Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist @ Atlanta Jewish Film Festival, Jan. 19, 2009

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The Atlanta Jewish Film Festival (http://www.ajff.org/) will be showing Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist, at Lefont Sandy Springs, on Monday, Jan 19, 2009, 4:40pm. It's possible a representative from ASIFA-Atlanta will introduce the film and do a Q&A. This will be the Atlanta premiere of the film, which is a documentary on Will Eisner. Mark Mayerson writes about it here:

http://mayersononanimation.blogspot.com/2008/05/will-eisner-portrait-of-sequential.html

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• i09 Take on Frank Miller's 'The Spirit'
• Will Eisner Now a CAA Client

Comic Book Club w/Jon + Andy Cooke

Here's a fun podcast: Andrew D. Cooke and Jon B. Cooke, director, writer and producers of Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist, talking about their documentary, live.

Check it out HERE!

Jon and Andy Cooke -- Trapped in the PIT!!!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

The Cooke Brothers are in the PIT!

(The Big Apple's Peoples Improv Theatre, that is!)

Andrew D. Cooke, director of the full-length feature film documentary WILL EISNER: PORTRAIT OF A SEQUENTIAL ARTIST, and his brother Jon B. Cooke, writer/co-producer of that movie and editor of the award-winning COMIC BOOK ARTIST magazine, will be guests of New York City's acclaimed improv comedy group the COMIC BOOK CLUB this coming Tuesday, Sept. 9, at 8:00 p.m., at the Peoples Improv Theatre on 154 West 29th St., in Manhattan! Tickets are five bucks each.

The Comic Book Club is a weekly comic book talk show featuring the best comedians in New York talking shop with industry professionals from all corners of the comic book world. Hosted by Justin Tyler, Pete LePage, and Alex Zalben, Tuesday's episode will feature an excerpt from the Cookes' documentary, which debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival and is about the life and career of one of comics' most gifted artists, who not only created The Spirit (adapted as a major motion picture this coming Christmas by legendary Frank Miller) but was a seminal influence on the field up to his death at 87 in 2005. The brothers will be on hand to discuss the film, which showcases interviews with Eisner, Jules Feiffer, Stan Lee, Kurt Vonnegut, Art Spiegelman, Frank Miller, Michael Chabon, and many, many others, and no doubt the boys will also take a razzing from the CBC hosts.

For more information -- and a look at the trailer -- regarding WILL EISNER: PORTRAIT OF A SEQUENTIAL ARTIST, please visit www.montillapictures.com

To check out COMIC BOOK ARTIST magazine, go to www.topshelfcomix.com

COMIC BOOK CLUB can be found online at http://popcultureshock.com/cbclub/ and is spotlighted in a spiffy New York Times article at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/18/theater/18comics.html (or on my Facebook page)

The Peoples Improv Theatre Web site is www.thepit-nyc.com

Comic Book Club is every Tuesday night at 8:00 p.m. at the Peoples Improv Theater,154 W 29th St., New York City. (212) 563-7488

If you have any questions, shoot me an e-mail at jonbcooke@aol.com and I hope to see you at the show! Thanks.

Take care

Jon B. Cooke
Editor/COMIC BOOK ARTIST magazine
Producer-writer/WILL EISNER: PORTRAIT OF A SEQUENTIAL ARTIST

Visit www.topshelfcomix.com for information on COMIC BOOK ARTIST

To view a trailer on the documentary WILL EISNER: PORTRAIT OF A SEQUENTIAL ARTIST, go to www.montillapictures.com

"Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist" Heads Down Under

The Cooke Brothers fine documentary film, Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist, will screen on Saturday, June 21, in Sydney, Australia, and a week later in Perth. To read more about it, check out this post from Black Mermaid Productions. Congratulations, Jon and Andrew!

Will Eisner Events at New York Comic-Con!

