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!

Why So Many Superheroes Are Drawn to New York (NYTimes.com)

By PETER GUTIERREZ
March 8, 2010

Gotham City, of course, was always a thinly veiled version of New York. So was Central City, stomping grounds of The Spirit, a non-superpowered but influential character created by a native Brooklynite, Will Eisner. Indeed, in their earliest appearances, both Batman (1939) and The Spirit (1940) were set in New York. Later, the locations were fictionalized to court a wider audience, but when the Caped Crusader or Denny Colt scrambled over rooftops or stalked shadowy alleyways, it was with a decidedly New York flair, romantic and hard-boiled at the same time.


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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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Happy Will Eisner Week! (Joel Vollmer)

Last year I celebrated with daily sketches of Spirit characters. This year felt like it needed something a bit bigger. Something a bit more polished. Here is step 1:

 

Click HERE to follow Joel Vollmer's progress!

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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Kevin Melrose's pick of the week: First Wave #1 (of 6)

I have little to no interest in Doc Savage, or a Spirit by anyone other than Will Eisner (or Darwyn Cooke). Yet I'm still intrigued by DC's "shocking new pulp universe" in which there's no supermen -- or, more specifically, Superman -- largely, if not entirely, because it's written by Brian Azzarello. In addition to being a fan of 100 Bullets, I hold an unwavering belief that Batman: Broken City, by Azzarello and Eduardo Risso, is superior in every way to the "Hush" storyline that preceded (and overshadowed) it. I'll fight anyone who says different. So I'm thrilled to read Azzarello again write Batman -- excuse me, "The Bat-Man" -- especially as a "brash, cocky, inexperienced and daring" vigilante. Also: the under-used, and under-appreciated, Blackhawks! (DC Comics)

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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.

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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.

"The pressure of creating comics isn't enough..." - an interview with Alex Robinson (KZET.pl)

Image via Wikipedia

KZ: What kind of a teacher Will Eisner was and what have you learnt from him?

A.R.: He was very patient, at least with me and my friends, who were very cocky at the time and probably were not as deferential to him as I would probably be now. We were young and thought we knew everything, but I'd like to think he took it in a good spirit. I think he really enjoyed teaching, since I imagine having to teach others is a good way of always thinking about what you're doing in your own work.

I don't think I made any impression on him. I was very lazy in school and didn't do as much work as I should have. When I bumped into him a few years later he was polite about it but he had hundreds of students over the years and I don't think I did anything that would've stuck with him.

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Will Eisner's John Law: Detective #1 (Eclipse Comics 1983)

DCWhoCares

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Being an Eisner fan, especially of the Spirit, I searched for this particular one-shot published by Eclipse for years, finally running across a copy of it a few weeks back at a local flea market for 50 cents. Basically rehashed Spirit stories....and that, my friends, in the hands of Eisner is not a bad thing at all.

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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 Events

By Admin

February 21, 2010 6:00 PM 

 

Amherst, MA at the University of Massachusetts
Don't miss Will Eisner's Ideals: A Panel Discussion on Comics and Society with Howard Cruse, Gary Hallgren and Sophia Wiedeman in Herter Hall Room 227 on Tuesday, March 2nd at 4:00PM. For more information visit Will Eisner's Ideals.

Philadelphia, PA at La Salle University
Visit the Community Gallery at the La Salle University Art Museum located on the lower level of Olney Hall to see their exhibition of Digital Art. For more information go to www.lasalle.edu/museum.

New York City at Columbia University
Visit Butler Library at the Columbia University campus in upper Manhattan to see their graphic novel exhibition. Seven themes are presented and for each theme an image from traditional art is matched with three images from graphic novels. For more information go to the Butler Library Blog.

Categories:

• Will Eisner Week

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Judging a book by it’s cover….. another Spirit series (Forbidden Planet International)

By Richard
February 10, 2010

Sometimes there’s some stunningly good cover artwork coming out from the big boys and girls, and the new Spirit series issues 1 & 2 by artist Ladronn are truly great:

The last time DC tried to do something with Will Eisner’s Spirit character they hired Darwyn Cooke & J. Bone to create a staggeringly good dozen issues. Sadly J. Bone couldn’t continue so Cooke walked away from the series, which limped on for a while with a host of very good artists who often just failed to properly “get” the character in the way Cooke & Bone so obviously did. Because there’s something so magnificently unique about Eisner’s mysterious champion, it’s always a double edged sword to hear about yet another revamp or return. The good news with the new Spirit series due from DC, aside from these gorgeous Ladronn covers, is that it’s main feature has Mark Schultz doing the writing. Schultz is one of those modern writers who seems to be a good fit for Eisner’s Spirit. The bad news – three issues is all we get of Schultz. (see this story from CBR). But at least Schultz, with these three issues seems to have the right idea for Denny Colt...

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Hogarth and Montana named to Eisner Hall of Fame (Comic Book Resources)

Image via Wikipedia

The Eisner Awards judges have selected legendary artists Burne Hogarth and Bob Montana for automatic induction this summer into the Will Eisner Comic Awards Hall of Fame.

Hogarth, who passed away in 1996, was an illustrator best known for his work on the Tarzan newspaper strip, an art educator and the author of influential anatomy and drawing books. Montana, who died in 1975, was the co-creator of Archie who drew the Riverdale gang for three decades.

The judges also chose 13 nominees from which voters may select four to be inducted into the Hall of Fame for 2010:

• Carl Burgos -- the late Golden Age-era artist and co-creator of the original Human Torch

• Steve Gerber -- the late writer and co-creator of Howard the Duck and Omega the Unknown

• Dick Giordano -- the artist and longtime DC Comics editor

• Michael Kaluta -- the artist best known for his work on Starstruck and The Shadow • Jack Kamen -- the late illustrator and prolific EC Comics artist

• Frans Masereel -- the late painter, woodcut artist and creator of Mon Livre d'Heures

• George McManus -- the late cartoonist and creator of Bringing Up Father

• Sheldon Moldoff -- one of Bob Kane's primary "ghost artists," and co-creator of Hawkgirl and Poison Ivy

• Marty Nodell -- the late artist and co-creator of the Golden Age Green Lantern • Bob Oksner -- the late artist known for his work on humor, adventure and superhero comics

• Bob Powell -- the late artist known for his work on Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, and Blackhawk

• Yoshihiro Tatsumi -- the creator of Abandon the Old in Tokyo, A Drifting Life and The Push Man and other stories

• Mort Weisinger -- the late and longtime DC Comics editor and co-creator of Aquaman, Green Arrow and Johnny Quick Online voting is open now through March 31.

The inductees will be announced during the Eisner Awards ceremony held July 23 during Comic-Con.
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