iSteve
04-24-2007, 08:38 PM
Will Eisner
http://willeisner.com/biography/images/eisner.desk.jpg
For an in depth biographical article on Will Eisner (http://willeisner.com/biography/index.html), please read the one posted on the Will Eisner.com
The following (edited) biographical sketch comes from the Wikipedia article on Will Eisner (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Eisner).
William Erwin Eisner (March 6, 1917 January 3, 2005) was an acclaimed American comics writer, artist and entrepreneur. He is considered one of the most important contributors to the development of the medium and is known for the cartooning studio he founded; for his highly influential series The Spirit; for his use of comics as an instructional medium; for his leading role in establishing the graphic novel as a form of literature with his book A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories; and for his educational work about the medium as exemplified by his book Comics and Sequential Art.
In 1988, the comics community paid tribute to Eisner by creating the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, more commonly known as "the Eisners", to recognize achievements each year in the comics medium. Eisner enthusiastically participated in the awards ceremony, congratulating each recipient.
Early life and career
Eisner was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Jewish immigrants his father was a former painter, marginally successful entrepreneur, and one-time manufacturer in Manhattan's Seventh Avenue garment district. Eisner attended DeWitt Clinton High School. With influences that included the early 20th-century commercial artist J. C. Leyendecker,[1] he drew for the school newspaper (The Clintonian), the literary magazine (The Magpie) and the yearbook, and did stage design, leading him to consider doing that kind of work for theater. Upon graduation, he studied under Canadian artist George Brandt Bridgman (1864-1943) for a year at the Art Students League of New York. Contacts made there led to a position as an advertising writer-cartoonist for the New York American newspaper. Eisner also drew $10-a-page illustrations for pulp magazines, including Western Sheriffs and Outlaws.
In 1936, high-school friend and fellow cartoonist Bob Kane, of future Batman fame, suggested that the 19-year-old Eisner try selling cartoons to the new comic book Wow, What A Magazine!. "Comic books" at the time were tabloid-sized collections of comic strip reprints in color. In 1935, they began to include occasional new comic strip-like material. Editor Jerry Iger bought an Eisner adventure strip called "Captain Scott Dalton", an H. Rider Haggard-styled hero who traveled the world after rare artifacts. Eisner subsequently wrote and drew the pirate strip "The Flame" and the secret agent strip "Harry Karry" for Wow as well.
The Spirit
In "late '39, just before Christmas time," Eisner recalled in 1979,[4] Quality Comics publisher Everett M. "Busy" Arnold "came to me and said that the Sunday newspapers were looking for a way of getting into this comic book boom". In a 2004 interview,[5] he elaborated on that meeting:
'Busy' invited me up for lunch one day and introduced me to Henry Martin[, sales manager of the Des Moines Register and Tribune Syndicate, who] said, 'The newspapers in this country, particularly the Sunday papers, are looking to compete with comics books, and they would like to get a comic-book insert into the newspapers'. ... Martin asked if I could do it. ... It meant that I'd have to leave Eisner & Iger [which] was making money; we were very profitable at that time and things were going very well. A hard decision. Anyway, I agreed to do the Sunday comic book and we started discussing the deal [which] was that we'd be partners in the 'Comic Book Section', as they called it at that time. And also, I would produce two other magazines in partnership with Arnold.
Eisner negotiated an agreement with the syndicate in which Arnold would copyright The Spirit, but, "Written down in the contract I had with 'Busy' Arnold and this contract exists today as the basis for my copyright ownership Arnold agreed that it was my property. They agreed that if we had a split-up in any way, the property would revert to me on that day that happened. My attorney went to 'Busy' Arnold and his family, and they all signed a release agreeing that would not pursue the question of ownership"[5] This would include the eventual backup features, "Mr. Mystic" and "Lady Luck".
Selling his share of their firm to Iger, who would continue to package comics as the S. M. Iger Studio and as Phoenix Features through 1955, Eisner left to create The Spirit. "They gave me an adult audience," Eisner said in 1997, "and I wanted to write better things than superheroes. Comic books were a ghetto. I sold my part of the enterprise to my associate and then began The Spirit. They wanted an heroic character, a costumed character. They asked me if he'd have a costume. And I put a mask on him and said, 'Yes, he has a costume!'"[6]
The Spirit, a seven-page, urban-crimefighter series, ran with such backup features as "Mr. Mystic" and "Lady Luck" in a 16-page Sunday supplement (colloquially called "The Spirit Section") eventually distributed in 20 newspapers with a combined circulation of as many as five million copies, premiering June 2, 1940, and continuing through 1952.