You are invited to a free screening of
Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist
The Full-length Feature Film Documentary on the Legendary Storyteller
at the New York Comic-Con
Friday, April 18
12:00 noon
Room 1E10-1E11

Followed at 2:00 p.m. by
The Will Eisner Tribute Panel
featuring guests Mark Evanier, Paul Levitz, Michael Uslan, Carl Gropper, Andrew D. Cooke and Jon B. Cooke
SEATING IS LIMITED
Please go to NYCC Information Desk for your free ticket starting at 10:00 a.m.

All this and the first peak at Frank Miller's Will Eisner's The Spirit movie trailer on Saturday, April 19!

AFF Review: Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist

by Jette Kernion
Oct 21st 2007 11:05AM



I'm not a comic-book reader, so I didn't know much about the subject of Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist before seeing the documentary at Austin Film Festival. I knew he was the creator of The Spirit, a comic-book series that Frank Miller is adapting into a feature film ... and that's about all I knew. Fortunately, the documentary filled in many of the blanks for me about Eisner and provided some interesting details about the artist's life.

Eisner is credited for being one of the pioneers in the comic-book form -- as the film's title indicates, he believed in making the comics sequential, giving them an ongoing storyline, which was not standard back in the 1930s when he started work as an artist. His character The Spirit was not a traditional superhero with crazy superpowers, but an ordinary guy in the smallest of masks, who happened to fight crime. During WWII and afterwards, Eisner created military instructional manuals that were drawn in a comic-book style to make them interesting and easy to understand. Later in life, he created more dramatic, personal comic books (A Contract with God) that he dubbed "graphic novels," and paved the way for this type of work to be taken seriously.

One difficulty I had with Portrait of a Sequential Artist was that I didn't always understand the importance and relevance of various interviewers. For example, I had no idea why Michael Chabon was onscreen, having never read The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. I also wasn't sure why Kurt Vonnegut was interviewed, although he did have good insights and was obviously knowledgeable on the subject. The movie seemed to assume that audience members knew more about the comic-book world than I do; however, that may be a fair assumption, since biopics about comic-book artists may not appeal to a wide demographic. Interestingly, one of the other interview subjects was Frank Miller, who did not mention anything about his desire to make a movie out of The Spirit, but who is obviously a huge fan of Eisner's work.

Click HERE to Keep Reading!

Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com

Will Eisner: Portrait Of A Sequential Artist - Documentary

From promotional materials for the
Leeds International Film Festival
Nov. 7-18, 2007

Will Eisner: Portrait Of A Sequential Artist
“Before Crumb…Before American Splendor…” In his remarkable 60-year career Eisner arguably did more than any to advance the medium. His egalitarian approach drove comics forward, from weekly strip (The Spirit, 1940) to the development of the graphic novel (A Contract With God, 1978). Made in collaboration with Eisner and his wife Ann, commentary on the great man comes from luminaries such as Art Spiegelman, Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, Neil Gaiman, Frank Miller, and novelists Michael Chabon and Kurt Vonnegut.

Carriageworks Main Auditorium
4.45pm
Sunday 11th November

Box Office: 0113 224 3801
City Centre Box Office
The Carriageworks Theatre
3 Millennium Square
Leeds LS2 3AD
Mon - Sat 10am-8pm

For more information click HERE:

Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com

Will Eisner Documentary at Austin Film Festival

If you're going to be in Austin on October 12 or 14, you can catch a screening of Andrew D. Cooke's documentary, Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist:

Fri., Oct. 12
5:00 p.m.
Landmark Dobie Theater
2025 Guadalupe St.
(512) 505-0033

Sun., Oct. 14
2:15 p.m.
Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek
13729 Research Blvd.
(512) 219-8135

For more information, visit www.austinfilmfestival.org

Tickets available at the box office prior to screening

ComiColumn: Arlen Schumer Says "Eisner Film Has Spirit"

By Arlen Schumer

Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist, a documentary film biography of the legendary artist/writer, had its world premiere at the prestigious Tribeca Film Festival in New York City April 26th. The first film directed by Andrew Cooke, who has been toiling in the trenches of the NYC film industry his entire professional life, and written by his older brother Jon, the editor and designer of Comic Book Artist magazine, the premiere trade journal of the industry, the Eisner doc represents an absolute triumph for the comic book medium. It shows us not only how far it’s come in its quest for respectability from the mainstream culture, but how far we still have to go to secure and increase that acceptance.

