Comic Book Creator - Comic Book Artist (Vol. 2) #6 by PressPad

Affectionately dedicated to

“For the Celebration of Comics” SERVING READERS SINCE 1998

Jon B. Cooke EDITOR/CREATOR/DESIGNER

Chris Staros & Brett Warnock Top Shelf Productions PUBLISHERS Gene Kannenberg, Jr. SPECIAL CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Susan Cooke Anastasi ASSOCIATE PROOF READER George Khoury SENIOR ASSOCIATE EDITOR Christopher Irving ASSOCIATE EDITOR/CHIEF CORRESPONDENT Chris Knowles ASSOCIATE EDITOR Steven Tice TRANSCRIBER Greg Preston CBA PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHER

MASTHEAD AND COVER DESIGN Bissel & Titus www.bisseltitus.com CONTRIBUTING EDITORS David A. Roach Fred Hembeck Aaron Kashtan Joe McCabe TITLE ORIGINATOR/CBA CLASSIC LOGO Arlen Schumer CBA MASCOT Woody J.D. King ISSUE THEME SONG “The One I Love” David Gray COVER COLORIST Angus McKie COVER ARTIST

Dave Gibbons

Will’s best friend & loving wife

Mrs. Ann Eisner whose kindness & support will always be appreciated

The Eisner Legacy Yes, it was a shock. For us to lose someone that young, even if contained in an earthly vessel as old as his, the tragic news flash sent tremors through the comics world. “Will Eisner is dead.” Hardly four days into the new year and the most important innovator in the sequential art’s short history has been taken from us, abruptly wrenched from his afficionados the world over, his artist brethren, his friends, son John, and beloved wife Ann. With even a passing knowledge of the industrious Eisner, you’d also be convinced, like those well-versed, that however irrational the notion, Will was just too busy, possessing a schedule too full to find time to up and die. Yeah, Will was 87. So what? He still left far too young, on the cusp of a brand new era in a career overflowing with amazing firsts. A forthcoming book, The Plot, was a risky, brave move for such a seasoned veteran to be making, especially for one so established at the apex of his medium. This master of the form, this universally celebrated and expert storyteller, was descending from a comfortable perch, up there on that mountain peak, as one of the top graphic novelists and, in his way, betting the house and going for broke. If you had had the chance to speak with him about the book, however eager and excitable as the man was when discussing this latest passion, Will was worried — worried! — over how his new direction would be judged. The octogenarian was vividly aware he was embarking on a new advocation in sequential art, one that doesn’t yet even have a proper name. This new foray veered close to Jack “Jaxon” Jackson’s historical studies in comix. as well as to the words-&pictures journalism of Joe Sacco, but here was a rarely-seen academic view, with Will stretching himself. Not only was his intention to fervently expose a vicious, century-old anti-semitic tract (The Protocols of the Elders of Zion), in defense of his people as well as in service to the truth, but also perhaps a temptation taken to venture into The World Outside Comics, to perhaps gain attention of Manhattan literati, and take the Eisner influence one step further to venture into uncharted realms. When you come right down to it, Will was a competitive guy, if one with a certain noblesse oblige… y’know, with an old school quality. But ask anyone who debated him or opposed Mr. Eisner on a tennis court. The dude had chops. And on seeing that a peer, of whatever age or status, accomplish Something New, he took notice, got out those brushes, and proved to us all that there still was some moxy left in this wily old dog, one always ready to learn new tricks. So Will is gone. But studies of his achievements, searches for the meaning of his robust, well-lived life, and minute examinations of the amazing Eisner impact are only just getting started. And maybe what will ultimately endure about this delightfully gracious, kind, sparkling man with an exemplary body of work is his gift to us of a boundless curiosity to generations to come. Y’see, the man’s finest virtue might well have been a sincere enthusiasm when encountering fresh, new work (art that is often, I reckon, the result of being inspired by the comics of ol’ Will himself). Thus it’s nice to imagine future students of Eisner struck with epiphanies about their own life and their world when uncovering the perpetually fresh newness of his own artistry… and, their muses refueled, they trot off determined to do comics on their own terms and their own way. Maybe the ultimate lesson to learn from Will Eisner’s life is the same one shared by his two artist brethren, Harvey Kurtzman and Jack Kirby, might be: “First see through my eyes, then open yours.”

DEPARTMENTS Ye Ed’s Rant Blithe Spirit

Knowles Knows The Father To Us All 6

Khoury’s Corner Jackie Estrada on Eisner & the Eisners

Irving on the Inside Will Eisner’s superlatives in comics 10 Riding Shotgun Don McGregor on Will Eisner’s Stealth 12 Tribute Postscript Reflecting on this special tribute 232 Comic Book Chit-Chat The Plot R.C. Harvey examines the plot behind Will’s last work 233 R.C. Report A 1998 chat with Eisner on comics’ future 235 Kashtan Critique Aaron Kashtan’s review of The Plot 238

FEATURES Will Eisner The Passing of a Sequential Art Master 15 And so begins CBA’s celebration of the man and his work

Good Will by David Hajdu 20

Will Eisner: Master Storyteller Interview 28 Ann Eisner: “Just My Will” Interview 40

Paying Homage The comics world remembers Eisner 50

Testimonials, pin-ups, comics strips, anecdotes, rarities, color galleries, illustrations, portraits, photo galleries, eulogies and much more are shared by some 250 or so friends of Will, the famous and the unknown, from all walks of life, aged (almost) nine to ninety

Interviews The Eisner Legacy Talks with Jules Feiffer, Art Spiegelman & Scott McCloud 109

Friends of Will Contributor biographies 240 ON OUR COVER: Dave Gibbons contributes the pencils and inks, and Angus McKie the colors for our poignant homage of a classic splash page of The Spirit, now in mourning as the crime-fighter grieves the loss of his legendary creator, William Erwin Eisner, who passed away on January 3, 2005. The Spirit is ©2005 the Estate of Will Eisner. COMIC BOOK ARTIST™ is published as often as possible by Top Shelf Productions, P.O. Box 1282, Marietta, GA 30061-1282 USA. Jon B. Cooke, Editor. Chris Staros & Brett Warnock, Publishers. Editorial Office: P.O. Box 204, 3706 Kingstown Road, West Kingston, RI 02892-0204 USA • 401-783-1669 • Fax: (401) 783-1287. E-mail: JonBCooke@aol.com. Subscriptions are currently unavailable. All characters © their respective copyright holders. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © their respective authors. ©2005 Jon B. Cooke. First Printing. PRINTED IN CANADA.

THIS PAGE: Slightly altered William Stout illustration, originally used as the cover for Southern California’s Comic Art Professional Society (CAPS) souvenir book commemorating their July 22, 1995 banquet honoring Will Eisner. Courtesy of the artist with thanks to Jerry Ordway. Art ©2005 William Stout. The Spirit ©2005 the Estate of Will Eisner

ABOVE: Will Eisner in his Tudor City studio, 1941. Courtesy Marisa Furtado.

When the weather report called for thunder showers, Will Eisner liked to find a good bookstore and wait out the storm, browsing through the aisles. He found contentment in the presence of the books, insulated from the earthly to-do outside; cocooned

inthe realmof words and pictures, and in his self-imposed entrapment, he permitted himself to idle without feeling guilty for not using the time to create a new book himself. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I derive great satisfaction from being in the good company of great books,â&#x20AC;? Eisner said.

In the autumn of 2003, a year before Eisner died, he came to New York from southeastern Florida, where he had lived since

BuILDINg, A coNtrAct WItH goD, FAMILY MAttEr ,

1984 with his wife Ann. Eisner had a few days of appointments

INvISIBLE PEoPLE, and MINor MIrAcLES — like Fagin, sober

with business contacts such as a publicist for one of his several

works, were stacked next to several volumes of SPIrIt ArcHIvES.

publishers (Doubleday) and a handful of the countless friends he

I expected Eisner to be satisfied, if not delighted, with the way

had made over the course of his six decades as one of the most

his work was represented. He glowered.

revered figures in comics and their Au courANt offshoot,

moaned. “I’m happy that there’s a graphic novels section. But

his custom. (Eisner, who dropped out of DeWitt High School in

that’s not where I want to be. I don’t want my work to be bought

his native Bronx shortly before graduation to help support his

because it’s a graphic novel. I want it to be bought because it’s a

family during the Depression, was welcomed into the club as a

piece of literature — visual literature or graphic literature, maybe.

distinguished leader in his field.) With grey clouds threatening

But I want it to be thought of as literature. I don’t want to be with

promisingly over midtown Manhattan, Eisner walked a few

the super-heroes.” Eisner poked around and saw that the Fiction

blocks up Fifth Avenue to a Barnes and Noble store and hurried

and Literature section was located directly behind the graphic-

in, eager to get stranded. “Let’s find the literature section,” he

novel shelves. there was a display table at the end of the row of

said, and I followed him. As we wandered, we came upon a rack

book cases they shared, and it had piles of copies of PErSEPoLIS,

of graphic novels, where his own books were shelved for sale.

the graphic novel by the young Iranian artist and writer Marjane

Eisner stopped and hunched over to study the covers of the books

Satrapi. “tHAt’S where I want to be,” Eisner announced. “I want

on display. He appeared to be shriveling before me.

to be where that book is — in the area between the comics and

BrucE WAYNE, FugItIvE, uNcANNY X-MEN voL. 3:

CBA V.2 #6

“After all these years, they still put me with Batman,” he

graphic novels. He was staying at the Princeton club, as was

on the top shelf, there were a few copies of BAtMAN:

the shelves below, five of Eisner’s earlier graphic novels — tHE

literature. I wonder how that book got there.” the fact is, every one of the seemingly countless graphic

HoLY WAr, and other titles of their kind: hard-bound cousins of

novelists and serious comics artists working today (Satrapi

traditional super-hero comic books. Alongside these were some

included) got where they are largely because of Will Eisner. He

funky, quirky graphic novels, such as Adrian tomine’s oPtIc

was one of the earliest pioneers and primary innovators in the

NErvE and Daniel clowes’ wildly popular gHoSt WorLD.

comics art, a groundbreaking artist and writer of the medium’s

Standing upright in the midst of them all, with its cover facing

primordial days in the mid-1930s as well as half-owner of a prolific

forward, was the latest graphic novel by Will Eisner, FAgIN tHE

and influential comics art studio, Eisner and Iger, at the same

JEW. A sympathetic fictional biography of the Dickens character,

time. (As the company’s creative director, Eisner rejected the

extrapolated from oLIvEr tWISt, fleshed out through Eisner’s

original proposal for Superman as “amateurish” and sloughed off

imagination and historical research, and shorn of the 19th-century

its teenage creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, to another out-

novel’s anto-semitism. FAgIN was a quiet, earnest book, its

fit that would become Dc comics; seven decades later, he was

drawings rendered in soft brown ink lines and wash; there was

still dismissing Superman and his innumerable descendants as

nothing quite like it in Barnes and Noble’s graphic-novel’s sec-

something beneath his lofty view of the comics’ potential.) By

tion, there being little like it in contemporary comics. on one of

1939, Eisner had created his first masterpiece, tHE SPIrIt.

