Will Eisner: The Spirit of Comics (NYCGraphicsNovelists.com)

Will Eisner, image via Wikipedia

Words: Christopher Irving 

When Will Eisner spoke on the comics page, it was in a language that was distinctly no one else’s but his own. What Jack Kirby did with visual power, Will did for the art form and language of comics, bringing them on par with film and pushing (sometimes gently, others with force) for the medium to go beyond it’s juvenile beginnings and grow into an actual –
    Art.
    Form.

    Not bad for a kid who grew up poor in the Depression, a kid who grew into a self-made young man who managed to reinvent himself as an older man.


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'Rhymes With Orange' cartoonist Hilary Price remembers Will Eisner

I had a great time interviewing "Rhymes With Orange" syndicated cartoonist Hilary Price on Mr. Media Radio yesterday (March 11, 2010). When it was over, I sent her a note of thanks and, as an afterthought, added the URL to this site, with no explanation.

With Hilary's permission, here's what she wrote back:

"Thanks for the Will Eisner link.  When I went to my first National Cartoonists Society awards dinner in 1997, I knew one person.  There were things you could sign up for during the day time, so I signed up for tennis. I played doubles with a bunch of nice old guys, one of whom took us all out for a drink after.  That was Will Eisner. 

"So I got to know his forehand before I ever got to know his drawing hand."

I shared this anecdote with Will's widow, Ann Eisner, who said, "I can't tell you how pleased Will would have been that someone remembered his tennis playing.  He was almost as excited about that as his work."

We didn't talk about Will during the show, but you're welcome to listen below anyway!

Graphic NYC Honors Will Eisner Week

Friday, March 5, 2010

This week, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, The Will and Ann Eisner Family Foundation, and seven locations throughout the country celebrate the life and works of the late, great Will Eisner! This second annual celebration encourages a widespread knowledge of the graphic novel and comic book, in honor of the trailblazing Eisner. Graphic NYC celebrates the father of the graphic novel in our own inimitable way: with a profile on March 9, in honor of the father of the graphic novels' birthday.
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Will Eisner Memorial Portrait (Cassandra Poulson)

Friday, March 5, 2010

The "Will Eisner Week" here at SCAD is holding a student exhibition. For the exhibition, students draw full-body self portraits, and use expressive anatomy to convey certain emotions. This is my entry. My emotion is "grief." I also referenced one of my all time favorite plays. I was inspired by 19th century paintings for the style.

Click HERE to learn more!

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Will Eisner - The True Master of Comic Stroytelling (Inside Jeff Overturf's Head)

March 6, 2010

Born March 6th in 1917, the great Will Eisner would be 93 years old today!


This man did more to establish common tools in great comic storytelling than anyone. The things that Eisner experimented with and perfected are tools all good comic storytellers employ to this day.

He innovated different formats as well. He and partner Jerry Iger were part of the very first wave of comics "packagers" that supplied content to comic book publishers in the 1930's and '40's, creating whole comics to Quality Comics. Characters like Plastic Man, Uncle Sam, Black Condor, The Ray, Blackhawk, Midnight, Firebrand, The Phantom Lady and Quality's entire stable of super hero titles (see more in my on-going "Slight History of the Golden Age of Comic Books: Super Heroes" series here in this blog) were all produced by the Eisner-Iger studios.

Artists from Lou Fine, Wally Wood, Frank Frazetta, Jules Feiffer, Jack Cole and the wonderful Mr. Eisner himself all cranked out genuine comic gold from this art house. All the while perfecting the storytelling tools created, designed and perfected from Eisner's own head.

Click HERE to Keep Reading!

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UNL student adapts Eisner's work for the stage

Will Eisner, image via Wikipedia

By MICAH MERTES 
Lincoln Journal Star
March 5, 2010


Jennifer Olson adapts.

"I like finding interesting sources and adapting them to the stage," she said. "I just stumble upon things."

For her latest, Olson, a senior at UNL's Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film, found great material in the world of comics.

She was spending a lot of time poking around in the comic book section of UNL's Love Library when she came across Will Eisner's "A Contract with God, and Other Tenement Stories," a collection of four stories all set in a Bronx tenement in the 1930s. It's regarded as the first graphic novel, and still one of the best.

Reading through the story "Street Singer," Olson's gears started turning. This would play great on the stage.

Thought evolved to resolve.