When the film bio Crumb came out in 1994, about the great underground cartoonist Robert Crumb, it was hailed by comic book and mainstream critics alike as the first great documentary film about a cartoonist, and was richly deserved. Directed by longtime Crumb compadre Terry Zwigoff, it achieved its brilliance by showing us how an artist actually sees the world, and then how he gets that down on paper (recall the sequence about driving around Los Angeles for its street detritus). More than a documentary about “just” a great cartoonist, it was perhaps the best documentary ever made about a great artist, period. It quite unintentionally set a standard for all future film bios of artists in general, and comic book artists and cartoonists in particular.

But those films never came. While Zwigoff went on to direct the well-received Ghost World (based on Daniel Clowes’ graphic novel) and eventually the poorly-received Art School Confidential (again based on Clowes’ work), and superhero movies have become Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters, not one doc film about a comic book artist or cartoonist has been made since (with the exception of the barely-seen Frazetta film). And look at how many potential subjects--living witnesses and oral historians--have passed away, undocumented for posterity, since Crumb’s debut: Jerry Siegel, Curt Swan, Bob Kane, Vince Sullivan, John Broome, Gil Kane, Charles Schulz, Julius Schwartz, Martin Nodell, Dave Cockrum, Arnold Drake and most recently Johnny (comic strips B.C. and Wizard of Id) Hart—and this is not a complete list. Living legends like Steve Ditko, Carmine Infantino, Mort Walker, Joe Kubert and the ubiquitous Stan Lee are all in their late 70s/early 80s, and no one is making documentaries about them. Even once-young turks Neal Adams and Jim Steranko are both nearing seventy!

CLICK HERE TO KEEP READING!!!

Variety: Eisner Documentary Review

Tribeca

Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist

(Docu)

By ALISSA SIMON

A Lloyd Greif presentation of a Montilla Pictures production, in association with Comic Book Artist magazine, Schackman Films. Produced by Andrew D. Cooke, Jon B. Cooke. Executive producer, Kris Schackman. Co-producers, Ben Tudhope, James D. Lee. Directed by Andrew D. Cooke. Written by Jon B. Cooke.

With: Will Eisner, Denis Kitchen, Jules Feiffer, Art Spiegelman, Ann Eisner, Jack Kirby, Joe Kubert, Gil Kane, Stan Lee, Neil Gaiman, Frank Miller, Michael Chabon, Kurt Vonnegut, Denis Kitchen.

Narrator: Art Spiegelman.

The remarkable career of comics pioneer and graphic artist Will Eisner (1917-2005) gets a surprisingly flat recounting in Andrew D. Cooke's feature docu bow. Film incorporates a surfeit of materials, not all of equal interest or strength, and fails to find a visual style worthy of its subject. Still, without reaching the level of genre classics such as "Crumb" and "Comic Book Confidential," this docu still reps a solid introduction for the layman. Eisner's legacy and huge fan base should make the pic popular on DVD and attract attention from specialty fests and broadcasters.

Asserting that Eisner's entrepreneurial, literary and drawing skills turned sequential art (i.e. comics) from a pulpy visual format, meant to entertain kids, into a bona fide means of self-expression, docu uses a mix of interviews, artwork and talking heads to trace his 70-year career.

The son of Jewish emigre parents -- a dreamy painter father and practical mother -- savvy Eisner managed to combine aspects of both to succeed in art and commerce. He founded his own comicstrip production company while still in his teens, and went on to negotiate an unprecedented deal to retain ownership of his most enduring character, "The Spirit."