will eisner THE C REATIV E LIFE OF A MASTER , If you re intently rea ding thi s i ssu e of CBA, you kn ow th at William Erwin Ei sn er simply n eed s n o introdu cti on . Th e following ca reer-spanning intervi ew wa s c on du cted in New York City for th e Montilla Pi ctu res d ocum enta ry, Will Ei sn er: Th e Spirit of An Arti sti c Pi on eer, in th e ea rly m onth s of 2oo2. Comic Book Artist: Where’s your family originally from, Will? Will Eisner: My father came from Vienna, born in Europe. At the age of 13 or 14, he was apprenticed to a painter in the city, painting the insides of churches. As you know, Austria is a big Catholic country, and churches abound. So here’s this nice little Jewish boy painting cherubim and clouds in a Christian church. He came to America around, I think, 1915, about two years before I was born, and he was painting stage sets for the Yiddish theater in New York. That’s a big transition. My mother was born coming over on the boat from Romania, strangely enough. [chuckles] So she was much more American than he was, but he was really a fine, gentle fellow who had originally wanted to be a painter. He was the family intellectual, but was never able to make a living at it, and so he went on into business later on in life. I grew up in New York City, where we lived, going from borough to borough until, finally, I emerged in the Bronx, where I went to high school. CBA: What were your parents’ names? Will: My father’s was Samuel. My mother’s name was Fanny. Her last name was Ingber. I was told by my mother, at one point, that they had been second or third cousins, which is how they were introduced here in America. CBA: Fanny was from Romania? Will: And he was from Austria, yes. He spoke both Yiddish and German; she spoke only English. CBA: Did they have people over here? Will: They had brothers and sisters here, which is the way they came over most in those days. They would come over here, assisted by a brother or a sister who came here first. So my father had two sisters and two brothers here that I know of. I never saw much of them, myself. CBA: Was your family Orthodox Jewish? Will: No, they were Jewish, but didn’t practice Orthodoxy. My family was not an Orthodox Jewish family. We did have Friday nights and, for the holidays, we would go to a shul, a synagogue. But beyond that we did not observe the dietary laws as closely as most Jews who came over at that

34 CBA V.2 #6

time. So my family was, I guess… [chuckles] we were lapsed Orthodox. CBA: Are you the oldest in the family? Will: I was the oldest, with a younger brother and sister. My sister was 14 years younger than I, and my brother is four years younger. My sister just died, and my brother still works with me in the studio. Nobody else in my family was interested in art, particularly. My brother’s contribution in the studio is handling business affairs, managing exhibitions, managing insurance, invoicing, and all the business controls. But he’s not an artist; he’s never been interested. He’s been with me for many, many years. CBA: Since the ’40s? Will: As a matter of fact, in the last six months of Eisner & Iger, he was there. Then he went into the Army shortly after I did, and when he came out, he worked for a while in the clothing field. Then he came to work for me in 1950, I believe, when I was starting an industrial comics application called American Visuals Corporation. He had a couple of years of Accounting at New York University so he could come in and handle the books, which became necessary at that time. So he’s been with me ever since. There were ten years in which he worked for a Southern regional manager at the Dannon Yogurt Company between 1970 and ’80, so for about ten years he worked elsewhere. Then, when I moved down to Florida, he was retired by then. I asked him to come hang out in my shop and he did. And so he’s still with me. [Will’s brother passed away in 2004.] CBA: What’s his name? Will: Actually, his real name is Julian, but I call him “Pete.” As a matter of fact, in the book The Heart of the Storm, my autobiographical graphic “novel,” I tell how he got the name “Pete.” We’d just moved to a new neighborhood in the Bronx; it turned out to be a rather tough neighborhood. And I came downstairs the first day — I must have been about ten, about 12 years old at the time, and my brother was eight or nine, four years younger — and we came downstairs holding hands, and there were three or four guys standing there, very tough operators. They asked me who I was, and I said,

Interview con du cted by Jon B. Cooke Transcribed by Steve Tice

OPPOSITE: Courtesy of professional photographer Greg Preston, a portrait of the master. ©2005 Greg Preston. ABOVE: Self-portrait by Will Eisner, drawn for his interview in Heavy Metal, Nov. 1983. Courtesy of former HM art director, John Workman. ©2005 the Estate of Will Eisner.

“I just moved here.” They said, “Yeah, you’re a new kid.” And this was kind of an anti-semitic group and they said, “Are you a Jew?” And I said, “Yeah, I’m a Jew,” and they laughed. They said, “We don’t want you around here in this neighborhood.” I said, “I’m sorry. We just moved here.” Anyway, he turned to the kid and they said, “Is that your brother?” I said, “Yeah.” And they said, “What’s his name?” And I said, “Julian.” And they said, “Ah, Jew, Jew,” and they laughed. Well anyway, I got mad and slugged one of them. We got into a big fight and, of course, the four guys beat the hell out of me and I came upstairs with a bloody nose and a black eye and dragging my brother upstairs. And I turned to him and I said, “From now on, your name is ‘Pete.’” [laughter] And that was the way it came about. CBA: Nice Christian name? Will: Well, it was what I thought would be a name that would pass. CBA: Is Will your birth name? Will: Yes, it’s short for “William.” CBA: Where were you born? Will: I was born in Manhattan, in the Williamsburg area. We moved from there to Brooklyn; then to New Jersey. It was New Jersey where my father was working in a factory, painting beds. He was a grainer by then. He’d left the theater business. A grainer, in those days — this was before the photographic imagery that they put on wood and so forth, Masonite. His ability was to emulate all kinds of woods. He could emulate mahogany and walnut with great brilliance. And the companies in those days who were making brass beds were eager to make them look like wood, because brass beds, at that time, were considered junk. And so that was his job, to paint these beds and make them look like wooden beds. I think I went to kindergarten and elementary school there, but we lasted there about three or four years, and then went back to Brooklyn. By then, my father had become a house painter, which lasted a couple of years, and then he went into the fur business as a fur manufacturer. From there, we moved to the Bronx. We were always moving to places where the rent was cheaper. In those days, you could get an apartment and the owner of the apartment building would give you a twomonths’ concession. So if you moved from place to place after your lease was up, and you kept getting the two months free… but anyway, that was it. He was a dear man, a fine man who was very supportive of me, and Mother had grave doubts about how I would end up. She was eternally shocked when I went to art school and came home with a painting of a nude woman. She couldn’t understand how they would allow 16-year old boys to “watch naked women,” which is how she said it. And Father, he tried patiently to explain to her that this is the way art schools worked. Anyway, my relationship with my father was always very good. He was very supportive and tried to get me into art schools of one kind or another since he couldn’t afford it, and he was always looking for an art school that was either cheap or free. Then, of course, I went to DeWitt-Clinton High School in the Bronx where I graduated. CBA: Did you have memorable classmates there? Will: Yes, Bob Kane. He and I were pretty close. He was the other cartoonist in school. What started me off on my career in DeWitt-Clinton was the fact that I had a comic

36 CBA V.2 #6

strip in the school newspaper. I was on the staff of the school newspaper, and I learned then that, wow, this is great stuff. So Bob and I were schoolmates, or — as he referred to it later in a biography or an interview that he gave — we were “chums.” [laughs] Sounds like something out of Frank Merriwell. CBA: When people had “chums.” Who was Bob Kane? Will: Bob Kane? I don’t know. He’d do a thing called “Batman.” I don’t know whatever happened to that feature, but… [laughter] CBA: In the neighborhoods you were growing up in, were the residents of mixed races and religions, or did you live in Jewish neighborhoods? Will: The neighborhoods that I grew up in were mostly mixed-ethnic. Generally, we moved into neighborhoods where there were no Jews. The Upper Bronx, we moved into an Italian-Irish neighborhood. In New Jersey, it was an Irish neighborhood. But then, later on, we began to move into Jewish neighborhoods. After I started high school, we moved into the eastern side of Bronx, near the Concourse, and that had Jewish neighborhoods, essentially. So I had an opportunity to see tenement life, although I never actually lived inside of the kind of seedy tenements that I’d draw. But I knew about them very well. I’d visit people and we had friends in them. And also, I lived in apartment buildings where a number of things occurred that I was able to use later. For example, in A Contract With God, there’s a sequence called “The Street Singer.” Now, I remember living on the fourth or fifth floor in an apartment house, and in the alleys, these guys would come by and sing. People would throw them nickels or pennies or dimes. And so, a lot of almost everything I write about is something that I’ve either experienced first-hand, or saw, or knew about, so I built an entire source about the inventory of materials that I have; the stories have come from real experience. CBA: Did you have any tradition of going to Yiddish theater? Will: The only Yiddish theater I went to was when my father was painting one. I was still very tiny and he would bring me along to watch him paint. He would sit on a tall ladder and would paint — he was good at trompe l’oeil. In those days there, the Yiddish theater couldn’t afford elaborate sets. So what they would have was a sheet — the equivalent of oilcloth — used as a backdrop. On it was painted a street scene that looked like it was going off into a distance, and actors would stand in front of it. That was the kind of stuff my father painted, very much like the Vaudeville. I saw a lot of Vaudeville. He used to take me to theater a lot. He was very fond of live theater. CBA: Did you attend live theater? Will: I attended a lot of live theater with him. He took me to a lot of theater. Of course, he was very conscious of the changing media, because my father took me to the first talking sound film after the Al Jolson film (The Jazz Singer). That was called The Lion and the Mouse, and Lionel Barrymore was the starring actor. It was a story about Wall Street, and the Lion was Barrymore, a kind of J.P. Morgan-type character. I remember my father saying to me, “Now, you see that? Now, that’s the way movies will be in the future.” He also took me to a lot of concerts. He was very interested in music and actually, my mother wanted me to play an instrument, so they bought, I think for $1.50, a violin. For 25¢ cents a week, I had lessons for a short time. A woman would come by, a lady violinist. The only thing I remember about her is she had very short thumbs. [laughs] And I did that for a while, but then gave up. I was not really interested. I also did a lot of reading. My early reading, beginning with the fifth or sixth grade in elementary school, were the classics and pulp magazines. In those days, the pulps were a great source of popular literature. My parents were terrified that I was reading that material. They were objecting and felt it was junk and I shouldn’t be reading this, but the great classics, (which I did read, as well). There was a policeman who lived two flights up from us, who used to give me copies of Flynn’s Detective, a pulp magazine at that time, and I’d read them. I would read them at night, under the covers, you know. But that, and the short stories of the period, were very accessible to me.

just my will AN INTERV IEW W ITH AN N EISN ER Superlatives about Will Eisn er are ea sy to prattle off, but on e littlekn own , yet brilliant a spect of thi s great a rti st wa s hi s 5 O-plu s yea r marria ge to his d elightful, smart, funny an d viva ci ou s wife, Ann , better h alf of Th e Will an d Ann Sh ow. Th e form er Miss Ann Weingarten wa s intervi ewed by teleph on e in September 2oo5. Comic Book Artist: Where are you from originally, Ann? Ann Eisner: New York City. I grew up on Manhattan, though I went to boarding school for three years in Washington, Connecticut (which is no longer there, it’s defunct… can you imagine having your school gone from under you?) It was a small girl’s boarding school and I attended during my high school years. I wanted to go there. CBA: Why did you want to go there? Just to get out of the city? Ann: Because I was a maverick and never did what was expected of me. I wasn’t bad; I just was different. CBA: Were you a tomboy? Ann: Yes, more or less. Of the three girls, I was the athletic one. CBA: What has become of your sisters? Ann: My oldest sister was actually my half-sister, but she and I were very, very close. Both my sisters are gone now. My older sister died about five months before Will. My younger sister, who lived in Orlando, died in 1992. CBA: Did you have any creative people in your family? Ann: No. My father was very successful, but he wasn’t particularly creative. He liked art, but he didn’t take me to a lot of museums, concerts or the theatre, though I did develop some interest in art on my own, but it wasn’t a driving interest. I just always enjoy art and going to museums. CBA: Growing up in Manhattan, were you exposed to creative types? Ann: Somewhat. CBA: As a kid, what were your interests? Ann: Mostly reading. CBA: Was it fun to grow up in New York City? Ann: No, I don’t think so. When Will and I used to talk about our early lives, I used to envy his having played stoopball and running around with the neighborhood kids (even though he was beaten up once in a while). [laughter] There were gangs of kids… you’ve read about it in Will’s work. I was an underprivileged-slash-over-privileged person: Somebody always had to walk me to the park and that kind of thing. CBA: You were a poor little rich girl? Ann: Exactly. CBA: Was yours a wealthy family? Ann: No, we were comfortable, though we were certainly wealthy compared to Will’s family.

