Will Eisner, R.I.P.

Brian Doherty | January 4, 2005

Just learned, to my dismay and sorrow, that comic book great Will Eisner died Monday night at age 87, after heart surgery.

Eisner was around in the comics periodical field since the beginning. He first established his mastery of the form in the '40s in his newspaper comic supplement The Spirit, telling charming and wonderful tales of a superpowerless masked crimefighter (the thought-to-be-dead criminologist Denny Colt) and his comic-noir adventures in "Central City" with pal and sparring partner Commissioner Dolan (and his daughter Ellen, whose matrimonial grasp he fled) and a plethora of other grotesques and archetypes and gunsels and kid sidekicks. His stories were tense, funny, deeply urban and deeply human, some of the finest popular entertainments of the American Century.

He stopped the Spirit in 1952. Eisner is famed as a pioneer in the graphic novel form, and for the past 25 years has mostly used the comic form to tell non-genre tales (most set in the South Bronx environment in which he spent much of his childhood) which, I have to admit, I have not kept up with (but will). He didn't give in to fan desires to see him revisit old glories. I don't have the critical language--I don't know who could--to explain to you how fun, funky, innovative, and, well, cool, a Will Eisner page at the top of his game looked. But take a look here, and here, and here, and here. The wonder of it is, there are hundreds and hundreds more where that come from. But no more new ones.

The Warren and Kitchen Sink reprints of the old Spirit supplements in the '70s and '80s were totems of great power and joy in my childhood, and I grin every time I see one of his twisty, shadowy, unprecedented pages. He walked by me once at a San Diego Comic Con and I ended up standing on the escalator behind him for a long ride. I didn't bother him; doubtless he heard more than enough anonymous "you're the greatest!" comments from fans at such events. But I was quietly humming with joy that, two steps above me, was Will Eisner.

Update: Wanted to share this quote I found from someone who did not shy away, as I did, from trying to describe what made Eisner such a great cartoonist, from his protege, and a man who knows from lines on a page, Jules Feiffer:

"Eisner's line had weight. Clothing sat on his characters heavily; when they bent an arm, deep folds sprang into action everywhere. When one Eisner character slugged another, a real fist hit real flesh. Violence was no externalized plot exercise, it was the gut of his style. Massive and indigestible, it curdled, lava-like, from the page."

While not attempting a full biography here, I might also note that in addition to being one of the form's greatest practitioners, Eisner was also one of the comics world's greatest entrepreneurs and theoreticians.

Comments

|1.4.05 @ 4:02PM|#

He did cool work. I like to think he is still with us, in Spirit.

Steve Lieber|1.4.05 @ 4:58PM|#

Heartbreaking. The man was a profound influence on me and practically everyone else who takes comic book storytelling seriously. I met him twice: Once on a panel at a comic book convention, on which I was afraid to open my mouth, and once when I received an award from him, at which point I was too intimidated and starstruck to open my mouth.

A couple of Eisner tributes:

http://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2005_01_04.html#009385
http://parkerspace.blogspot.com/2005/01/greatest.html

|1.4.05 @ 5:02PM|#

I echo Brian's sentiments about Eisner the man, and the artist. More about him here:

http://www.newsarama.com/pages/Eisner.htm

and here: http://www.newsfromme.com/

Eisner was There At The Creation of the American Comic Book.* Unlike most of the hired hands working back then, he was a hell of a business man. He was able to maintain ownership of THE SPIRIT, which allowed him artistic control over his work that most other cartoonists would grow to envy. He was a heck of an editor too, the first to hire such talents as Jack Kirby and Jules Feiffer. I, too, was gobsmacked by the Warren Spirit mag in the 70's.

It's too bad there's no Cartoonist's Heaven. I'd get a kick out of Will floating up there, escorted by a squadron of Grumman XF5F-1 Skyrockets! Hawk-aa!

Fanboy aside: While Denny (The Spirit) Colt is generally agreed not to have had any "super-powers," he did seem, like Popeye, to have an almost supernatural ability to survive what would be, for other men, fatal beatings. An after effect of the suspended animation he underwent in his first adventure, that led to his being presumed dead, I wonder?

Kevin

N.B. While checking Mark Evanier's site, I got the bad news that science fiction artist extraordinaire, and the "creator" of Mad Magazine's Alfred E. Neumann, Frank Kelly Freas, has died. Not a week seems to go by without one of my fanboy heroes passing.

http://www.kellyfreas.com/

*Michael Chabon mined Eisner's life, along with those of several other comics pioneers, in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay."

|1.4.05 @ 5:54PM|#

Not relevant to this exactly, but an old Radio Japan interview with an Asian Cartoon Expert http://rhhardin.home.mindspring.com/japancut.cartoon.ram that I actually saved because of the unusual accents and frame breaks due to mistakes in English; but the guy does know his Asian cartoons, I gather.

|1.4.05 @ 8:00PM|#

The great sf illustrator (and MAD cover artist) Kelly Freas) also just died.

|1.4.05 @ 11:03PM|#

Damn.

Wildwood Cemetery gains another resident. Rest easy, Mr. Eisner. You have my thanks.

|1.5.05 @ 8:52AM|#

Brian, you could have interrupted him on that escalator, because from my very limited contact with Eisner, he was a genuinely nice guy. I had to do a museum catalogue on World War II posters a long time ago, and I contacted Eisner for something or other on the topic. He immediately responded, and to the best of my (no doubt self-serving) recollection, invited me to pass by his home if I were ever in his neck of the woods. He didn't know me, so I just presumed he was friendly with whomever he talked to.

Which goes without saying he was years ahead of his time in using film techniques in his Spirit comics, and the shadowing ... the shadowing...

Jesse Walker|1.5.05 @ 10:21AM|#

He was one of the greats.

Batton Lash|1.16.05 @ 2:29PM|#

I was born and raised in New York. I live in sunny southern California now . . . but it was pouring the morning I heard the awful news that my teacher, mentor and friend Will Eisner died. Besides being one of the true great practitioners of the field and a tremendous artist, Eisner was quite possibly the best role model the comics industry ever had. On that terrible morning, the rain pounded the sides of buildings and the sky was a steel gray. Heads down, people clutched their collars and sloshed through puddles, their trench coats flapped in the wind. Very noir. I consider that rare San Diego Eisnerspritz a fitting tribute and I take comfort in it!

Batton Lash