Read the entire review here!

WizardUniverse.com: Eisner Documentary Review

WHY ‘A CONTRACT WITH GOD’ SEISMICALLY
ALTERED MORE THAN COMICS

Andrew D. Cooke’s ‘Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist’ closed at Tribeca on Sunday and opened up a wealth of perspectives on the creator and his work, but its portrait of the first graphic novel will change many readers’ understanding of its significance to Eisner

By Brian Warmoth

Posted May 7, 2007 3:00 PM

As “X-Men” opened the floodgates for spandex-clad heroes to lay golden eggs like factory farm chickens in Hollywood, interest in the creators who reshaped genres and changed the course of comics bubbled up in art theaters and DVD markets. “Crumb” and “American Splendor” pried open movie theaters’ eyes to peer at two figureheads of underground comics, R. Crumb and Harvey Pekar, respectively. Now, with its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, director Andrew D. Cooke’s “Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist” blows open nearly a century of history to frame the life of the man who created the Spirit, coined the term “graphic novel” and effectively invented the splash page, cementing his place as one of comics’ creative godfathers.

What comics did for Eisner, however, and where the importance of his landmark graphic novel A Contract With God lies in Eisner’s personal history, his body of work and the history of comics, sculpt the centerpiece of this hugely personal and important look at the life of Will Eisner.

Read the entire review here!

Jinxworld: "Portrait of a Sequential Artist" Review

There is a Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist review and response thread on comics writer Brian Michael Bendis' "Jinxworld" forum. You can read and participate in it here.

IGN: Eisner Doc Review

Tribeca 07: Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist

First Look Review: A sequential biographical film.

by Scott Collura

May 2, 2007 - Spider-Man has been a big presence at the Tribeca Film Festival this year, but he's not the only comics legend who is getting the spotlight (bat-light?) aimed at him at the 2007 fest. The late, great Will Eisner -- writer, artist and trendsetter of the comic book industry -- is also in evidence in a documentary about the man's life and his influence on the art form.

The film, directed by Andrew D. Cooke, utilizes a variety of older interview footage with the man himself (Eisner died in 2005), audiotapes recorded by Eisner of his chats with other comics professionals (many from his era), home movie footage, artwork from Eisner's comic strips and elsewhere, and plenty of talking head interviews with well-known comic artists, writers, and historians. In fact, Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist has all the ingredients of a great documentary. So why does it fall flat?

Portrait takes a more or less linear approach to detailing Eisner's life, beginning with the tale of how his father was an apprentice painter in Europe who eventually wound up in New York. The old man would impart his talent on to his son, of course, though Eisner's mother wanted her boy to go into a trade where he could make money. As the film points out, Eisner would manage to balance those two impulses quite handily during the course of his career.

KEEP READING

PREVIEW IT! Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist

Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist, directed by Andrew D. Cooke, premiered at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival.

Reel Talk: WNBC-TV's Jeffrey Lyons Digs Eisner Doc

Watch the April 28, 2007 WNBC-TV "Reel Talk with Jeffrey Lyons" review of Andrew D. Cooke's new documentary, Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist, by clicking here

Fan Review: Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist

Brian Postman

(Note from Bob Andelman: Brian Postman was a student of Will Eisner's in the 1970s and a frequent correspondent of mine since publication of my biography, Will Eisner: A Spirited Life. When he told me he had been to the world premiered of Andrew D. Cooke's documentary, Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist, I invited him to submit this review to the site. Your comments are also welcome; click on the "Comments" button at the end of Brian's post.)

I was looking forward to seeing WILL EISNER:PORTRAIT OF A SEQUENTIAL ARTIST, because I had seen the trailer,and it brought back many memories of studying with him at the School of Visual Arts from September 1977 to June 1980.

I saw the movie at the Tribeca Film Festival on Thursday night,and it was spectacular. one of the most interesting documentaries I've seen in a long time.