48 CBA V.2 #6

CBA: What was your father’s job? Ann: He had his own stock brokerage firm, on Fifth Avenue, with a branch office in Fordham. CBA: Did you have a lot of friends in the neighborhood? Ann: No, because you couldn’t really play on Park Avenue. When you were quite young, you had to be escorted to play dates with your friends, because you couldn’t walk any long way alone. I went to a lot of different schools and the friends I would have would only be shortterm friends before boarding school. CBA: So did you assimilate over time that there was something more than this Park Avenue life? Ann: Yes. How that came about was, after boarding school, I went to college at Barnard and lasted a year. By that time, I said, “I don’t want to study anymore,” and my father said, “None of my daughters is going to sit around and do nothing, so you’ll have to do something.” So I went to secretarial college for a year and then I got a job, where I discovered that there was another world beyond where I had come from. I met all sorts of nice people and I pretended that I lived somewhere else — because I didn’t want people to think of me as over-privileged, I guess — encountering all sorts of wonderful people who did interesting things. I just thought they were much more interesting than my life. CBA: How did your family fare during the Great Depression? Ann: My father lost most of his money, but we were still able to live well. CBA: Do you recall those days at all? Ann: No, because I was quite young. I was born in 1923, so I was pretty young when the Crash happened. CBA: Was your family political? Ann: Oh, yes! My father was an avid Republican! CBA: Were there heated words at the dinner table about Roosevelt and the New Deal? Ann: Absolutely! As a matter of fact, the first time I voted was in 1948 and I voted for Harry Truman. I thought my father was going to throw me out of the house! CBA: [Laughs] During World War II… Ann: I worked for the U.S. Navy in WWII, in New York, very near my home. I was in the civil service, Naval Public Relations Radio. I think it was the Ninth Naval Distinct. I was a secretary and I enjoyed it. It was fun.

Interview con du cted by Jon B. Cooke

CBA: Were you determined to be self-sufficient? Ann: I tried. The values that my mother held were not mine. My mother was a very beautiful woman, and she was interested in looks and clothes and manners, and things like that. As I said, I was a maverick. CBA: Where do you think you got that quality? Ann: I have no idea. I just knew that I didn’t want any part of that. But I didn’t know there was anything different until I went out into the world. I just found that these people in the world outside were much more interesting. CBA: Did you go to the movies? Ann: Oh, yes. I saw Now, Voyager nine times… I loved that romantic element, with the two cigarettes Paul Henreid would light… all that stuff. CBA: Did you make up for lost time with the cosmopolitan culture? Did you go to Broadway? Ann: I did go to Broadway shows. My father used to reserve tickets at Radio City Music Hall when the new movies would be announced. Because of my father’s business, my parents were very social. They were out most nights or entertaining guests at home, so my sisters and I were pretty much left to ourselves. Don’t misunderstand me: We weren’t neglected, not at all, but I certainly wasn’t interested in what my parents were doing. CBA: Did you meet any of the important people of the day? Financiers or politicians? Ann: Possibly, but I don’t remember. I do recall when I was in fourth grade, my father had a group of men over and I was listening to their conversation . They were talking about who the richest man in the world was, and I was very impressed. The names of John D. Rockefeller and Henry Ford came up. About a week later, I was in school and the teacher asked, “Does anyone know who the richest man in the world is?” Of course, I spoke up [laughs] and I was brilliant! The teacher was very impressed, not knowing I had just overheard a conversation. CBA: Insider information. You’re Jewish? Ann: Yes. On both sides of my family, the great-grandparents came to America from Germany. CBA: With Hitler’s rise to power, were you cognizant at all regarding the worsening situation for Jews? Ann: Well, I never thought of myself as anything but an American, though my father did sponsor something like 99 relatives to leave Germany and settle here, swearing under oath that these immigrants would not become a public charge. CBA: What is your maiden name? Ann: Weingarten. CBA: Did you encounter anti-semitism growing up? Ann: Not really. At the boarding school, I was one of two Jewish girls, and once I remember a girl asking me, as we were going home on vacation, “Are you Jewish?” I said, “Yes,” and that was it. So I think she must have gone home and mentioned my name. CBA: “Ma, I know one!” [laughter] Did you go to Temple? Ann: I went to Sunday school and was confirmed when I was 13, but we only went to Temple on high holy days; we did not go on a regular basis.

CBA: Did you have a bat mitzvah? Ann: No. Reformed Jews did not do that in those days. CBA: How much older is your sister? Ann: She was seven-and-a-half years older. My father had been previously married and his first wife died in the flu epidemic of 1918, and he married my mother a year or so later. CBA: She was your half-sister? Ann: Yes, but we were more in-tune and alike than I was with my “real” sister, who was only two years younger. CBA: How would you describe your relationship with your older sister? Ann: Oh, we were very close. As a matter of fact, my older sister was married three times. Her first husband died when she was just 32 and her second husband, Jerry (who adopted her boys, Allan and Carl, from the first marriage), was a friend of Will. Then Jerry died — my sister used to joke that she was married in 1941, ’51, and ’71 — and she married a widower, Harold, four or five years later. She had three wonderful husbands. Her first husband died before I met Will, but she and her second husband and Will saw a lot of each other, though they lived sort of a different life than we did. CBA: In 1941, when she was married for the first time, was it a swanky affair? Ann: No, it was a nice, small wedding. That was it. CBA: You went to secretarial school? Ann: Yes, but one didn’t move out on one’s own, as a single woman, in those days! CBA: How did you meet Will? Ann: You really want to hear this long story? [laughter] Let’s see… my younger sister, who was similar to my mother — very beautiful — and all the boys were after her. (In those days, you didn’t have one boyfriend; you went out with a bunch of different guys, if you were lucky — Tom one night, Dick another night.) My sister was very, very popular, and one of the guys she would date was named Arthur. One night they were in the living room talking and I came in from a date or something — I came in late — and this was in August, 1949. I said that I would love to go up and visit my sister, Susan, who was then widowed and in Maine for the summer. I worked at Paramount Pictures at the time and said I would be able to get a day off from work, but I didn’t know how I would get there. (In those days you didn’t fly the way you do now.) Then Arthur said, “Oh, this friend and I are going up to Maine for the weekend, and I’m sure he will be glad to give you a lift.” Well, the friend was Will, and Will was not at all happy to give me a lift. Arthur and Will were in there way to a sort-of adult, singles camp type of place, where they would have a very good time. Where my sister was staying with her two boys was a family-type place. Anyway, Arthur said to Will, “Would you like to take this girl up to Maine with us.” Will said, “No, I don’t want to take this girl! We’re going to meet plenty of girls up there.” Now, Arthur was a Boy Scout, okay? So he kept asking Will and finally Will said to him, “Arthur, did you make a promise?” Arthur said, “Sort of.” Will was very annoyed and then he remembered that Jerry Gropper, who was also a friend of both, was going up to the Sunset Inn, where my sister was, to visit his sister, who was up there with her

OPPOSITE PAGE: June, 15, 1950: The wedding of Will and Ann Eisner. Photo courtesy of Ann. ABOVE: As refered to in Ann’s interview, the splash page to “Sammy and Delilah,” The Spirit section, March 5, 1950. ©2005 the Estate of Will Eisner.

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paying homage

Jed Alexan d er

TRIBUTES TO THE GREAT W ILL EISNER Most anyon e outsi d e c omi cs might pu zzle over h ow n ews of th e d eath of Will Ei sn er, an eighty-seven year old man , c ould so genuin ely surpri se an entire creative c ommunity… but th e fa ct i s, h owever irrati onal th e n oti on , many of hi s fri en d s, fan s an d fellow creators were c onvin ced th at th e sequ ential art ma ster would simply live forever. How c ould h e n ot, bu sy a s Will wa s? Thu s, th e sa d n ews of Jan. 3, 2oo5 sent unpreced ented sh ockwaves through out th e c omi cs world . Within two d ays of hi s pa ssing, Comi c B ook Arti st ma ga zin e, put out a call for testim onials an d artwork celebrating th e life an d lega cy of Will Ei sn er. Respon se wa s n othing sh ort of awe-in spiring, with material submitted from aroun d th e globe, written an d drawn by people from in si d e c omi cs an d out. W h at follows, in m ore or less alph abeti cal ord er, i s th e avalan ch e of th eir h eartfelt efforts, m ost every on e professing an a ffecti on an d a dmirati on for good Will Ei sn er.

Ni ck Aba d zis writer/artist

I met Will Eisner at SPX in 2000. Not knowing what to expect from the festival, I’d bought with me from the UK a pathetically small selection of my books, including a couple of graphic novels I’d done for a kids’ literacy scheme. They were not what I considered my best work, not by a long stretch, being as they were committed to paper under a ridiculously tight deadline. But at the time they were all I had. Mr. Eisner stopped by my table and surveyed the little that was on show, commenting with great grace and gentleness

how much he liked the covers of those kids’ books. I was dumbstruck, as is my usual, initial (and often ongoing) state when meeting heroes of mine. He started leafing through the books. “Please, Mr. Eisner,” I managed. “Take a copy or two.” He smiled and accepted, and continued to leaf through the books, taking real time over some of those pages. Finally, he closed them, looked at me, and winked. “Oh my,” he said. “I’ve gotta watch my back, what with all this talent coming up behind me…” Godspeed, Will.

Mi ch a el Allred writer/artist

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Will Eisner was the first legend I ever met. He was a wonderful and truly great man. Like Charles Schulz and Jack Kirby (other major influences in my life), you’d be hard pressed to ever find anyone who could say anything bad about them, and you’d find a limitless number of people who would happily sing their praises. That’s cause for celebration. A life well lived. Yes, he was one the greatest pioneers in the storytelling biz and his influence is priceless. But, for me personally, he set an example on how to be a gentleman, which I still strive for today. In 1989 Laura and I were living in Ramstein, Germany where I covered human interest stories for AFRTS television in Europe. We had driven up to Frankfurt, where the film Comic Book Confidential was being shown, and Will Eisner was making an appearance to promote it. We got to the comic shop early (where Will was going to do a signing) and saw a terrific poster there for the film with several illustrations of comic-book characters to coincide with the creators featured. In a jumble of German and English, I asked how I could get one of the posters, and we were sent to the theater where the film would be playing. We had lots of time before the signing, so we set out to try and get a poster. When we got to the cinema we banged on the glass doors, and someone opened up to see what we wanted. Again we mixed German and English and used lots of hand gestures towards a displayed poster; the man finally smiled, nodded and escorted us in. When we rounded a corner we were shocked to see Will Eisner and his wife twiddling their thumbs, waiting to be taken somewhere… anywhere. The man who let us in must have thought we were there to see Will. When we introduced ourselves the Eisners shot to their feet and seemed as thrilled to see us as us them (possibly the comfort of hearing unbroken English). We had a terrific, uninterrupted conversation that went on for quite a while until it was time to gather them up for the signing. In that time I was able to show Will my first comic book work, Dead Air, which I was finishing up at that time. I, of course, thought it Art ©2005 Jed Alexander. The Spirit ©2005 the Estate of Will Eisner.