Eisner's rumpled, masked hero (with his headquarters under the tombstone of his supposedly deceased true identity, Denny Colt) and his gritty, detailed view of big-city life (based on Eisner's Jewish upbringing in New York City) both reflected and influenced the noir outlook of movies and fiction in the 1940s.
The strip is especially notable in other areas. First, it was the story of people, often the little people overlooked in the city's maelstrom. In some episodes of The Spirit, the nominal hero makes a brief, almost incidental appearance while the story focuses on a real-life drama played out in streets, dilapidated tenements, and smoke-filled back rooms. Second, along with violence and pathos, The Spirit lived on humor, both subtle and overt. He was machine-gunned, knocked silly, bruised, often amazed into near immobility and constantly confused by beautiful women.
Set in the Manhattan manquι of Central City, the strip featured a big-hearted supporting cast that included the gruff Irish police commissioner, Dolan; his gorgeous blond daughter, Ellen, whose waifish manner belied the occasional vicious uppercut or scathing remark she could throw; and Ebony White, an orphaned African American child who served as the Spirit's sidekick, surrogate son, and kid-appeal comic relief, whom the other characters treated with a casual, inherent respect not always seen in the pop culture of the time, but which also drew criticism for its racial caricature.
While Eisner's later graphic novels were entirely his own work, he had a studio working under his supervision on The Spirit. In particular, letterer Abe Kanegson came up with the distinctive lettering style which Eisner himself would later imitate in his book-length works, and Kanegson would often rewrite Eisner's dialogue.[7]
Eisner's most trusted assistant on The Spirit, however, was Jules Feiffer, later a renowned cartoonist, playwright and screenwriter in his own right. Eisner later said of their working methods "You should hear me and Jules Feiffer going at it in a room. 'No, you designed the splash page for this one, then you wrote the ending I came up with the idea for the story, and you did it up to this point, then I did the next page and this sequence here and...' And I'll be swearing up and down that he wrote the ending on that one. We never agree".[7]
So trusted were Eisner's assistants that Eisner allowed them to "ghost" The Spirit from the time that he was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1942 until his return to civilian life in 1945. The primary wartime artists were the uncredited Lou Fine and Jack Cole, with future Kid Colt, Outlaw artist Jack Keller drawing backgrounds. Ghost writers included Manly Wade Wellman and William Woolfolk. The wartime ghosted stories are been reprinted in DC Comics' hardcover collections The Spirit Archives Vols. 5 to 9 (2001-2003), spanning July 1942 - December 1944.
On Eisner's return from service and resumption of his role in the studio, he created the bulk of the Spirit stories on which his reputation was solidified. The post-war years also saw him attempt to launch the comic-strip/comic-book series Baseball, John Law, Kewpies, and Nubbin the Shoeshine Boy; none succeeded, but some material was recycled into The Spirit.
Death
Eisner died in Lauderdale Lakes, Florida, of complications from a quadruple bypass surgery performed December 22, 2004.[10][11] DC Comics held a memorial service in Manhattan's the Lower East Side, a neighborhood Eisner often visited in his work, on April 7, 2005, at the Angel Orensanz Foundation on Norfolk Street.[12]
Eisner was survived by his wife, Ann Weingarten Eisner, and their son, John. In the introduction to the 2001 reissue of A Contract with God, Eisner revealed that the inspiration for the title story grew out of the 1969 death of his leukemia-stricken teenaged daughter, Alice, next to whom he is buried. Until then, only Eisner's closest friends had even been aware he had had a daughter.
1) Official Will Eisner Website (http://willeisner.com/index.html).
2) MSNBC Interview with Will Eisner (http://cagle.msnbc.com/hogan/interviews/eisner/home.asp)
3) Wikipedia Article on The Spirit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit)
4) Will Eisner: A Spirited Life Interview Series & More! (http://feeds.feedburner.com/aspiritedlife/WAJF)
5) Washington Post Article - Every Picture Tells A Story (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11308-2004Jun2.html)
http://willeisner.com/biography/images/eisner.desk.jpg
For an in depth biographical article on Will Eisner (http://willeisner.com/biography/index.html), please read the one posted on the Will Eisner.com
The following (edited) biographical sketch comes from the Wikipedia article on Will Eisner (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Eisner).
William Erwin Eisner (March 6, 1917 January 3, 2005) was an acclaimed American comics writer, artist and entrepreneur. He is considered one of the most important contributors to the development of the medium and is known for the cartooning studio he founded; for his highly influential series The Spirit; for his use of comics as an instructional medium; for his leading role in establishing the graphic novel as a form of literature with his book A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories; and for his educational work about the medium as exemplified by his book Comics and Sequential Art.
