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.

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The Secret Files of Dr. Drew: A fascinating Will Eisner side project, 1949/50 (TrickCoin.net)

by Frank M. Young

December 30, 2009 

 

Towards the end of the creative peak-era of Will Eisner's weekly comic book/strip The Spirit, the Eisner Studio had a strong team churning out innovative comics material.

Writers Jules Feiffer and Marilyn Mercer, background artist Jerry Grandenetti and peerless letterer Abe Kangeson were key components in a finely-oiled funnybook machine. All contributed greatly to the high quality of the post-war Spirit feature. (Other notables who contributed to post-war Eisner product include Klaus Nordling, Andre LeBlanc and Dan Barry.)

Eisner's hand was still deeply felt in the series. His growing ambitions to push comics past their humble street-smart status, and into something that rivaled literature and cinema, found their first strong expression in the 1946-1950 run of The Spirit.

Although Eisner certainly leaned heavily on his creative team, he left his distinct imprint on the work that issued from his studio. He drew from their strengths and made their distinct talents assets in mass media work of high quality

A lesser-known side project of the post-war Eisner Studio appeared in the checkered pages of a comic magazine published by Fiction House. Their comix imprint was as "spicy" and lowbrow as their pulp magazines. Cleavage, violence and sexual suggestion are rife in the assembly-line Fiction House product.


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Will Eisner: A Spirited Life spotted at Skirball!

Michael Dooley shot this photo of books for sale at Skirball in late June. It's always a pleasure to see my biography, Will Eisner: A Spirited Life, in such great company as Michael Chabon (who wrote the introduction to A Spirited Life), Arie Kaplan, Jules Feiffer, Stan Lee, Danny Fingeroth and David Hajdu.

Here's what Michael had to say about the shot:

I went to the Skirball to see ZAP! POW! BAM!

It was partly to familiarize myself with the show if the subject comes up at my SDCC "comics/museums" panel discussion –

Sunday, JULY 26
1:00-2:30 pm
Room 30AB

Comics Arts Conference Session #15: "Comics In Museums —
How do comics bridge the worlds of popular art on the stands and fine art on museum walls?"
Kim Munson (Munson Art Consulting) revisits the 1983 "Comic Art Show" at the Whitney. Michael Dooley (Art Center College of Design) covers two shows, the 1990 "High and Low" exhibit and the 2005 "Masters of American Comics," with emphasis on the works of Kurtzman and Spiegelman. Denis Kitchen (Underground Classics) discusses new trends in museum exhibitions and discusses the just-concluded “Underground Classics” show at the Chazen Art Museum and other shows he has worked on.

I'm sure your book and the others will be available in the Skirball Gift Shop (which is right outside the entrance to the comics exhibit) until the show closes on August 9th.

Thanks again, Michael, for sharing this.

Incidentally, I've interviewed many of the other writers represented in the picture above on "Mr. Media Radio." Check 'em out!

David Hajdu

Arie Kaplan

Danny Fingeroth

Jules Feiffer

(Don't forget: You can now order the audiobook edition at Audible.com!)

Missed it: Will Eisner Studios artist Gene Bilbrew

From the blog of J. Winkel comes this post about Gene Bilbrew, who he says replaced Jules Feiffer in Will Eisner's studio. I never heard of Bilbrew before, so this was an interesting find...

New York City was a good place for an illustrator in the early 1950's, in particular one with the obvious but quirky talents of Gene Bilbrew. The comic market was exploding...the Kefauver Senate hearings had yet to dent their sales to vulnerable youth, Mad Magazine was getting off the ground and lurid pulp magazines requiring sexual humor were booming. Demand for less than tasteful "adult" humor was in demand. (Remember "cocktail napkins") In fact, one of Bilbrew's first jobs as an artist was replacing the recently drafted Jules Feiffer in the studio of noted cartoonist Will Eisner, who not only created the well-known comic strip "The Spirit" but also was one of the founders of the institution now known as the School of Visual Arts.

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Interview: Jules Feiffer Pt. 1 (The Daily Cross Hatch)

By The Daily Cross Hatch
July 21, 2008

One of the great things about interviewing the Jules Feiffer, from an editorial standpoint, is the fact that the legendary cartoonist invariably has some new project to speak about, between a seemingly endless parade of comics, plays, and books, all of which the artist thankfully continues to crank out, a mere six months away from his 80th birthday, to a bottomless stream of career retrospectives that publishers such as Fantagraphics seem to issue like clockwork.

Conducted with the artist after a recent appearance at The Strand Bookstore, just below Manhattan’s Union Square, this interview largely celebrates the latter, in light of the recent release of Explainers, a hardbound volume celebrating the early Village Voice strips that first put Feiffer on the map, released by the completists at the aforementioned indie comics publishing house.

After his discussion [video of which is available here], Feiffer happily signed several towering piles of books for admiring fans, from the aforementioned new Fantagraphics volume, to classics like The Phantom Tollbooth, to the poster for the black comedy, Little Murders, for which Feiffer penned the screenplay.

In this first of our two part interview, we discuss the roles that newspaper comics, Will Eisner, and the Korean War played in the genesis of Feiffer’s career.

You’ve recently completed work on the first draft of your memoirs.

Oh no–this is something like the second or third draft. It’s finished, but we’re in the editing process, which means that the editor is doing his edit, and I’m going over that and making changes and corrections, based on his suggestions, so that should be done within the next three or four weeks.

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Bob Andelman's "Mr. Media" podcast interview with Jules Feiffer is HERE!