Gerry Alanguilan

Art ÂŠ2005 Gerry Alangulian.

B ob An d elman

will eisner remembered BOB ANDELMAN ON A SPIRITED LIFE The thing you must know about Will Eisner is that he worked all the time. And yet he never worked at all. For the legendary comics and graphic novel artist, who died recently in Fort Lauderdale at the age of 87, it was all about the work. As Eisner’s authorized biographer, I spent the last three years with the artist in his studio and his home, as well as poring through his substantial archives at The Ohio State University Cartoon Research Library and interviewing dozens of his colleagues, friends and family. We should all be lucky enough to have left such consistent and positive impressions on so many people for so many years. Small talk wasn’t Eisner’s bag. While knowledgeable and articulate on virtually any subject from politics to baseball, he preferred thinking and talking about his next project, the next book, new presentation concepts — anything that represented productivity. In May 2004 I spent a day in Sarasota with Eisner at the Ringling School of Art and Design, where he was the featured speaker at the “Comics Summit on Diversity.” After a full day on his feet, lecturing students, reviewing and offering comments on dozens of art portfolios, I drove him back to Tampa International Airport. On the way, instead of taking a nap as most 87-year-olds might, he excitedly told me that he was starting work on his next instructional book, Expressive Anatomy. Not surprising; almost every student he met received a personal lecture on the importance of studying anatomy. (The book was mostly complete at the time of his death.) This was a man for whom artistic invention came as naturally as brushing his teeth. He could not only see the forest for the trees, he knew — like his 1937 creation, Sheena, Queen of the Jungle — which vines could carry him effortlessly through the woods without ever touching the jungle floor. Will Eisner didn’t create Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, or even Archie and Jughead. Even some comic book fans may scratch their heads when asked to describe his work. But every artist and writer in comic books, as well as graphic artists across the entire spectrum of modern illustration, television and film, owes a debt to him. (Brad Bird, creator of The Incredibles and The Iron Giant, paid tribute to Eisner in both films.) In 1940, Eisner created a goofball detective named Denny Colt who died (not really) and was reborn as “The Spirit,” the cemetery-dwelling protector of the public — and of pretty girls in particular. The Spirit possessed no super-powers. He couldn’t see through his girlfriend’s clothing the way a curious alien like the Man of Steel might scientifically investigate Lois Lane. And he wasn’t a brilliant technologist like Batman, imagineering hokey gadgets and psychedelic compounds for all-night parties with the Joker. The Spirit broke so many molds:

• Eisner was the strip’s artist and writer, a feat that is still rare today • The Spirit was published and distributed as an insert in Sunday newspapers, á là Parade magazine. It was seen weekly by as many as five million people from 1940 to ’52 • No two Spirit sections looked alike. Although most commercial operations — from Superman to Pepsi-Cola — spend millions of dollars testing, proving and marketing their logos, Eisner thought it was more challenging to change The Spirit’s masthead every week — for 12 years. • The Spirit was a fun, mature read, aimed at adults but accessible to kids. • And Eisner maintained ownership of The Spirit, something not even Stan Lee, co-creator of Spider-Man and The X-Men, managed. For all of these reasons, The Spirit was published and reissued in various forms almost uninterrupted for 60 years. Its look, feel and smartass humor is timeless — if you ever enjoyed the Bruce Willis/Cybil Shepherd TV banter in Moonlighting, you’d appreciate it — which accounts for the countless revivals. Eisner, who went to high school with Batman creator Bob Kane, provided first jobs in the comics business to everyone from Jack Kirby (co-creator of Captain America and The Fantastic Four) and Joe Kubert (Tarzan, Fax From Sarajevo, Yossel: April 19, 1943) to Pulitzer-winning writer and artist Jules Feiffer (Carnal Knowledge). “What Will did, as did Milton Caniff (Terry and the Pirates),” said Feiffer, whose first professional job was working in Eisner’s studio, “was create an atmosphere that no one had ever seen before, a world of light and shadow, darks and grim darks. Will was much more Warner Brothers and Caniff was RKO or Columbia. But the two were consummate storytellers who wrote their own stuff, knew how to tell a story, create action and characters with more depth than anyone else. They both used silent panels to build up tension. And they did it brilliantly.” If not for Eisner’s influence, Pulitzer Prize-winner Art Spiegelman might never have published his graphic novel Maus: A Survivor’s Tale. (Eisner is credited with popularizing — if not inventing — the medium of the graphic novel with the 1978 publication of his graphic story collection, A Contract With God) and fellow Pulitzer-winner Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay would have been missing quite a few Eisner-inspired tales. When he shut down The Spirit in 1952, Eisner disappeared from public view and reappeared as the inspiration behind an Army preventive maintenance manual, P*S magazine, which he created and oversaw for the

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Donna Barr cartoonists the license to defy category and explore topics outside the traditional (and by now shopworn) super-hero, s-f, and fantasy genres. I will also appreciate how Eisner expanded the lexicon of Jewish narratives expressed in comics. Whether unspooling colorful stories of Jewish life, documenting immigrant contributions to the nascent comic book industry, or countering stereotypes via Fagin the Jew and swan song The Plot, Eisner single-handedly illustrated that there was so much more to the Jewish experience than just the Holocaust. As dramatic as that event is in our collective history, the Shoah is not the only experience that unites or defines the Jewish people as a culture, and Eisner knew this. He was secure enough to infuse his ethnicity into his work, and ballsy enough to tell these Jewish stories bluntly and unsentimentally — warts and all — with a precision that made a specific, ethnic corner of the universe very universal. He showed us at our best. He showed us at our worst (“Us” being JewishAmericans, and, by extension, all Americans and all people). The great writer F. Scott Fitzgerald got it wrong, in my opinion (and I think John Travolta and Teri Hatcher would agree with me). There are second acts. And in Eisner’s case, the brilliant second act of his life was no mere career comeback. He re-invented himself — and the comic book medium — in the process. For that, Will Eisner will always be an inspiration. In The Dreamer, struggling cartoonist Billy, during an emotional low point, pleads to his departing sweetheart, “Can’t we be dreamers!!” Well, we all now know the answer to that one, don’t we? Will Eisner showed us the way.

Di ck Ayers artist

I met Will as a fellow resident of White Plains a couple of decades ago. I had known he lived nearby, as his son and daughter had been in the same class in high school with my daughter and son, but time goes by fast; and it was through a friend, Will's insurance agent, that I finally met him. When my friend asked me if I knew this fellow comic book artist, I rushed to my files and showed him my collection of Will's Sunday supplements of The Spirit and comic books. Thus through the years I got to visit with Will, and I was quite disappointed when he told me he was moving to Florida. I got to see him only at conventions. The only time I did any work for Will was when he had his studio here in White Plains, New York, and I helped him prepare a couple Spirit stories for printing in the black-&white magazine. I don't remember which and now presume I was too thrilled to activate that memory. Will’s passing is a tremendous loss to all us comic book artists, but those of us who collected whatever we could of his work are fortunate, because through his art he will always be available as our mentor.

— he was at the forefront of the art right to the end. All we can say is he will be missed — and only in an emotional sense, because his hand will forever lie firmly upon every page of our futures. So no goodbyes, Will. Just thank you. So many, many thank-yous. [In a later correspondence, Donna added the following anecdote.—Ye Ed.] While attending the Eisner Awards one year, Jeff Smith and I shared one table. Will, as usual, was all over the stage, full of energy and attention, but — well, the guy was in his 80s, after all. And he was standing up the whole time. “They should show him more respect,” said Jeff. “They should at least get the man a chair.” “‘Chair,’ hell!” I snorted. “They should get the man a throne.” Now you know why Will got a throne at the Eisner Awards in the years that followed. Never tell jokes to Jeff Smith…unless you want things to happen.

Brian Mi ch a el Ben dis writer/artist

You can’t die if you single-handedly invented the language of an entire art form and the concept of the graphic novel. It’s impossible. He is immortal. Will Eisner is the most inspirational, most inventive and most sincerely passionate man I have ever met on this planet. I was not friends with him, and my run-ins were very brief but, for me, very meaningful. They probably could have been more than they were, but I felt completely unworthy to be in the same room with him. Years ago, I had the honor of having my work critiqued by Will. He was honest and generous and has given me words to live by which have stayed in my head every day for the last decade. It was very close to a religious experience. It is one of the true gifts of my life. A couple of years ago when I was lucky enough to be invited to the Eisner Awards for the first time, I was unaware until I got there that the award was actually given to you by Will Eisner. And any pro who actually gets to win one of those things will tell you that as nice as it is to get a little thing like that, the true prize was getting the sincere handshake and little moment of acceptance from the man who invented something you love so much that, prior to his inventing it, did not exist. I’m sorry my words here are from my own experience and not more about the man, but these moments meant so much to me, and I am flooded with that feeling right now.

Karen Berger comics editor

One of the first comics I read when I first got into the field many years ago was the first graphic novel, A Contract With God. I don’t even remember how I came across it, but do remember thinking that this not only looked like a book — it was that first Pocket Book-sized edition — but it read like a book, a real book, about real people, with real emotions and real struggles, from a world that I could very much connect with. It was totally in a class of its own and light years ahead of what comics would eventually aspire to becoming. Will wrote and drew nearly 20 graphic novels since A Contract

Donna Barr cartoonist

Will Eisner is… well, I didn’t want to say “dead,” because how can we say anybody with Will’s power and reach has ever ceased to live? We can’t say “gone” because his influence on everything we do will be there as long as any of us do drawn books. We can’t say “moved on” because he never did ©2005 Donna Barr.

CBA V.2 #6

Bra d Bird film director

Steph en R. Bissette artist/ writer/educator

Will Eisner is arguably the first comic book rebel. Most of the artists who labored over the earliest comic book stories aspired to having their own comic strips, or elevating themselves to betterpaying ranks of the well-heeled magazine illustrators of the day. Many more had resigned themselves to achieving little more than the meager living the comic page treadmill provided. But Eisner somehow knew the primitive comic books of the ’30s were only the beginning of his legendary career. …[With The Spirit] he had successfully negotiated control and rights to his own creation. Will Eisner was the first American comic book artist to do so. The Spirit immediately established Eisner as one of the medium’s true innovators, crafting a

Steve Bissette

In the 1940s, while every other comic book artist was playing around with wildly costumed crime-fighters, Will Eisner’s The Spirit was playfully reimagining every aspect of the medium, from its wildly inventive title pages to its unconventional narratives, many of which more closely resembled short stories than traditional comic books. While others were using grids and rudimentary action staging, Eisner was deconstructing his layouts, pushing the readers eye around the page, urging it to speed up or slow down. While others were struggling to make their images easy to read, Eisner was amping up the drama with spare light and dark shadows, making even more impact with what he wasn't showing you. His characters were unusually expressive, his draftsmanship impeccable, his storytelling cinematic. And in a business filled with unhappy endings for so many of its most famous creators, Eisner not only retained ownership of his work, he remained vital and active to the end of his long life. He may not be the most widely known comic book creator, but to me he is the most inspiring.

