Beatles Manager Brian Epstein To Star In New Comic Book
Posted by Joseph Lee on 10.17.2012
The fifth Beatle...
The Wall Street Journal reports that Beatles manager Brian Epstein (who also discovered the band) is getting his very own comic book thanks to Vivek J. Tiwary. Tiwary is responsible for the Broadway shows A Raisin in the Sun and Green Day's American Idiot.
The graphic novel will be called The Fifth Beatle and will focus on Epstein's life, which Tiwary is also trying to turn into a film. The film would be the first about the band to use their own songs. The graphic novel was revealed at the New York Comic Con.
Tiwary said: "I could really relate to a lot of the struggles Brian had. Telling his story is a very passionate labor of love for me."
Epstein was an music store owner in the UK when he signed the Beatles, got them their first recording contract and put them in suits. He was responsible for much of their success before he died in 1967 due to accidental overdose of sleeping pills. After his death, the Beatles ultimately broke up.
The novel was written by Tiwary and drawn by both Andrew Robinson and Kyle Baker. It will be published next year by M Press Books, a division of Dark Horse Comics. Tiwary says he's "very aggressively" working on the film and is hoping to announce a deal soon.
Tiwary added: "[When I was in business school], I wanted to work in artist management, I wanted to manage bands. I thought if I'm going to manage bands, I should study the great artist managers. [Epstein] was certainly a fabulous business story … but it was the human side of his story that at the time I knew nothing about that really resonated for me. I think of Brian as the ultimate outsider."
Epstein was gay when homosexuality was illegal in the UK and Jewish when antisemitism was more prevalent. Tiwary says he relates because while his family is from Guyana, he is of Indian descent and "there just aren't a lot of Indian people doing what I'm doing. You don't see young Indian folks getting involved in the entertainment industry."
Finally, he said the story became a graphic novel because he grew up loving comics. He said: "I basically found ways to put my passion for music into other artistic disciplines."
