The Fifth Beatle: The Brian Epstein Story (10 out of 10) written by Vivek J. Tiwary, Art by Andrew C. Robinson with Kyle Baker. 2013, Dark Horse Comics
Now and then an outstanding graphic novel comes along…and slips through the cracks. Somehow “The Fifth Beatle: The Brian Epstein Story” managed to do just that. Despite being a 2014 Eisner Award winner, despite being beautifully illustrated, despite being about history and biography and The Beatles and everything else..I missed it. So even though this is about a book that’s been out for nearly three years, I’m reviewing it. Because you might have missed it too.
This is of course a biography of Brian Epstein, a man whose name I knew as the manager of The Beatles, but who I otherwise knew nothing about. The book focuses tightly on the time that Epstein spent with the band, discovering them when he was a family record store manager from a privileged family in Liverpool. He had the vision that he could make them a big deal. More than a big deal…The Beatles. He approached John, and the other boys soon came along. Epstein is the one who decided they’d get more fans if they cleaned up their scruffy, leather-jacketed, working class look, and got haircuts and suits. He paid for them, and they did.
The book follows the band through the progression through local fame to international superstardom, with Epstein scoring the Ed Sullivan gig in 1964 as a highlight. Author Vivek J. Tiwary gets the tone right for The Beatles, with John Lennon’s quick wit (and George, who’s often overlooked) — you hear the dialogue in their voices. The relationship between John and Brian is the most intense, but also the most fun; it’s easy to see the symbiosis between the artistes of the band and the art of marketing.
Alongside the story of The Beatles is the very personal story of Brian himself. He was gay in the UK at a time when it was still illegal to be gay. One of the first scenes in the book has him getting beat up after a subtle flirt with a guy on the docks of Liverpool. As Tiwary writes him, Brian is someone who understands his homosexuality, and accepts it, but is yearning for acceptance from others. Not just looking for a boyfriend or husband, but looking for a life that’s accepted as normal. He vacations in Barcelona and Amsterdam and places that had a more liberal view of homosexuality, but always has to return home to Liverpool. We also see an arc of drug addiction in his life, and how that addiction cut his life tragically short. I knew that he died at some point before The Beatles broke up, but at the age of thirty-two in 1967? That’s too damn young.
Despite the several tragedies that we see in Brian Epstein’s story, there’s a brightness and life in this graphic novel that seems to defy the darkness of his life. His professional success is a counterbalance to his personal hardships, his family relationships are more stable than for others in his situation. The artwork, from Andrew C. Robinson and Kyle Baker, is beautiful. The painted pages are illuminated, and the characters full of life. The people have the nearly-cartoonish, clean lines of mid-century advertisements, and the Beatles themselves distinct from everyone else around them.
There’s some “adult content” that would offend some readers, with candid talk and tasteful depictions of sex, and John Lennon was much a fan of the “F-word” as the rest of us are. The book doesn’t use either gratuitously, and it makes the life of this extraordinary man make more sense, and move his story forward.
If you’re a fan of The Beatles (and really, who isn’t on some level), this is an incredible telling of a story that intersects with theirs. If you ever wondered how The Beatles became The Beatles…this is it.