Gabriel Ba

With God, about one a year. Like Isaac Bashevis Singer, there were at times elements of magic to Will’s realism, in his chronicling of the Jewish “everyman” of the world he knew best, the immigrant family struggling to live in New York City in the first half of the 20TH century. The stories Will wrote and drew about were like stories about my grandparents’ and other relatives’ lives, and that common ground always drew me towards his work. I had admired Will from afar for many years, but our paths only crossed at the Eisner Awards where I got to shake his hand a number of times. I didn’t really get to know him until six years ago, when I had the honor to work with him on two of his books, Minor Miracles and The Name of the Game. It was hard not to be taken by Will, by his intelligence, his charm, his kindness, and his way with words. In that first meeting with him at the San Diego convention, I was immediately struck by the sparkle in his eye; his passion for life; his passion for his wife, Ann; and his passion for telling stories. Will’s genius as a writer and artist exemplified what comics are intrinsically about — the spoken and unspoken melding of words and pictures. His writing perfectly captured the heartbeat of the human experience, just as his expressions could evoke more than any words could say. Will was not only an incredible storyteller and innovator; he was an incredibly principled man, true to his convictions and his ideals. From early in his career, he did things his way. He never sold out to a big company when that was the only option available, which was unheard of at the time, and for decades to follow. He was also a tireless advocate for comics, but he made no apologies for it. He never questioned that you could produce comics that were considered literature; he always just believed it, and he was right. Working with Will was the one of the most memorable experiences of my career. Being with Will, was like being with family, mishpucha in Yiddish. He was the only artist that I ever worked with who set his own rigid deadlines, and he always, always met them… He liked to joke that he was just a young cartoonist trying to be break into comics, and he wanted to make a good impression. Boy, did he ever.

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Mi ch a el Allred

Colors by Laura Allred

Frank Ch o

Colors by Tom Ziuko

school spirit J IM CRAIG ON A W ILL EISNER ODDITY

96 CBA V.2 #6

On Nov. 6, 1972, Will Eisner visited Sheridan College, in Oakville, Ontario, Canada), where I was an undergraduate. He was invited as a guest artist to conduct an informal lecture, about himself and his craft, to the students of the cartooning course. I was there, an 18-year-old at the time. I had never heard of Will Eisner or his work until about a week before his visit. The coordinator of the cartooning course, and professor of our “History of Comics” class, brought in a collection of Sunday comic sections from the 1940s. As he spread the pages out on a large table for us to see, we immediately saw that they were magnificent: Full-color, tabloid-sized pages of The Spirit. Walter, the co-ordinator, was a huge Eisner and Spirit fan, so we listened to a very informative lecture and lively discussion during that day. But before we were dismissed, the announcement was made that Will Eisner himself would be attending next week’s class! The beginning and raw development of the story, “The Invader,” came about during Will’s visit. We had set up a drawing table and supplied him with a drawing pad, pencils, brush, ink, etc. It was a very relaxed atmosphere as we gathered around him, as we asked questions and he answered… “What brush do you like to use when inking?” etc. One of us asked how he came up with his stories. Will replied that he found them by observing the world around him, sometimes from newspaper articles, sometimes books, occasionally television, and even from events in his own life. He said that sometimes he liked to have fun by taking a bunch of unrelated ideas and merging them into a single story. “Let’s try that now!” he exclaimed and then asked us to feed him one- or two-word concepts, locations, characters… whatever. We threw words at him: “Flying saucers!”… “Rain!”… “Night!”… “Drugs!”… “Airports!”… “Rayguns!”… and on and on. But regardless of whatever was suggested, most of all we wanted a story starring The Spirit! But Will felt that The Spirit had had his time in the sun and just couldn’t understand why anyone would be interested in such an old character these days. But as we only knew of Will through that renowned crime-fighter, we pleaded and he finally relented. So, just as an exercise for us to hopefully learn from, he started breaking the story down as an exercise. “After all, we’re not printing this!” he said. Then Will started jotting down some notes and rough character ideas on a pad. He sketched a thumbnail of the splash page. He drew The Spirit logo as a graphic on an airport runway. I told him that I really liked the bolder, block lettered titles he did in the original Spirit stories, so Will obligingly roughed that out next. It was all an experience I will never forget and, by the day’s end, after we shamelessly nagged him one last time, Will did a sketch of The Spirit on which he wrote a dedication, “To the students of Sheridan College.”

About a week or two after such an unforgettable visit, Walter told me that Will was intending to finish The Spirit story and give Walter permission to print and sell it to raise funds to help cover the printing costs of our student magazine, Gamut, a fanzine featuring our work. Several months went by and we receive Will’s story. “The Invader” was printed oversize, in full-color, just like those ‘40s Sunday tabloids Walter had brought to class, the day I was introduced to The Spirit. Advertisements were placed in only a few magazines, including The Menomenee Falls Gazette, a fan publication that featured classic comic strip reprints. “The Invader” had a small print run of about 500-1,000 and was sold for $3 each. Hoping for success and with Will’s enthusiastic support (which was essential, of course!), we envisioned a series of new adventures of The Spirit. But, alas, the color tabloid didn’t sell well at all and, to our great regret, Will had no incentive to produce any new stories. But one needs to keep in mind that this all transpired a few years before Warren Publications reintroduced The Spirit to the mainstream, so his biggest revival had yet to come. And maybe not enough people saw the ads, or perhaps we didn’t advertise in enough outlets, or it could have been that not enough average fans were familiar with Will’s work. And maybe our biggest liability was the then-hefty price-tag of three bucks a copy, a chunk of change in a time when 50¢ got you a 100-page comic book off the newsstand. Whatever the reason, “The Invader” became an obscure and curious oddity in Will Eisner’s vast body of work. In closing, I must add that I simply loved the man! Will was a very giving person and blessed with a pleasant, laid-back manner. Easy to talk with and loving of people, Will was -- above and beyond his pure genius as an artist and storyteller (not to forget, teacher!) -- a remarkably warm human being. I will always be grateful for the opportunity, on that late fall day back in 1972, to observe his creative process. And, yes, I can boast, regardless of the insignificance of my contribution, to have briefly collaborated with a truly great American artist. As a postscript, in June 2004, I was fortunate to spend some more precious moments with Will, though this time I had him all to myself -- for 40 whole minutes! -- as just the two of us sat and chatted in a lunch room during the Toronto comic convention. We both spoke of that memorable visit to Sheridan College and also caught up, as best we could, on what we’ve respectively been up to over the last 30 years, when we last spoke to one another. What impressed me most during my last encounter with Will Eisner was that he was still sharp as a whip and remained very energetic. He was a great spirit!

fin

UPPER LEFT: Will Eisner sketch done for Sheridan College students. RIGHT: Cover page to Sheridan’s 1973 tabloid-sized, color Spirit story. Both courtesy of Jim Craig and ©2005 the Estate of Will Eisner.

Courtesy of Jim Craig

ÂŠ2005 the Estate of Will Eisner.

Courtesy of William DuBay

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Ri ch ard Corben artist/writer/Publisher

Of course, I was aware of Will Eisner and his work long before I started drawing comics as a career. During the 1940s and ’50s there were hundreds of comic book titles being published, and I collected many of them. As a kid, I slowly came to realize these stories were actually written and drawn by real people. Later in the U.S. Army Reserve, I came across some copies of P*S magazine, a monthly publication devoted to repairing and maintaining military equipment, and I immediately recognized the familiar style of writing, layout and drawing. Although I was disappointed that these books had no real adventurous or suspenseful stories, I had to admit the writer/artist had skillfully given life and interest to what I considered a deadly boring subject. There was one continuing character in those instructional passages, a Master Sergeant Quartermaster whom I would later recognize as a virtual “ringer” for Commissioner Dolan in The Spirit. Drifting on in time, I had become an artist/animator at Calvin Productions, a Mid-Western industrial film company. Another artist had brought in a comic that reprinted Eisner’s newspaper comic supplements. Suddenly, I was shown the best of what the comic medium could be. The characters, the intriguing plot, the amazing rain drenched film noir layouts, and especially the cinematic story continuity. It was like watching a movie on paper. My own amateur comics now appeared painfully amateurish. I studied Eisner’s comics with awe and dismay. Awe, obviously; dismay, because I knew I could never achieve his level of dramatic storytelling or such masterful depiction of mood. Despite this, my career still moved in the direction of comic creation. Some years later, in the ’70s, I was able to start drawing comic book stories for Warren’s horror titles, Creepy and Eerie. At one point, they were doing color story inserts, and I demonstrated to editor Bill DuBay and publisher Jim Warren that I could do color, and they allowed me to proceed. Then Will Eisner and I professionally crossed paths. Bill wanted me to color some of Eisner’s old Spirit stories for inclusion in the magazine’s color section. This was a monumental situation for me, and I felt I had to do the best job possible, which would be only appropriate for Will’s stories. I must admit that the color system I devised for this purpose was far from reliable. The era was long before the advent of computer color, with its continuous feedback and instant color separations. So I labored on coloring the story. Alas, the result was mediocre-to-painful. Incredibly, Warren and Dubay accepted the job and Will sent me a letter of thanks. I was too embarrassed about my failure to answer his kind note. (I’m afraid he might have thought I was being a bit pompous by ignoring his thanks and compliments.) Then Warren flew me into New York for a dinner party celebration where I was to meet Will and everybody else at Warren Publishing, face-to-face. Will was friendly and outgoing but didn’t seem to know what to say to me. Later, when the party moved to a cabaret show, Will and I sat next to each other. He asked confidentially if I had any problem working on his old material. I had to tell him that I intended on doing a magnificent job on his story but had failed, so I couldn’t reply to his kind correspondence. Further, I hoped that the next job would come out better and be worthy of his thanks. Then I could acknowledge my admiration for

his genius level of work. He just laughed, patted me on the shoulder, and told me to get over it. I think I went on to color another story and a cover, but none of my efforts did justice to his art. I believe the next time I met Will was at a gigantic comics convention in Barcelona, Spain. We were both at the same hotel and could share a cab to and from the convention center. I spoke no Spanish at all, but Will could a bit more than I. There were hundreds of notable guests there and zillions of fans. I remember one evening when many of the cartoonists went to a bar to drink and exchange sketches. I’m not much good at that sort of nightlife and broke away early (about 11:00 P.M., I think). Will joined me in the cab back to the hotel. He told me that back home he gave a class on sequential art and occasionally had guest speakers, and he asked if I would consider such a thing. As many know, I rate speaking in front of a crowd as one of my least favorite things. I must have turned a ghostly white, because again he just laughed and told me not to worry about it. At the end of the convention, we again shared a cab to the airport. My last interaction with Will was though an indirect contact. Denis Kitchen had taken over publishing The Spirit and organized a jam issue. I was happy to join in. It is hard to estimate Will Eisner’s impact on the comics field. I would rate him at the top. Many of my own ideas about writing and drawing comics can be easily traced from inspiration gained studying his work.