There was a lot of footage and photos of the young "twenty-something" Will Eisner,as well as the more "mature" Eisner who returned from World WarII. He talked of his beginnings with "Eisner and Iger" a comic book art studio he started with Jerry Iger in the '30s ,as well as his ground breaking work on The Spirit,and his life and work after The Spirit,including his close-knit family life and starting American Visuals. This continues right up to him working on A Contract With God, which is considered among the first graphic novels.

Watching this movie really open up the floodgates of my memories of the late 1970s and working with him as a teacher. He was definitely tough,but he tried to instill in us to try and go beyond comic books, and tell stories that were more than just superheroes punching each other!

The only thing in the movie that seemed inaccurate was a part toward the end talking about his teaching at SVA. They showed footage of Peter Bagge, who I'm pretty sure wasn't one of Will's students -- I knew him at SVA -- but then again, it's been 30 years! It's possible he took Will's class briefly.

I really miss Will Eisner; he was a great guy. Go see this movie! -- Brian Postman

Andrew D. Cooke Interview on Eisner Documentary

As part of its coverage of the Tribeca Film Festival, The Huffington Post did a video interview with Andrew D. Cooke, director of Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist. Click on the screen grab above to go to the site.

Huffington Post Reviews Eisner Documentary: Thumbs Up!

Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist Paints an Interesting Story

By Joel Keller
The Huffington Post

(Excerpt) Director Andrew D. Cooke does a good job of mixing talking-head interviews -- with the likes of Jules Feiffer, who worked on "The Spirit," Spiegelman, Miller, Michael Chabon, and even the late Kurt Vonnegut, among other notables of multiple generations -- with audio tape interviews Eisner did in the eighties with the big comic artists of the early 20th century, including Milton Caniff and Harvey Kurtzman.

He also gives non-comic viewers a good indication of what Eisner's work was like, from the brightly-colored, cinematic drawings of "The Spirit," to black-and-white biographical drawings that show how Eisner was able to draw characters that were cartoonish and realistic all at once.

The movie drags in a spot or two, mostly when Eisner and others are exploring why many comic artists from that time period were of Jewish heritage, but a fascinating exploration of Eisner's use of Ebony, a very stereotypical African-American character in "The Spirit," makes up for it. In this day and age of ultra-PC sensitivity, seeing a minstrelized character like Ebony in a mainstream comic is shocking. But Cooke effectively explores the from both sides; Eisner felt he was just going along with the times, while slightly younger and more liberal artists like Feiffer expressed discomfort with having to draw such a character.

The sign of any good documentary is if it makes a person who wasn't a die-hard fan of the subject or genre it's exploring want to learn more. And Portrait does just that. I definitely plan on seeing the movie version of "The Spirit" that Miller is set to direct. And, because of this, I may even read the comic first. That's saying a lot.

READ THE REVIEW IN ITS ENTIRETY HERE

R.I. filmmakers at Tribeca

The Providence Journal/ProJo.com

01:00 AM EDT on Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Rhode Island filmmakers will be well represented at this year’s prestigious Tribeca Film Festival in New York City. The feature-length Rhode Island-made The Education of Charlie Banks and the feature-length documentary Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist will each have several screenings this week and next.

The Education of Charlie Banks, about a young man who finds a dreaded high school enemy has turned up on his college campus, was directed by former Limp Bizkit front man Fred Durst on locations in Pawtucket and Providence last summer. It will be screened from Friday through Sunday at various Manhattan theaters.

Marisa Polvino, who produced the film for Michael Corrente’s company, said on the phone from New York that they will try to sell the film to a distributor during the festival in hopes of getting a later national release.

Brothers Jon B. Cooke of West Kingston and Andrew D. Cooke of New York City filmed the documentary about Eisner, a comic book illustrator who is regarded as one of the founding fathers of the art when it began in the 1930s. Will Eisner will have its world premiere at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow at the AMC Village VII cinemas, followed by screenings Saturday and May 1 and 6 at various Manhattan theaters.