The Spirit novels: How I Spent My 10-Year Vacation by James Vance

The world of comics still cropped up from time to time in unexpected ways. Out of the blue, Howard Chaykin raised the possibility of representing Kings to TV producers. (Despite my respect for Howard, I passed. That book, to me, was ancient history, and I was frequently too stubborn for my own good in those days.) Kate still heard from the legion of Omaha fans, a large number of whom had formed an online group that thrives to this day. Vertige Graphic put out a beautiful – and unexpected – French reprint of Kings, and a Swedish version was reportedly in the works. And Will Eisner hired Kate and me to write a novel about The Spirit.
 

That Spirit project proved to be a revelation. Kate was a collaborator’s dream, turning out marvelous copy and urging me to take no prisoners in melding our alternate chapters into a uniform style. Though we were adapting someone else’s brainchild, in the process we were also doing real creative work for the first time in years, and it was inspiring to flex those muscles again. Will was happy with the final result, and our agents Denis Kitchen and Judy Hansen were urging us to write more novels of our own devising. I was shocked to find that the part of our lives that we’d packed away so unceremoniously turned out to still be exciting.

The only downside had been Kate’s inexplicable lapses in energy that slowed the process and occasionally frustrated all of us, Will included. But we’d managed to capture the essence of the feature in its late-‘40s prime, and – with an eye toward selling a series of Spirit novels – Will asked us for another. If we weren’t exactly back in comics, we were actively involved with its in-laws.

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Was 'The Spectre' inspired by Eisner's Spirit? (Blimey!)

"Believed to be dead but secretly living under a cemetery and emerging to fight crime, The Spectre was clearly inspired by Will Eisner's The Spirit in conception, if not in art."

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Santa's elves go on strike! (Yet Another Comics Blog)

Santa's elves go on strike on Will Eisner's cover to P.S. Magazine: The Preventive Maintenance Monthly #157 (1965).

Click HERE to see more!

Will Eisner Don Quixote sketch (SGrettis)

FitzWorldUS: New blog on Will Eisner and PS Magazine!

During its nearly six decades of publication, PS Magazine has survived numerous close-calls in confrontations involving art style, characterization, and reflections of military life that were considered by some authorities to be "to the prejudice of good order and discipline." Most of these dustups occurred in the magazine's first 21 years, the period when Will Eisner held the contract for providing creative art and pre-press production services. Some were resolved with abject capitulation, compromises were reached in others, and in many the solutions came from Eisner's artistic nimbleness and fancy footwork. The most effective and on-going solution was a strategic retreat into a time-warp or the worlds of literature, entertainment, and folk-lore...

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1958 Will Eisner “Spaceman Discovers Christmas” Comic (Andertoons.com)

Distributed by Ben Franklin Stores (and possibly other retailers). Rather than pages of product promotion, the complete comic is the story of a space alien named J.B. Grook who lands in his flying saucer and is escourted around town learning about what Christmas is all about (not a religious comic, rather giving to others, etc.). Produced by Will Eisner’s commercial studio, Promotional Publications, with art by and/or supervised by Eisner, creator of the Spirit.

Click here to keep reading at ANDERTOONS.com!

High-Res Will Eisner original Spirit pages (CHIUStream)

The website CHIUStream has high-res images from Will Eisner's "The Spirit" Sunday pages.


Check it out HERE!

Will Eisner Shows You How to Get a Job – Educational Comic Book Scans from 1969 (Cartoon SNAP)

“You’re Hired” is an educational comic by The Spirit’s Will Eisner.

Click HERE to jump to the entire eight-page instructional epic, originally published in 1969.

The typography of Will Eisner (PulpHope)

Baseline magazine's 1990 feature on the comics typography of Will Eisner. Baseline is an excellent design publication, I highly recommend it. They have long championed comics and poster art, every issue is good--some are amazing.

Click HERE to see examples of Eisner's typography!

Free Comics!: Will Eisner’s Complete Run of PS Magazine (Comix 411)

You’re probably familiar with Will Eisner‘s work on The Spirit, and maybe you’ve read The Contract With God trilogy, but are you familiar with his WWII panels for “Joe’s Dope Sheet”? Courtesy of Virginia Commonwealth University, 254 complete issues of Eisner’s work for PS magazine are available for viewing here. (Posted by Kris Madden, Comix 411)

Book captures spirit of magazine cartoonist (Redstone Rocket)

Legendary Will Eisner
illustrated PS Magazine

by Kelley Lane Sivley

Staff writer
kelleylanesivley@att.net

August 12, 2009 11:30 AM

As the Army's PS Magazine celebrates its 58th year in publication, a book about its history is hot off the presses.