R. Crumb cartoonist

[Discussing A Life Force by Will Eisner, in 1988 (ellipses are his):] I expected not to like it that much… the main character, Jake, looks a lot like Eisner himself, don’t you think? I get the subtle feeling that the story is subconsciously about Will himself and dealing with getting old and stuff… a great job… one of the best comics I’ve read in a long time… definitely the best thing to come out of the older generation in years!! And, like I say, it’s given me encouragement to continue in this medium… it’s not always just downhill as you get older… Eisner has proven that with this book… although I think it’s been a struggle uphill for him to reach this level in this book… Boy! It’s really an uplifting book!! You can them ’im I said so!! Sort of a masterpiece!!

Jeff Crump Graphic Designer

Will Eisner was a great artist, writer and person. I had the distinctly cool fortune of my mother being his next door neighbor for a few years, in Tamarac, Florida, so I got to hang out with Will and experience his generosity and wit. I was a graphic design student at the time, and design was something he was very interested in. Of course, my best typographic manhandling barely even sits in the same county as the outrageous giddiness of his Spirit covers. The man was a workhorse, putting out a couple of graphic novels a year, all of them special. The stand outs to me are Invisible People (a set of stories about the dehumanizing power of the city) and Last Day in Vietnam (a collection of drawings and

TOP: Taken from film negative (courtesy of William DuBay), Rich Corben, Jim Warren and Will Eisner chat at a banquet given in Rich and Will’s honor . ABOVE: Backside of R. Crumb’s 1988 postcard to Denis Kitchen about Will Eisner’s graphic novel, A Life Force.

Howard Cru se remembrances about his visits to Vietnam during that war). And those probably aren’t even the best. One question I’ve always wanted to ask Will: His signature looks strikingly like the Walt Disney logo. Did he design it?

Mike Curtis

writer/publisher/historian

I met Will Eisner once, at Small Press Expo many years ago. A very friendly and self-effacing fellow. I was helping Stan Sakai set up; it was Will’s first time there, and our third. I had organized our table and watched over Stan’s stuff while he brought in more. A fan of Usagi Jimbo approached and asked if I was Stan, since I was sitting behind his table. I told him no, but that Stan would be back in a minute. He asked if I would take his picture with Stan and I said sure. Just then Stan came back, and I introduced them. While they talked, Will Eisner came up. We chatted for a minute or two, and then we both walked over to Stan. Stan got very excited that Eisner came to see his table. The fan just kind of stood there, and then got ready to take a picture of the two of them. I told him to wait a minute. Then I asked Stan and Eisner if they’d mind posing for a picture with a fan. So I took a picture of the three of them. I wonder if that fan still has that very historic picture he never expected to get that day?

Ni cola Cuti

artist/writer/editor

Will Eisner was a great artist who also possessed an incredible ability to convey a comic-book narrative. No one ever married art and storytelling as well as he.

Alain David Editor

I discovered Will Eisner’s work as a young teenager in the pages of the French-Belgian magazine, Tintin, where The Spirit appeared amidst the usual comics My first encounter was a real shock, because it became immediately apparent to me — this was back in 1977-78 — that The Spirit had set the highest standard for an art form I had begun to love so much, and this was a quarter-century after the material’s original appearance! Flush from this revelation, I ran out to find his debut graphic novel, A Contract With God (the French version had recently been published) and upon reading it, I was again shocked, that this man, now 60, was even better. It didn’t take long for my heroes — Goscinny, Uderzo, Franquin, Gene Colan and Moëbius — to be joined by the incredibly talented Eisner. And I owe my current job as comics editor because of them, but somehow Will stands head-&-shoulders above the others. Many aspects of his work connect me to him, but there is also the man himself, who holds a special place in my heart. Allow me to tell you an anecdote — from a view akin to looking through the small end of opera glasses, so to speak — that might explain why the brilliant artist means so much to me: In 1996, I had the honor and pleasure to publish a collection of The Spirit and the Eisner textbook, Comics and Sequential Art, and that same year, Will Eisner and his wife, Ann, came to France as guests of the Angoulême comics festival. Meeting with these lovely Americans is one of the most beautiful moments in all of my days as an editor. Having met so many creators in my career, I often came to realize that beautiful art doesn’t always match the personality of the artist. Sometimes

there’s a big difference and sometimes it’s better just to know the art, if you understand my meaning. But Will Eisner was as wonderful as his work, as joyful in person as was his work on the page, as respectful to everyone he encountered as his stories respected every reader, never condescending, always considerate. So you could imagine how I proud I was to become the French editor of Will’s graphic novels. From those days in Angoulême, I have a special memories of a special moment in my life: I was honored to attend with Will and his dinner guest, the renowned French artist Moëbius. To share a meal with the creator of The Spirit and author of A Contract With God, and the brilliant artist behind Lieutenant Blueberry and Arzach, was as if I had been asked to break bread with Muddy Waters and Mick Jagger! It was a great experience just to sit there and listen to these giants tell so many stories. (Joe Sacco, renowned cartoonist-reporter and author of Palestine, also sat there in the presence of these legends, and I’m sure he appreciated this occasion as much as I.) One can only wish that every married couple might express such love and playful affection as did Will and Ann, who had been together for nearly 50 years when I witnessed their endearing — and enduring — bond. And I will, for the rest of my days, always remember the sight of Will giving a light, loving slap on the Ann’s rear-end! Really! If I ever live to be 80-years-old, I can only hope to be as youthful, caring and mischievous with my spouse! After the Eisners’ visit, I kept in touch with Will, both by letter and in phone conversation, and he was always very polite. Each time we published a new translation of one of his books, he would always send me a short letter of thanks for the attention we gave his work. You can’t imagine how precious it is for an editor to receive such courtesy from such a gracious man. When I met with young artists, I make it a point to share with them the work of Will Eisner. I encourage them to studying such masterful work and explain that so many storytelling problems can be solved by seeing how Will would do it, and perhaps they will begin to see through his eyes, so to speak. After his passing this past January, I begin to imagine Will was somehow immortal, that his spirit would stay with us. But then I realize, no, Will wouldn’t be there to guide us, but go on to create new work, wherever he was, and continue to instruct us by example. As French President François Mitterand used to say, the dead don’t want us to weep for them, but rather to move on and live for the living. And the best way to do that for

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Courtesy of Jo, Craig those of us so devoted to sequential art? Go to your bookcase, retrieve a volume of The Spirit or maybe A Life Force and, flipping through the exquisite pages, become inspired to do better work Though Will Eisner was never a very big star in France, his body of work is still to be found in bookstores here and there. And I can only hope and envy those people who discover for themselves the Eisner legacy and to marvel at his gift to us, as did this once 13-year-old boy so many years ago. A world of inspiration just might open up for them.

avoided looking directly at me to hide the twinkle in his eye as he said that. P.S. on P*S: These historic issues are now in the Special Collections Library, University of Florida in Gainesville. Will was the guest of honor at the University’s first annual Comics Conference — The Will Eisner Symposium — in 2002. Under Dr. Donald Ault, the university hosts one of the most extensive comics study programs and one of the largest and most ardent bodies of students specializing in comic art studies in the U.S. The university’s impressive library reflects this scholarly interest in comics research.

Sol David son

Kim Deitch

Recollections-At-Will: Having worshiped at the altar of Will Eisner’s Spirit when I was a young comics devotee, imagine my pleasure years later when, as a comics scholar, I found myself appointed by Mort Walker to the International Museum of Cartoon Art’s Education Committee, chaired by Will himself. Over the years we became friends, and this included my better-half, Penny, and Will’s, Ann. One time when the Eisners were at our place for dinner, the conversation turned directly to comics. Since I had been managing editor of the U.S. Navy’s news and feature syndicate (Ships Editorial Association), it was inevitable that Will’s work for the U.S. Army would come into the discussion. “I saved as many of your P*S magazines as I could find,” I told Will. “How many do you have?” he asked. “I’ll show you.” I brought out a carton I had retrieved from my rented storage space and we counted the issues. “57 issues!” Will exclaimed. “You have more copies than I do!”

I was really sorry to hear about the death of Will Eisner. And right on the heels of Artie Shaw, too! Gave one the distinct feeling that all the really great ones really were dropping off the edge of the world. And Eisner definitely was one of the very Last of the Mohicans of a certain era of comics; no question about it. I have mixed feelings about the quality of the man. Over time he has shifted in my mind from idol and role model to more of a cautionary tale, but the man was a proper study; no mistake about that. He made his biggest impact on me in 1966, which was the year I first seriously began gathering my own inner forces together to think myself into the idea of taking a shot at comics as a possible personal source of artistic expression. And I was reading all the comics of interest to me that I could get my hands on. It was a good time for finding them. Marvel was in full cry. The Metropolitan Museum of Art did a show of Winsor McCay Sunday pages, which seemed an interesting harbinger toward a coming greater accepted artistic legitimacy of comics. There seemed to be something exciting in the air about the future possibilities of comics, and I was definitely getting jazzed by it. In the midst of all that came two fat Harvey reprints of vintage Eisner Spirit stories and, boy, oh boy, was I ever ready for them! They seemed like this fascinating — and very entertaining — missing link in comics between ’40s “Golden Age” comics and the EC Comics I read and loved as a kid. Also, they seemed the very living embodiment of the electrifying (and personally galvanizing) phrase that Jules Feiffer used to describe comics in his book,

academic

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A similar comment spiced up another conversation between us. I had purchased from the Cartoon Museum’s book shop an assortment of Will’s graphic novels for my collection. That day he and I were working on plans for the museum’s educational facilities. (I still have the sketch Will made for a classroom layout.) I took advantage of a lull to ask if Will would autograph the graphic novels for me. As he signed one after another, he muttered, “Why did you have to buy so many?” To this day, I feel he deliberately

cartoonist

ABOVE: Along with the aforeseen Spirit tabloid, Will Eisner contributed this wraparound cover for Sheridan College’s student magazine, a rare post-Quality/Fiction House rendering of some of Will’s 1940s creations. All characters ©2005 their respective copyright holders. Art ©2005 by the Estate of Will Eisner. Courtesy of Jim Craig.

Alex Horley

Benjamin Herzberg

a friendship withwillEisner BENJAMIN HERZBERG ON THE MAESTRO On January 3RD, 2005, my friend Alain David and I were talking on the phone about Will’s latest project. We were in a lively discussion about the distribution of his latest book, Fagin the Jew, and about what the chances were for The Plot to do better with the French readership. We were also talking about Will going through surgery and recovering from it at the hospital. Through the transatlantic phone line, I suddenly heard the faded ring of Alain’s cell phone. “Hold on a minute,” he said, “I’ve got a call on my cell.” I waited, hearing a few words from his conversation and trying to make something from what did not sound like good news. “Listen,” he said with a soft voice after hanging up on the other call, “it was a friend on the phone. He told me that Will Eisner just passed away.” “Will Eisner just passed away…” It took a few seconds for the words to sink in. None of us knew what to say. So I quickly hung up and called Will’s wife, Ann. Will had died in the early morning. He would be buried in New York State, about an hour north of Manhattan. The news had traveled fast across the continents but was refusing to settle in my own mind. I had talked to Will over the phone not so long ago, so how could it be? We had discussed The Plot as well as a multitude of new projects that were either ongoing or at their ignition stage. We often had hour-long conversations. Will filled a special space in my life.

