Baby's in Black: The Story of Astrid Kirchherr & Stuart Sutcliffe
By Arne Bellstorf
Translated by Michael Waaler
Paperback with flaps, 224 pp, £14.99
Astrid Kirchherr has finished studying fashion and is working as an assistant for her former lecturer, the photographer Reinhart Wolf. Her relationship with Klaus Voormann, a young graphic artist, has long since been punctuated by arguments and is slowly disintegrating. One evening, after yet another fight, Klaus leaves the flat and roams through the city alone. In the middle of the night, he's once more standing at Astrid's door, desperate to tell her what he has just discovered in St. Pauli: five young Englishmen playing rock 'n' roll under the name of The Beatles...
After a series of conversations with Astrid Kirchherr, Arne Bellstorf developed a pictorial narrative focusing on both the Hamburg subculture of the early sixties and the tragic love story between the young photographer and the musician, artist and so-called 'fifth Beatle' Stuart Sutcliffe.
After a series of conversations with Astrid Kirchherr, Arne Bellstorf developed a pictorial narrative focusing on both the Hamburg subculture of the early sixties and the tragic love story between the young photographer and the musician, artist and so-called 'fifth Beatle' Stuart Sutcliffe.
Arne Bellstorf
Arne Bellstorf was born in 1979 in Danneberg, and now lives and works in Hamburg. 2005 saw the release of his first comic tale, Acht, neun, zehn – the result of his final year project as a design student at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences. He was subsequently awarded the Sondermann Prize for Best Newcomer 2005 at the Frankfurt Book Fair. His debut graphic novel received the ICOM Independent Prize 2006 and was published in France, Italy, Poland and South Korea.
Reviews
"Black and white graphics work to perfection... Utterly engaging."
— Time Out
"The story may be familiar to hardcore Beatles fanatics, but Bellstorf's artwork is fresh and distinct, rendering the lovers and the youthful Beatles in a clean, dynamic style that mixes bold black ink lines with softer shading in black crayon."
— Rolling Stone