The author, Paul Fitzgerald, tells the history of celebrated graphic novelist and artist Will Eisner, who spent 21 years bringing the material in PS Magazine to life.

"PS, the Preventive Maintenance Monthly has been in existence for over 58 years. In any organization that's been around that long, you run the risk of losing the institutional memories, the earliest anecdotes and stories, and the actual truth involved with your organization's origin," Stuart Henderson, production manager at PS Magazine, said. "None of our current staff members were with PS during those early years. I know of only four living people who were, and one of them is Paul Fitzgerald."

Fitzgerald served in the Army at the close of World War II. After his uniformed days were over, he went to West Virginia University and graduated in journalism. When one of his former professors took over editorship with PS Magazine, then located at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., he offered a newly created position to Fitzgerald.

"I was the managing editor of a weekly newspaper in Elkton, Md., which is about 20 miles north of Aberdeen Proving Ground," Fitzgerald said. "He reached out and recruited me as his managing editor. I was the first managing editor of PS Magazine."

Click HERE to Keep Reading!

Order Paul Fitzgerald's book only by clicking HERE!

Artist Eddie Campbell on Will Eisner and PS Magazine (The Fate of an Artist)

Sunday, 30 August 2009

The usual summary of comic book artist Will Eisner’s career follows the formula that he drew the Spirit all through the 1940s except for the war years and a bunch of ‘graphic novels’ from 1978 till the end of his life in 2005. There’s a long missing period between 1951 and 1978 during which he packaged and adapted cartoon art to commercial purposes, which has not been readily available for our scrutiny or pleasure. It is sometimes summarily dismissed as being of little interest.

The last time I wrote about Will Eisner’s 'middle period,' was in defence of the artist in a letter to the Comics Journal (#270) following publisher Gary Groth’s piece in their big Eisner obituary issue (#267) which could only be explained as spiteful. I though it was unnecessary, not because it was an inappropriate time, but because it was… unnecessary. Not wanting to allow my comments to stand isolated, Gary hemmed them in with another batch of his own (much as I am doing here in return), from which I quote:

“I’ve seen the litany of banal explanations for Eisner’s abandoning of the art form for the world of business… I acknowledge that it’s eminently possible that we have reached the point where a training manual for the pentagon or an informational educational story arguing against national health care is indistinguishable from an artist’s exploration of the human condition, and refraining from lamenting this state of affairs is not so much uncivilized as a bourgeois evasion.”

I cannot see, as I get further and further from my eleven-year-old self who first read Eisner in 1966, how the cranking out of a weekly comic book for twelve years about a mask-wearing hero can be art of a sort but turning the same techniques to an instructional magazine about equipment maintenance for living, working soldiers, cannot be. I’m sure Eisner and most reasonable beings saw and see them both as commercial enterprises.

Click HERE to Keep Reading!

Review: Will Eisner's "A Family Matter"

Publisher: WW Norton

2009, 72 pages, $15.95

By Ian Chant

A birthday. A reunion. A death in the family. These are the small stories captured so eloquently in A Family Matter, one of the last works of graphic fiction icon Will Eisner.

I learned to read on superhero comic books, and when I was still a kid they turned on me with a vengeance. The much maligned Spiderman ‘Clone Saga’ pushed me out of a lifetime of comics reading. But holed up in a public library one rainy northwest afternoon, Will Eisner brought me back to the fold. I picked up a copy of A Contract With God and got hooked all over again. Will Eisner’s stories of life in the tenements of New York proved that the funny pages of my youth could just as easily be a place for serious storytelling, for exploring, small, personal, everyday narratives with phenomenal grace and depth. A Family Matteris one of those stories, and while it doesn’t stand alongside the finest works in his catalog, Eisner’s evocative illustrations breathe real life into an otherwise banal story.