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I had known Will’s work since my childhood in France. I still remember this little comic book shop in the early ’80s next to the Centre Beaubourg in Paris. You could pass in front of the shop and miss it easily, as you had to go down a flight of stairs to find it. They had displayed on the wall all the albums of the legendary Futuropolis “Copyright” edition that reintroduced the American classics to the French readership. The very first album I bought was from that collection. It wasn’t The Spirit, though; it was Mandrake the Magician, by Lee Falk and Phil Davis. I had to break my piggy bank to buy that, as 120 francs was prohibitive for a 12 year old. This hefty price tag delayed my acquisition of The Spirit, which I had spotted the first time I had visited the shop. But Mandrake’s top hat had appeared definitively more intriguing to me at the time than The Spirit’s fedora. I only bought The Spirit later, once I had read Caniff, Segar, Goldberg, Foster, Raymond, and others. Only then did Eisner’s genius strike a chord. I guess I realized that he was doing something utterly different from the other artists I had discovered. But I couldn’t quite put a name on it yet. Much later, I must have been 17 or so, I discovered A Life Force in a train station. I was waiting for a friend, decided to kill a few minutes by looking in the station’s bookshop, and started to look under the tables in those boxes with cheap, out-of-date magazines and sales items. Will Eisner hated to know that his stuff goes into remainder bins from time to time. But it was my lucky day, as A Life Force was there, for just 13 francs. A bargain! I devoured it. The story of Izzy the Cockroach and his fight for survival made

me understand what the Spirit was all about. It all came back to me, all the splendor of the stories and the humanity of the art. * The Spirit *, as I was discovering, was just the antechamber of Eisner’s work. His graphic novels were pushing the medium to its extremes. And I was amazed at the stories he was writing. So I went on a quest to find everything I could from him. I quickly found * The Spirit * stories and the graphic novels, and also came across some traces of the work he did in between. I was the typical fan: raving about him with my friends who did not know his work yet, and spending weekends in shady shops until I found a copy of a piece of his work yet unknown to me. I had a fairly big collection of European bandes dessinées and American comics then. I shipped it all to Israel when I moved there in 1995. The field of comic art was quasi non-existent in Israel. With a friend, we decided to create the first comics magazine there, modeled after the French (A Suivre). We collected a few samples of art from Michel Kichka’s students in the Betzalel Art Academy of Jerusalem. We even decided on a name: “The Bottom Line,” which in Hebrew translated into a funny play on words invoking underwear. The project failed because of, as always, financial reasons. But I was energized. Kichka organized that year a competition on comic books, together with the Alliance Française. I participated and won a VIP trip to Angoulême, the international mecca of comics. In the process Kichka had given me a piece of information that I must have considered then as the Grail: Eisner’s personal address in Florida. Full of my new comics energy, I decided to write a nice letter to him, expressing my admiration for his work and asking for advice on developing the field in a place like Israel. I had forgotten about that letter when I received Eisner’s reply, a few months later. It was a twopage long letter full of thanks and insights, which he ended by wishing me a warm mazel tov on my upcoming wedding. We kept writing to each other for a while, until my whereabouts brought me to Florida in 1997 for a vacation, where I decided to pay the man a visit. Will was extremely warm and friendly, and we had a very nice chat. Will brought me to what was going to become our traditional lunch place: a typical American diner where the tuna-melt reigns supreme. I left Israel in 1998 to live in New York City, but I kept finding myself in Florida every so often. Will and I started to spend more and more time conversing about his work, the art form in general, and nothing in particular. In Manhattan, in the midst of the dot-com frenzy, I also discovered online auctions. They quickly replaced what had been long Sunday afternoons spent looking for Eisner’s work in various bookshops. Now I was engaging in fierce bidding wars, which eventually enabled me to acquire a very large Eisner collection over time. My collection is now so abundant that I often showed Will items that he had forgotten about. All along, I always joked with Will that I was only a “fanboy” at heart, salivating at the thought of spending some time next to his drawing table,

akindredspirit HOW DENIS KITCHEN MET W ILL EISNER AND SIGNED HIS FIRST CONTRACT

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In 1970 my publishing company, Kitchen Sink Press (a.k.a. Krupp Comic Works in those days), was in its infancy in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I was 23 and still making the transition from being a self-published cartoonist to being primarily a publisher of other artists. Good hippy that I was, I used the Golden Rule to deal with fellow artists and assiduously avoided dealing with the “straight” culture and conventional business rules. As I sold the underground comix I drew and published to a motley but growing network of head shops and paraphernalia distributors, as well as some college and used bookstores, Krupp developed its own mail order division. There were then no comic book shops, as we now know them. One of my wholesale customers was Phil Seuling, who eventually put into place what became known as the “direct market” distribution system. But in 1970 he was still a Brooklyn high school teacher who dealt in comics and collectibles on the side and moonlighted as the blustery impresario of a new novelty — comic book conventions. Though geographically distant, we quickly bonded, and I began drawing strip format ads for his cons and illustrations for his catalogs. Before long Phil invited me to attend his big summer convention. Intensely curious, I gratefully accepted his offer. In July 1971 I entered the Statler Hilton Hotel in New York City and approached the convention entrance. Signs announced the names of the comics industry luminaries who would be in attendance. Prominent on the list was Will Eisner. Like the thousands of other fans in attendance, I had no illusions of meeting him on anything more than a superficial level. I entered the cacophonous dealers’ room, gazed at the seemingly endless rows of dealers selling comic books and related artifacts, and dove in. It was as close to heaven as I could then imagine. I was combing tables for old copies of Humbug, Li’l Abner and Tip Top Comics when French comics historian Maurice Horn noticed my name tag, introduced himself, and said, “Will Eisner wants to meet you.” “Why would the old guy want to meet me?” I asked myself. But I didn’t say that.

“I don’t think so,” is what I said, adding, “If anything, it’s me who would like to meet Mr. Eisner!” Maurice repeated the invitation and succeeding in convincing me that, for reasons still beyond my comprehension, Eisner indeed wanted to talk with me. An appointment was set up. I met Will in a quiet hotel room away from the convention crowd. The generation and culture gap was quickly apparent. A tan corduroy sports coat, my only concession to dressing up, was mismatched by purple tie-dyed pants, a shirt with ruffled sleeves, and scruffy boots. A scraggly mustache and hair well past my shoulders completed the look. Will, more than twice my age, had about as much hair then as he had many years later, which is to say not much. He wore a conservative gray suit, a matching vest and necktie. His wingtips were polished. We both owned pipes but it was safe to conclude that we smoked different substances. I was starting to wonder what we could possibly have in common. But Will, typically, got right to the point. “I understand you have established your own distribution system,” he said. “And I understand you and your fellow creators have absolute artistic freedom.” “Yes to both,” I confirmed. “Well, these subjects interest me very much,” he said. We then talked at length about the alternative comix scene. Will asked detailed, probing questions about how I sold my comics, how they were discounted, what the terms were and who our customers were. He was intrigued in particular to learn that our sales were non-returnable. He was impressed that underground cartoonists

Denis Kitch en

received royalties “like real authors” and that original art was returned to the artists. In turn I was mesmerized by his tidbits about the origins of the comic book industry, his own publishing experiences and his problems with traditional newsstand distribution. I wanted to spend more time hearing about the old days. Will indulged me to an extent, but always refocused on contemporary developments. He said he wanted to experiment further with the medium. He said he had ideas about starting a new magazine. I was impressed. This straight-looking fellow seemed to be a kindred spirit. I had been under the impression, like the rest of the industry, that Eisner had more or less retired from comics. In retrospect we couldn’t have been more wrong. During that initial 1971 meeting Will said that he was especially excited by the prospect of complete creative freedom, something he had never experienced during his career. I was very pleased to hear that the new comix had inspired him. But after a while he confessed that the concept of underground comix intrigued him, but had never actually seen any. Happy to accommodate him, we left the private room and walked over to Seuling’s large block of tables. Phil, an early and strong supporter of undergrounds, devoted a good portion of his considerable table space to undergrounds. There was a full array of titles before us. Art Spiegelman, then just another starving underground cartoonist, happened to be standing by the table as Will picked up one of the underground comix at random and opened it. His introduction to complete artistic freedom was none other than S. Clay Wilson. I winced. Will blanched. Then he scowled. He expected see the rules broken. He didn’t expect to see them shattered. Artie picked up on Will’s apparent disapproval of Wilson’s pornographic images and a lively discussion ensued. Spiegelman ardently defended Wilson’s vision and artistic validity. I didn’t want to scare Will away from his honest interest in our generation’s wide-ranging explorations of the medium. I tried to explain to Will that Wilson was an idiosyncratic artist whose imagery was extreme even for the counter culture. I encouraged him to look at other comix displayed on the table. Meanwhile, other nearby individuals

joined the free-spirited discussion. The debaters mingled with customers reaching for purchases. All of us were squeezed by the flow from the crowded aisles. Very quickly Will excused himself and disappeared into the convention crowd. The initial gulf I felt on meeting Will had virtually disappeared during our private meeting. But now, just a short time later, that gulf seemed wide again. Ordinarily I took delight when our hippy comix outraged or embarrassed middle-aged and middle class viewers — that was part of the point. But this was an artist whom I respected and admired. It was important to me that he understood that new artists were creating substance as well as shock value. But I never had another chance at that convention to talk to him. On my return to Wisconsin I assembled a package of various undergrounds, representing a fuller range of what was being produced, and mailed it to Eisner with a cover letter. I respectfully suggested that he give the new genre a closer look before drawing any conclusions. I also indicated that I’d like to pursue some of the publishing opportunities we discussed, starting with collections of some of his classic Spirit stories. I also wanted to see what kind of work he might create without the need for a masked character or a seven-page story limitation. Will wrote back promptly, indicating that he had thoroughly enjoyed most of the new samples. Our dialogue was reopened. I was thrilled when he agreed to let Kitchen Sink publish The Spirit. During a subsequent phone conversation he further agreed to create new stories and covers. I was elated. Events were progressing better than I could have imagined. Will said, “I’m glad you’re pleased.” Then he uttered the words that opened a new gulf. “Send me a draft of your proposed contract and we’ll proceed.” “Contract?” I sputtered. “I don’t do contracts.” “And why not?” he asked. The following paraphrases the essence of my response. “Contracts have always been imposed on artists in this business. We don’t need contracts. I treat all artists fairly. You and I have already agreed to all terms. You retain your copyrights. You retain your artwork. You get a 10% royalty. You approve the bluelines and color proofs. My handshake is my

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Rafa el Med off

will eisners return to his jewish roots RAFAEL MEDOFF ON JEW ISH THEMES IN THE ARTIST/W RITERS LATER WORK When Will Eisner returned to the forefront of the comic art world in 1978, probably the last thing his fans expected was that his subject matter would be Jewish immigrant life in interwar New York. Those who fondly remembered Eisner for The Spirit discovered that in the decades since the masked crime-fighter had disappeared from the Sunday comics pages, his creator had developed a Jewish spirit, so to speak — a desire to tell stories from his upbringing in Jewish neighborhoods of New York City. Eisner’s first graphic novel, A Contract With God, featured the familiar Eisner storytelling and artwork, right down to the famous “Eisner Shpritz,” his classic depiction of rainfall — but the protagonists had names like Frimme and Shloime, not Denny and Ebony, and the stories came from Eisner’s life experiences, not from his imagination. Contract presented gripping stories about the residents of a heavily Jewish tenement on the fictional Dropsie Avenue, the Bronx, in what Eisner called “the dirty [19] ’30s.” Many of Eisner’s subsequent graphic novels likewise utilized themes from the lives of East European Jewish immigrants. A Life Force (1985), for example, continued the saga of the residents of 55 Dropsie Avenue, focusing on the life of Jacob Shtarkah, an aging Jewish carpenter, as he struggled through the Depression years, rising anto-semitism, battles over labor rights, and his children’s marriages to non-Jews. The Dreamer (1986), Dropsie Avenue (1995) and Minor Miracles (2000) revisited the experiences of the immigrants and their offspring.

