Irena
Sendler

Sophie
Scholl

Volume Three

The Young Survivors

Published in 2018, this third volume tells the stories of men and women who survived the Holocaust as children. Some were invisible, hidden children who stayed out of sight. Others were visible, hidden children who assumed a false identity and had to learn new customs and new names. Some children survived concentration camps and ghettos, while others were able to escape with their families intact. Heroes emerge in each story - a mother who acquired false papers for her family against the wishes of her husband; another mother who stood up to Nazi guards to protect her children; non-Jewish families who took in Jewish children, risking their own lives.

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Stories Featured

Walter
Boninger

Inge Berg
Katzenstein

Solange
Lebovitz

Judah
Samet

Irene
Skolnick

Volume Four

Women's Stories

Published in 2020, this fourth volume, ten creators come together to tell the stories of women with remarkably different Holocaust experiences. The women are Jewish, Muslim, and Christian; a world-class athlete, a clothes designer, a lawyer and politician, and a member of the British Auxiliary Air Force. Three were involved with organized resistance against the Nazis. One would become a famous actor and humanitarian.

The stories of women have been given short shrift in archives and historical research. With this volume, CHUTZ-POW! recognizes the heroism of six remarkable women, placing them at the center of the history of the Holocaust.

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