Like many of the tenement stories, A Family Matter is a melodrama, and it carries every burden that implies, occasionally bending under the weight of a storyline that can feel overwrought and dialogue that is frequently simplistic. The story moves along at a breakneck pace, and it is to its detriment that Eisner seems intent on covering too large a story in too brief a span. But it’s rendered gorgeously, the art work loosed from its traditionally paneled moorings, the images flowing naturalistically into one another. Scenes from the past and present collide, and the action of the tale occurs as much in the minds eye of its cast as it does in the here and now, a storytelling style that lends itself to Eisner’s flowing visuals. This loose, simultaneous storytelling brilliantly illuminates the unforgiven wrongs that lie just beneath the surface of too many family reunions. The wounds of the past constantly make themselves felt anew, forcing their way into the present against the wishes and better judgment of Eisner’s cast.

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Comix Friday: Will Eisner’s “new” releases (JWeekly.com)

Friday, July 31, 2009
by rachel freedenberg

It seems like every couple of months there's something new from Jewish comic legend Will Eisner arriving in our newsroom mailbox. Of course, none of it is actually new, but since 2005 W.W. Norton and Co. has been reprinting Eisner's works under the umbrella of the Will Eisner Library. The final books in the series have just been released, finishing off the library with 21 books, including 14 graphic novels.

The latest (and last) releases are "A Family Matter," "Life on Another Planet" and "Minor Miracles." None of these are as well-known as Eisner titles like "A Contract With God," "The Plot," "Comics and Sequential Art" and "The Spirit," but I'm sure they're plenty worthy to round out the series.

It might be blasphemy to admit this, but I've never much liked Eisner's drawing style - it's a little cartoony and exaggerated for me. But I'm looking forward to reading these books - particularly "A Family Matter," which looks dark and juicy.

Álbum de Will Eisner inaugura coleção dedicada às 'graphic novels' (Jornal do Brasil)

Marco Antonio Barbosa, JB Online

RIO - Há muitos apostos – todos positivos – que podem ser reunidos ao nome de Will Eisner. O quadrinista americano (1917-2005) é creditado como introdutor da influência da linguagem cinematográfica nas HQs. Criou um dos mais icônicos super-heróis de todos os tempos, o Spirit (1940). E foi um dos primeiros a apostar no formato hoje conhecido como graphic novel: histórias longas, narrativas adultas, abordagens literárias. Um dos mais interessantes aspectos de sua longa obra, entretanto, às vezes fica em segundo plano: seu papel como arguto observador do cotidiano urbano. É essa faceta que sobressai no belíssimo álbum Nova York: a vida na grande cidade (Tradução de Augusto Pacheco Calil. 440 páginas, R$ 55), que inaugura o Quadrinhos na Cia., novo selo da Companhia das Letras dedicado apenas à dita “arte sequencial”.

O calhamaço de mais de 400 páginas é, na verdade, a compilação de quatro graphic novels que o artista lançou num momento que, para qualquer outro artista, poderia ser considerado como “crepuscular”. No fim da década de 70, com mais de 40 anos de carreira nas costas, Eisner apostou firme no formato dos “romances gráficos”, combinando uma abordagem artística absolutamente realista com uma rara percepção da poesia (e do surrealismo) que se esconde nos becos e vielas desfavorecidos da Grande Maçã. Nova York, a grande cidade (1986), O edifício (1987) e Pessoas invisíveis (1993), além do Caderno de tipos urbanos (uma coleção de vinhetas essencialmente visuais sobre a cidade) estão no pacote.

Click HERE to Keep Reading (or Pretending)!

Happy 110th B-Day, "Busy" Arnold from Providence! (Examiner.com)

By Sam Gafford

Today, May 20th, is the 110th birthday of Everett "Busy" Arnold, one of the prime movers of the Golden Age of comics! And he was born in Providence, RI, to boot!

Growing up in Rhode Island, Everett had a nasty habit of talking in class which earned him the nickname, "busybody". Shortened to "Busy", it would stick with him for the rest of his life. After graduating from Brown University in 1921, "Busy" worked in various printing companies and was the Eastern sales representative for NYC's Goss Printing Company during which time he sold presses to Eastern Color Printing which would later publish the first American comic book, Famous Funnies #1, in 1934.

After investing in several comic book enterprises, "Busy" formed his own company (Comic Favorites, Inc.) in collaboration with three newspaper comic strip syndicates. In 1937, "Busy" published Feature Funnies which mixed reprints of popular comic strips like "Joe Palooka" with new material purchases from the new comic "studios". These "studios" were companies built solely to supply the exploding comics market with material that they produced and then sold to publishers. For most of his new material, "Busy" relied on the successfull Eisner and Iger studio. Unlike many other small publishers of the time, however, "Busy" also cultivated an 'in-house' staff of creators.