In a later volume, The Name Of the Game (2001), he focused on the Jews of German stock who arrived in America in the mid-1800s, assimilated, and quickly climbed the socioeconomic ladder, only to find that material success brought with it a host of unforeseen problems. Eisner’s 1991 work, To the Heart of the Storm, was frankly autobiographical and dealt heavily with the anto-semitism he encountered while growing up. Although he gave countless interviews during the years since A Contract With God was published, Eisner never really explained what motivated his dramatic shift to Jewish-themed material, a topic that had never appeared in his previous 40 years in the world of cartooning and illustration. Eisner’s early years as a comic-strip artist offer few clues to explain his later interests. Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Jules Feiffer, who worked as Eisner’s assistant from 1946 to ’51, regards the setting for The Spirit as “very Jewish,” because its atmosphere was based on Eisner’s old Bronx neighborhood. “The sound was the sound of the Bronx,” Feiffer explained in a recent interview. “The way the rain fell, was the way it fell in the Bronx.” Perhaps, then, one might say that The Spirit was ‘Bronxish,’ but there was nothing overtly Jewish about either the characters or the story lines. Eisner was not active in Jewish communal affairs, did not belong to any Jewish organizations, and did not attend synagogue services. Yet like many children of European Jewish immigrants — his father was Austrian, his mother Romanian — Eisner felt an ethnic consciousness rooted in what the historian Gerald Sorin calls “the nurturing neighborhood.” His friends and neighbors were mostly Jews, Yiddish was often spoken in the neighborhood, and the dinner table often included traditional Jewish foods. His father’s work, painting scenery in the Yiddish theater, kept their family firmly within the Jewish cultural orbit. Relatives gathered at their home for the annual Passover Seder, with its dramatic retelling of the story of the Jewish exodus from ancient Egypt. “It is almost genetic in the Jewish mind and soul to deal with storytelling,” Eisner told an interviewer last year. “I grew up with Yiddish stories, and they stayed in my head.” Joe Kubert, a lifelong friend of Eisner’s, believes that Jewish immigrant life and related themes “were always close to his heart,” but because such topics were not seen as commercially viable, Eisner could not explore them until a later stage of his life, when he attained enough financial security to take such risks. He points out that Eisner completely wrote and drew A Contract With God before finding a publisher — he considered the work to be so important that he was determined to complete it regardless of its financial prospects. Eisner was so pessimistic about finding a suitable publisher that he was expecting he would have to publish it himself, says Robert Andelman, whose biography, Will Eisner: A Spirited Life, was published this year by the Dark Horse Comics imprint, M Press. But Andelman believes that Eisner’s shift to Jewish subjects was less about his financial situation than his invention of the graphic novel format. “He couldn’t deal with such subjects in the usual comic book format, there was simply no market for it,” he LEFT: Washington Post Style section, June 3, 2004. ©2005 W.P.

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scott mccloud THE PASSING OF A MENTOR AND PEER Th e auth or of th e sec on d textbook on sequ ential a rt (Ei sn er wrote th e first), Un d erstan ding Comi cs, Sc ott h a d a fri en dly an d mutually supportive d ebate with Will over th e yea rs an d , a s you will rea d , look ed upon th e ma ster ca rtooni st a s a fath er figure. Sc ott wa s intervi ewed via ph on e on Jan . 21, 2OO5. Comic Book Artist: Scott, when did you first meet Will? Scott McCloud: I first met Will in 1982. He’d actually very graciously offered to have me up to his house in White Plains. My illustration teacher at Syracuse, Murray Tinkelman, had been a tennis partner of Will’s, so Murray arranged for me to meet Will when I came to New York. I had just gotten a job at DC Comics in the production department. I had been out of the house living on my own for only three weeks, but I was able to contact Will. When I arrived at the White Plains train station, Will picked me up in his car, and it was a moment where one realizes that, no matter how legendary somebody is, they still walk on two legs and drive cars and eat lunch. [laughter] It’s funny in retrospect, but I was just really floored at the idea of Will Eisner just driving on by and picking me up. I don’t know what I was expecting… [laughter] CBA: Will arriving on a big white horse? [laughter] Scott: Exactly! But I was just very touched by the gesture. He brought me over to his place. Actually, another young artist also came by that day, a little bit later on, and Will talked to us both. Now, I had known that I wanted to make comics for, at that point, about seven or eight years. I was very obsessed with comics. I had a portfolio filled with samples I had done in hopes of getting a job, as well as comics Kurt Busiek and I had done in college — all of it super-hero work — and also some illustrations that I had done when I was an illustration major that were not directly comics-related. Will was looking through them, and he went over my more conventional

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samples. Then he looked at the illustrations and said he thought that work was more interesting than the comics stuff, that what I was doing was experimenting with different styles and doing more creative work. Will suggested that this creative, experimental non-comics style might be more promising. Right away he saw that it wasn’t necessary for me, or anyone, to make it look like comics in the more conservative sense, that we didn’t have to draw like everyone else. Will made a strong impression on me. He was very patient with us, and very gracious with his time. Over the years, I had many such meetings, at conventions or down at the School of Visual Arts, where a friend of mine was taking Will’s class, and I would sometimes sit in. CBA: What were your impressions of Will as an instructor? Scott: I thought he was terrific. SVA was very lucky to have both him and Art Spiegelman at the time, and I learned a lot sitting in on Will’s classes. I also remember at one point showing him a book by one of my favorite artists at the time, Osama Tezuka, the great Japanese master. Will picked up one of these books of Tezuka’s I was showing him, and he held it up to the class, and said, “You see this guy? He’s a god in Japan, and he’s not a slave to the close-up like you people are!” [laughter] I always remember that phrase, “slave to the close-up.” I’m writing a book about comics now, and I’m definitely going to include that warning from Will, not to be a slave to the close-up, because I think many of us still are. CBA: How to you define that phrase?

Interview con du cted by Jon B. Cooke Transcribed by Steven Tice FROM LEFT: Art Spiegelman, Will Eisner, Scott McCloud and Neil Gaiman. Photo courtesy of Scott McCloud.

Scott: Artists are very seduced by close-ups, because they feel it has this emotional punch, but also because secretly they know that if they zoom in just a little bit more, maybe they won’t have to draw those ten or twelve unfamiliar objects surrounding the figure. We learn to draw faces, we learn to draw figures, and I think many artists would like to just stop there. They don’t want to have to draw a garden hose, or a rake, or a lawnmower, or a bicycle, or a cellar door, or a window, or a roof, or a soccer ball, all these things you might have to draw if you just pull that camera back a little bit. CBA: So it’s a cheat? Scott: It’s a cheat, it’s lazy, and it’s everywhere, and Will warned us about it over the years, and I want his warning to persist into the future. CBA: What was his White Plains house like? Scott: We’re talking 1982, so this is nearly 23 years ago. I don’t remember the house as being overly grand or modest; I just remember it just registering in my mind as a house, so I assume that it was probably not that dissimilar from where I grew up, in Lexington, Massachusetts. It was set in just a nice, quiet bedroom community. But it was the inside of Will’s brain I remember most clearly! [laughs] What I learned from just talking to him… I could have been anywhere, could have been in the Taj Mahal or floating in space or something, and it wouldn’t have made a difference. The landscape I had entered had much more to do with comics than any particular location or architecture. CBA: Do you recall his studio? Scott: I don’t remember it being overly large. I don’t know, though, there may have been more than one room to it, but it’s hard to remember. I’m trying to remember if it was in the basement or a porch…? It’s not clear to me. CBA: Did Will have one table there or did he have assistants? Scott: I don’t remember an assistant, no. I remember [Will’s wife] Ann coming down and checking up on us. She was there that day. (You know, I could much more easily describe his house in Florida, which we saw for his 80th birthday, because that wasn’t as long ago.) Let’s just say I was in a spell. I think it must not have been a very remarkable house or a very notable studio, because nothing about it stood out for me. It was just him, it was Will that stood out. And, as I’ve written about before, I went back to where I was living in Manhattan, and the next morning I found out that this was the day my father had died. I always marked that as probably one of the most important moments in my life. It was after that I made a lot of decisions about how I wanted to live and what I wanted to do, and became less patient with my art. I had been working in DC production, and was starting to accept that it might be a very long path to having a comic of my own, and I think after that meeting — and after that little reminder of mortality — I decided not to wait. I started working immediately on a proposal for a comic of my own. CBA: Prior to our recording this interview, we were talking about Will as a father figure. Is it telling for you that on that very same day that you lost your biological father, that you were in the company of somebody whom you would go on to consider to be a very paternal influence in your life?

Scott: Oh, yes. It’s a pretty inescapable conclusion that Will, to a very large extent, stepped into that role just as my dad was vacating it. Many people in the industry look up to Will as a father. It’s just a coincidence in my own life history that I was pressed to make that comparison more directly at the time. My father and Will have something else in common, too, now that that final chapter is closed on Will’s life. I have a similar impression of the two of them. My father died prematurely at the age of 59. He was blind and fell down a staircase in an unfamiliar house. It was just a household accident, but it happened very suddenly. My mother had told me that in the last few weeks after the last of four children had gotten out on their own — me, because I was the youngest — he’d talk to my mom about how happy he was about all they had accomplished together and how all the kids were doing well. They really felt like they had pulled it off, had had a good life together and good life as parents, and there was a true sense of accomplishment. So, though we were all paradoxically shocked when an 87-year-old man, after quadruple-bypass surgery, passed away, there was that same sense of completeness, I think, for both of them. I see no regrets… Of course, everyone has regrets, but that sense of having lived in such a way that whenever the end should arrive, you know that you haven’t wasted a moment. CBA: Was the dynamic as such in your growing relationship with Will that, as with any “child” of a responsive “father,” that you wanted to please him? Scott: I don’t think Will wanted anyone to cater to his expectations. Not to prolong the analogy, but again going back to my own father, he was blind and had no way of confirming that I was any good at all, right? [laughs] But he had faith that I was. I think that’s how Will treated us, as well. Though he had more evidence of our potential, we all knew we had a kind of blank check so long as we followed our dreams, and followed our instincts, and followed Will’s example of always pushing ourselves and pushing our art form forward. Will didn’t expect us all to fall in lockstep behind him. I think he would have been disappointed if we had. It was from Will’s example, I think, that I first put together what I think of as a couple of pillars of my whole learning philosophy, which is to learn from everyone and to follow no one. That seemed to me to be Will’s philosophy, as well, that he was open to all ideas and that he learned from everyone. He didn’t have to shut out anyone’s ideas to grow. But then, as soon as the pen hit the paper, he was his own man and wasn’t beholden to anyone. That was the example I tried to follow. CBA: One of the interesting dynamics I had personally with Will (and by no means unique) was that I would occasionally call for one reason or another, and we would get into thoughtful debates about certain aspects of comics. These were not arguments but debates. Will was so engaging that I’d lose sight of the fact that I was debating one of the true legends of the art form, that man on the white stallion, so to speak. I immediately realized that he’s a regular, engaged guy, and one who could be persuaded by rational discourse.

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colors by

Tom Ziuko

ÂŠ2005 the Estate of Will Eisner.