"I thought, if I want to do this, I should probably do this now," she said. It was easier for her to get permission to adapt copyrighted work while she was still in an academic environment.

Click HERE to Keep Reading!

If you go

What: "Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist," a feature-length documentary celebrating Will Eisner Week

When: 1 p.m. Saturday. Jennifer Olson's stage adaptation of "A Contract with God" will follow the film at 2:30 p.m.

Where: Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center, 313 N. 13th St.

More: Read more about Eisner and Will Eisner Week at willeisner.com.

First Amherst, Then Main Street (Loose Cruse; Howard Cruse)

Cover of The Will Eisner Companion

At four in the afternoon on Tuesday, March 2, the campus of UMass in Amherst will be the site of a panel discussion about comics and graphic novels featuring two relics—I mean, veterans—of the underground comix movement of the 1970s, plus a member of today’s emerging generation of adventurous comics creators. One of the aforementioned veterans will be Gary Hallgren of Air Pirates fame; the other one will be me. Sharing the stage with Gary and me will be Sophia Weideman, who will have to wait a few years before attaining the relic/veteran status that Gary and I enjoy but who appears to be making good use of her talents in the meantime. Gary and I are longtime friends and I’m looking forward to meeting Sophia. Furthermore, if you’re near enough to Amherst to come and be part of our audience in Room 227 of Herter Hall, I’ll be looking forward to meeting you, too! Moderating our panel, by the way, will be another old friend: N. C. Christopher Couch, co-author with Stephen Weiner of The Will Eisner Companion.

Above: Gary Hallgren’s character Tom Turkey, as seen in the Marvel/underground hybrid Comix Book in the mid-seventies, is flanked by a photo of Gary taken at the 1976 Berkeley Con and a snapshot I took of him a year or so ago. At left: A photo of yours truly, also taken at the same 1976 convention, garnished with one of my own drawings from that era. Both 1976 photos were taken by Clay Geerdes, the legendary chronicler of and cheerleader for the underground comix movement.

At right: I couldn’t find a current photo of our third panelist, Sophia Weideman, and I certainly couldn’t find one from 1976, since it’s highly unlikely that this 2008 graduate of the School of Visual Arts in New York had even commenced to exist by then. I can, however, show you the cover of her new book The Deformatory, which she self-published with funding provided by the Xeric Foundation.

Our UMass panel is named "Will Eisner’s Ideals," and as the title suggests we’ll be discussing how our own work has been affected by today’s expanding recognition of comics as a medium for serious artistic expression. Many cartoonists of my generation who cut our teeth in underground comix have been And while a lot of pioneering went on in the pages of underground comix, those who pay attention to comics history know that a trailblazing comics creator named Will Eisner had begun leading the way well before underground comix made the scene.

Amazingly, Will Eisner continued to show what comics are capable of in the parade of acclaimed graphic novels he contined to draw tirelessly until his death in 2005 at the age of 87. In honor of his achievements a host of events will soon be taking place as part of a national celebration called Will Eisner Week. It’s cool that our March 2 panel will be among them.

Click HERE to Keep Reading!

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Will Eisner Week 2010 (WillEisner.com)

Image via Wikipedia

Will Eisner Week will take place from February 28th to March 6th, 2010.  

Join WillEisner.com in an ongoing celebration promoting graphic novel literacy, free speech awareness, and the legacy of Will Eisner.

This is the second annual celebration of Will Eisner's contribution to comics and American culture and is offered as a springboard to advance education of comics and graphic novels in all communities around the world.  

This year's theme is The Reading Revolution: Will Eisner and the American Graphic Novel. 

Public events are currently being planned during Will Eisner Week including venues at The Minneapolis College of Art & Design, The Savannah College of Art and Design, and by the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund in New York City.  If your organization is interested in participating or receiving information please e-mail the website administrator or post in the Forum under the Will Eisner Week topic.  

In addition to events, a variety of academic papers and group activity assignments are being generously donated by comic educators and will be available on this site. Our wish is that these materials will inspire you to have your own events in your community. Ideas include events held at schools, libraries, and book groups. 

Will Eisner Week is a collaborative project of The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, The Will & Ann Eisner Family Foundation, and a variety of Comic Institutions.  Will Eisner Week is chaired by Assistant Professor Barbara Schulz from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design assisted by the Will Eisner Week organizing committee.