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Forgotten Will Eisner Photo @ SVA, 1978-79

From former Will Eisner student Brian Postman:

i just discovered this photo existed 2 days ago!....it's from 1978-1979,and it's will's class at sva...i'm in it to the right of will...also mike carlin, keith williams, mike clark, bob pizzo, bob dunn, kevin yenosonis.... this was taken by a classmate with mike clark's camera....this would have been a great photo for your book,but i know it's too late....anyway i thought you'd get a kick out of seeing it.

best,

brian

brianpostman.com/
comicartfans.com/GalleryRoom.asp?GSub=13619

Top comic-book minds pick New York’s finest (New York Magazine)

Image by annulla via Flickr

Blah, blah, blah... and then there's this:

Keith Mayerson, comics professor, SVA:
Will Eisner’s New York: Life in the Big City (Will Eisner, 2006)
“Classic stories of humans versus city-as-machine, by the comic-story master.”

Click HERE to Read the Entire Story!

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Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage hosts comic-book exhibit (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

Zap! Pow! Bam! The Super Hero: The Golden Age of Comic Books
What: An exhibit covering origins and history of comic books.
When: Through Jan. 4.
Where: The Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage, 2929 Richmond Road, Beachwood.
Info: For tickets and details, call 216-593-0575 or go to MaltzJewishMuseum.org.

by Michael Sangiacomo / Plain Dealer Reporter

Monday September 15, 2008, 11:59 PM

The single, framed piece of yellowed paper from the early 1940s is unique and priceless in the truest sense of the words. The page has Joe Shuster's story pencil drawings of Superman with an inscription by Jerry Siegel to Batman artist Jerry Robinson. Siegel quips that if he had seen Robinson's art first, he might have hired him to draw Superman. The creators of Superman sharing a moment with the guy who created The Joker.

A comic fan's dream.

That's just one of more than 100 pieces on display at The Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage, where "Zap! Pow! Bam! The Super Hero: The Golden Age of Comic Books, 1938-1950" exhibit begins Tuesday.

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Fitchburg State College launches Jewish lit series on Sept. 15 (Fitchburg Pride)

Fitchburg State College will explore themes of contemporary Jewish literature this school year by hosting a free five-part reading and discussion series called "Let's Talk About It: Jewish Literature - Identity and Imagination."

The series explores Jewish literature and culture through scholar-led discussions of contemporary and classic books on a common theme. The library's series will focus on the theme Modern Marvels and includes a series of graphic novels. Throughout the Modern Marvels theme, five Jewish artists experiment with words and pictures to tell stories of childhood, war, and desire; to conjure up lost worlds, both real and imaginary; and to contemplate history, myth, and the individual psyche.

The library is one of more than 250 libraries nationwide receiving grants to host the series developed by Nextbook and the American Library Association (ALA). Local support for the series is provided by CenterStage's New England Writers Series, by the Jewish Heritage Endowment and the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities.

The first program will bring graphic novelist Ben Katchor to campus to talk about his niche genre. The discussion is scheduled for Monday, Sept. 15 at 7 p.m. in Ellis White Lecture Hall of the Hammond Campus Center. It is free and open to the public.

The series continues with discussions on "Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer" on Sept. 23; "A Contract with God" by Will Eisner on Oct. 14; "Maus I/II" by Art Spiegelman on Oct. 28; and "The Quitter" by Harvey Pekar on Nov. 18. The series concludes with "The Rabbi's Cat" by Joann Sfar on Dec. 9.

All books are available for check-out at the college's Amelia V. Gallucci Cirio Library; as well as public libraries in Fitchburg, Leominster, Lunenburg, and Gardner; and libraries at Fitchburg High School and Leominster High School. Barnes & Noble in Leominster also has books available for purchase.

For details, please visit www.fsc.libguides.com/ltai, or contact librarian Sara Marks at (978) 665-3223 or at smarks@fsc.edu.-- SOURCE: Fitchburg Pride

Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed #167 (Comic Book Resources)

Here's a fun blog post, in which Brian Cronin shows that Will Eisner & Co. presciently predicted the bombing of Pearl Harbor in National Comics No. 18—which was published in November 1941 and, obviously, produced many months before that. The story was written by Gill Fox, with artwork by Lou Fine.

The only thing Eisner got wrong? He had Germany attacking the Hawaiian military base, not Japan!

Worth checking out!

