Comic, War, and Jewish Superheroes Pulitzer Prize 2001 for Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay! The tragicomic story of two cousins, Josef and Sam, who help the comic book industry achieve great success in the mid-20th century, takes the reader from Prague to New York and all the way to Antarctica and back. New York 1939. Josef Kavalier, a young Jewish artist and escape artist, makes an adventurous escape from occupied Prague to Brooklyn, where he finds refuge with his relatives. Josef, who soon calls himself Joe, has only one goal: to make a lot of money quickly in order to secure freedom for the other members of his family, especially his brother Thomas. Together with his cousin Sammy Clay, he tries to establish themselves in the emerging comic book business, which they soon succeed in. Their superhero.