Jake Tapper is adding cartoonist to his résumé. The CNN anchor has written and drawn his first original graphic novel, The Butcher: The Decades-Long Hunt for Klaus Barbie, One of the World’s Most Notorious Killers, which Top Shelf Productions, an imprint of IDW, will publish next summer. Tapper revealed the project in an interview with Variety.
The hunt for the Butcher of Lyon
The nonfiction book follows Klaus Barbie, the Gestapo chief in Lyon, France, during World War II, who escaped justice for decades afterward. It covers his years on the run, the Nazi hunters and journalists who tracked him down, and the investigation that revealed who helped him escape in the first place. According to Comics Beat, Tapper researched the story using sources in German, English, Spanish and French.
“This has been one of the most difficult and rewarding projects I’ve ever worked on — both in terms of the research into the astounding and troubling life of one of the world’s most notorious and elusive Nazi war criminals, the effort to turn that into compelling storytelling, and the work to illustrate it all,” Tapper said. “I hope readers find it as satisfying to read.”
Top Shelf editor-in-chief Chris Staros said the book stands out for “its powerful revelation of those who assisted in helping a notorious Nazi evade justice, contrasted with the relentless, uncompromising efforts of those who fought to ensure accountability.”
Release details
The Butcher arrives in paperback on June 1, 2027. It runs 264 pages and costs $19.99. A limited signed and numbered hardcover will also be sold exclusively through IDW’s online store for $49.99.
Comics are not new territory for Tapper. He had a weekly strip in a local paper as an eighth grader, and he drew the comic strip Capitol Hell for the Washington paper Roll Call from 1994 to 2003. His first novel, the political thriller The Hellfire Club, came out in 2018.
The Butcher joins a growing shelf of big historical graphic novels, including Titan’s 500-page Kennedy(s) graphic novel. It should be easy to find in both comic shops and bookstores when it releases.
