There aren’t many music fans that are aware of Brian Epstein and the legacy that he crafted. Though he isn’t as much of a household name as Berry Gordy or Quincy Jones, Brian Epstein created what would be pegged as “The British Invasion,” and introduced the world to the fab four, the lads from Liverpool, The Beatles! Author Vivek Tawdry with amazing art from Andrew C. Robinson and Kyle Baker don’t just craft the story of one of the most incredible music visionaries of all time, but of a man who could never quite come to terms with his sexuality. “The Fifth Beatle” focuses on Brian Epstein’s rise to stardom and eventual discovery of the Beatles, four men whom he felt deep affection for.
Epstein is pictured as a young man in the beginning of the graphic novel who sneaks around in dark alleys expressing his homosexuality, and sadly pays the price for it when he’s viciously beaten in an alleyway one night. His business ventures and eventual hold on to the Beatles doesn’t just become his fast track to wealth and riches, but his ticket out of his home land. During this period homosexuality was outlawed, thus Epstein is painted as a man who is always at odds with the person he longs to be with the person he’s told he should be. Epstein is depicted as a bright eyed and painfully ambitious young man whose own inability to settle for second best helped the Beatles set the world afire. There’s a lot of focus on Epstein’s channeling his energy in to the Beatles, and how his desperation for the world to accept them was in reality his desperation for the world to accept Brian, the homosexual.
Behind closed doors he’s a person who longs for affection and love, and has a difficult time finding it. The only methods for claiming some sensation of life is through his addiction to amphetamines, and his insistence on being around the Beatles. It’s constantly hinted throughout the graphic novel that Epstein garnered a love for the four young men, and even had a deep passion for John Lennon. There’s a subtle scene in particular where Lennon and Epstein are lying on the beach discussing his longing for a mate, in particular one like Lennon. Lennon then ponders on the sadness that he’s not homosexual. Though Epstein convinces himself that his battle to make the Beatles a household name is for them, Tawdry explores how most of it mainly for Epstein to gain some form of acceptance from a world that would have shunned him.
Much of the book is pictured on how Epstein viewed every defining Beatles event, and how he foretold many of the fates of the group. He scrambles to protect Lennon after his infamous Jesus statement, and even warns John that he’s horrified one of the group might be assassinated, to which we’re given a new panel of a camera light going off resembling gun fire. There’s also an excellent moment where Epstein meets with Colonel Parker, who is depicted as something of a lecherous, demonic pig, giving Epstein slimy advice about how to exploit the Beatles to his benefit, giving Epstein a hard education on how to treat his group. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the art from Andrew C. Robinson and Kyle Baker.
Both brilliant artists paint a vast vibrant but harrowing world that seems open to new possibilities, but becomes ever more claustrophobic the more the Beatles rise to stardom. Epstein is depicted as a charming and very empathetic protagonist who just wanted acceptance, while the Beatles are given dignified portrayals as anxious musicians confronting fame, and expressing their love for their manager. Epstein’s fate is handled tastefully with a poetic glimpse at a tortured soul who never could quite understand why he was punished for simply being himself that fateful night, and how fame was the gift to four men he was in love with from the moment he saw them in concert. It’s a brilliant and utterly heartbreaking portrait that lends a dignified, beautiful, and humanistic voice to Epstein, and the homosexual condition in general.