Augusta, GA. Jewish literature series focuses on the graphic novel (Metro Spirit)

BY WILLICIA FARLEY

Modern Marvels: Jewish Adventures in the Graphic Novel
Reese Library, ASU
Monday, Sept. 8
6:30-8:30 p.m.
Free
706-729-2166
aug.edu

AUGUSTA, GA - Augusta State University library explores the world of Jewish literature in the series Modern Marvels: Jewish Adventures in the Graphic Novel, beginning on Monday, Sept. 8.

The "Let’s Talk About It: Jewish Literature" series is a program created by Next Book and the American Library Association. Government Document Librarian Yadira Payne is responsible for the program.

The first book to be discussed is “A Contract With God” by Will Eisner. According to Payne, this book was the first to hold the title as a graphic novel.

Click HERE to Keep Reading!

Review: 'Best Crime Comics' is killer (Los Angeles Times)

"The Mammoth Book of Best Crime Comics" Edited by Paul Gravett
(Running Press, softcover, $17.95)

Earlier this year, there was quite a stir of attention (and appropriately so) for author David Hajdu's latest book, "The Ten Cent Plague: the Great Comic-Book Scare and How it Changed America," which delved into the quirky and alarming crusades against comics in this country that reached their shrill peaks in the 1940s and 1950s. In a piece I wrote in the Los Angeles Times Book Review, I admired the research but had some problems with the focus in the final analysis. That said, the book and its tale really stuck with me, and I think it should be on the bookshelf of anyone who loves comics history. And you know what should go right next to it? "The Mammoth Book of Best Crime Comics" and not just because both have oddly long and stilted titles.

If Hajdu gives us the motivation for the pop-culture offenses, this book, edited by Paul Gravett, gives us the crime-scene photos, so to speak. The book arrived in the mail the other day and the first thing I noticed was the heft; you get your money's worth with 480 pages of two-timing molls, square-jawed cops, doomed losers and booze-soaked ciphers. There's an impressive array of talent surveyed here, too, with classic names such as Will Eisner, Jack Kirby, Bill Everett, Joe Simon, Jack Cole, Bernie Krigstein and Johnny Craig. More than that, "Best Crime" brings its lurid mission well into the contemporary decades, with comics work by Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Charles Burns and mystery novelist Max Allan Collins (whose "Road to Perdition" comics spawned the film of the same name).

Click HERE to Keep Reading the Review By Geoff Boucher!

New Book From Will Eisner: "Expressive Anatomy"

James Vance has written comics and written about comics during his career. Most recently, he has been an editor on the W.W. Norton series of Will Eisner graphic novel reissues. So it was interesting to see this blog post on the release of the third of Eisner's instructional books, Expressive Anatomy for Comics and Narrative:

Will didn’t live long enough to see this one completely finished – there are a few brief bits that were fleshed out by other contributors based on Will’s outline – but it’s still a valuable contribution and quintessential Eisner-as-teacher: chatty, didactic and charming, often all at the same time.

One of my freelance gigs over the past few years has been as copy editor of Norton’s Eisner library, a gig that’s been simultaneously an honor and occasionally just a bit terrifying.

Most of the work that’s been reprinted by Norton was originally published by Kitchen Sink Press (and therefore edited by the near-infallible Dave Schreiner), so the books were already in damned good shape. And I’d gotten a thumbs-up from Will back when I worked on the editing of the original edition of Dropsie Avenue – including a thank-you in the book’s introductory material (and believe me: Will was a gentleman, but he didn’t weasel around with overt gestures if he didn’t mean them) – so I didn’t feel like a complete horse’s ass when it came time to take a red pencil to his stuff. Still, it was Eisner…

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For more on the preparation of this book, check out my own interview with Pete Poplaski, who brought Eisner's notes and sketches together to complete this posthumous manuscript.

The Complete "Wonder Man" by Will Eisner, Online! (Tony Isabella)

Thanks to comic book blogger Tony Z, you can read the entire "Wonder Man" comic from May 1939, written and drawn by Will Eisner. He's posted the pages—reproduced from microfiche—on his new "Golden Age Heroes" blog. (EDITOR'S NOTE 9/2/08--YIKES! As you'll see in the comments below, I screwed up. This has corrected information!)

Here is the cover and splash page to whet your appetite:

Click HERE to Keep Reading!

The Spirit Section, Oct. 6, 1946 (The Blingdom of God)

Posted on The Blingdom of God