Today in Comics History, July 2: Happy birthday, Hermann Hesse!

Born on this day long long ago (1877), in a galaxy far far away Germany: writer, artist, philosopher, and poet Howard Hesseman Hermann Hesse! He created Steppenwolf!


"Steppenwolf" from Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe (1985 series) #22 (DC, December 1986); pencils by Jack Kirby; inks by Terry Austin; colors by Anthony Tollin, Len Wein, Tatjana Wood, and/or Tom Ziuko
Wait, I've made another one of my silly mistakes. That's by Jack Kirby who is pretty cool too but whose birthday doesn't come for another couple months. No, this is the guy who wrote the work that Kirby named his character after:



from "Steppenwolf" in The Graphic Canon Vol. 3: From "Heart of Darkness" to Hemingway to "Infinite Jest" (Seven Stories Press, July 2013); adaptation, pencils, inks, and letters by John Pierard



John Porcellino adapts a Hesse poem in the pages of King-Cat:


from King-Cat Comics and Stories #57 (Spit and a Half, August 2000); poem by Hermann Hesse; pencils, inks, and letters by John Porcellino
There's a short comic excerpt of Hesse's Siddhartha within the same pages of that Graphic Canon I mentioned above:


from "Steppenwolf" in The Graphic Canon Vol. 3: From "Heart of Darkness" to Hemingway to "Infinite Jest" (Seven Stories Press, July 2013); adaptation, pencils, inks, and letters by J. Ben Moss
Or maybe you prefer a more straightforward adaptation?


from "Classy Comics Illustrated #7: Siddhartha" in National Lampoon v.1 #11 (21st Century, February 1971); script by Doug Kenny; cover, pencils, and inks by Joe Orlando
Naw, I kids the Siddhartha. This is actually from the pages of America's fourth- or fifth-favorite humor magazine, National Lampoon! Although the text is treated fairly straight, Sidd himself is updated to be a counter-culture hippie and the questions he is posed along the way are contemporary factoids and trivia:



Happy birthday, Hermann! I also enjoyed that sitcom about your head.