In 1988, the comics community paid tribute to Eisner by creating the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, more commonly known as "the Eisners", to recognize achievements each year in the comics medium. Eisner enthusiastically participated in the awards ceremony, congratulating each recipient.
Early life and career
Eisner was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Jewish immigrants his father was a former painter, marginally successful entrepreneur, and one-time manufacturer in Manhattan's Seventh Avenue garment district. Eisner attended DeWitt Clinton High School. With influences that included the early 20th-century commercial artist J. C. Leyendecker,[1] he drew for the school newspaper (The Clintonian), the literary magazine (The Magpie) and the yearbook, and did stage design, leading him to consider doing that kind of work for theater. Upon graduation, he studied under Canadian artist George Brandt Bridgman (1864-1943) for a year at the Art Students League of New York. Contacts made there led to a position as an advertising writer-cartoonist for the New York American newspaper. Eisner also drew $10-a-page illustrations for pulp magazines, including Western Sheriffs and Outlaws.
In 1936, high-school friend and fellow cartoonist Bob Kane, of future Batman fame, suggested that the 19-year-old Eisner try selling cartoons to the new comic book Wow, What A Magazine!. "Comic books" at the time were tabloid-sized collections of comic strip reprints in color. In 1935, they began to include occasional new comic strip-like material. Editor Jerry Iger bought an Eisner adventure strip called "Captain Scott Dalton", an H. Rider Haggard-styled hero who traveled the world after rare artifacts. Eisner subsequently wrote and drew the pirate strip "The Flame" and the secret agent strip "Harry Karry" for Wow as well.
The Spirit
In "late '39, just before Christmas time," Eisner recalled in 1979,[4] Quality Comics publisher Everett M. "Busy" Arnold "came to me and said that the Sunday newspapers were looking for a way of getting into this comic book boom". In a 2004 interview,[5] he elaborated on that meeting:
'Busy' invited me up for lunch one day and introduced me to Henry Martin[, sales manager of the Des Moines Register and Tribune Syndicate, who] said, 'The newspapers in this country, particularly the Sunday papers, are looking to compete with comics books, and they would like to get a comic-book insert into the newspapers'. ... Martin asked if I could do it. ... It meant that I'd have to leave Eisner & Iger [which] was making money; we were very profitable at that time and things were going very well. A hard decision. Anyway, I agreed to do the Sunday comic book and we started discussing the deal [which] was that we'd be partners in the 'Comic Book Section', as they called it at that time. And also, I would produce two other magazines in partnership with Arnold.
Eisner negotiated an agreement with the syndicate in which Arnold would copyright The Spirit, but, "Written down in the contract I had with 'Busy' Arnold and this contract exists today as the basis for my copyright ownership Arnold agreed that it was my property. They agreed that if we had a split-up in any way, the property would revert to me on that day that happened. My attorney went to 'Busy' Arnold and his family, and they all signed a release agreeing that would not pursue the question of ownership"[5] This would include the eventual backup features, "Mr. Mystic" and "Lady Luck".
Selling his share of their firm to Iger, who would continue to package comics as the S. M. Iger Studio and as Phoenix Features through 1955, Eisner left to create The Spirit. "They gave me an adult audience," Eisner said in 1997, "and I wanted to write better things than superheroes. Comic books were a ghetto. I sold my part of the enterprise to my associate and then began The Spirit. They wanted an heroic character, a costumed character. They asked me if he'd have a costume. And I put a mask on him and said, 'Yes, he has a costume!'"[6]
The Spirit, a seven-page, urban-crimefighter series, ran with such backup features as "Mr. Mystic" and "Lady Luck" in a 16-page Sunday supplement (colloquially called "The Spirit Section") eventually distributed in 20 newspapers with a combined circulation of as many as five million copies, premiering June 2, 1940, and continuing through 1952.
Eisner's rumpled, masked hero (with his headquarters under the tombstone of his supposedly deceased true identity, Denny Colt) and his gritty, detailed view of big-city life (based on Eisner's Jewish upbringing in New York City) both reflected and influenced the noir outlook of movies and fiction in the 1940s.
The strip is especially notable in other areas. First, it was the story of people, often the little people overlooked in the city's maelstrom. In some episodes of The Spirit, the nominal hero makes a brief, almost incidental appearance while the story focuses on a real-life drama played out in streets, dilapidated tenements, and smoke-filled back rooms. Second, along with violence and pathos, The Spirit lived on humor, both subtle and overt. He was machine-gunned, knocked silly, bruised, often amazed into near immobility and constantly confused by beautiful women.
Set in the Manhattan manquι of Central City, the strip featured a big-hearted supporting cast that included the gruff Irish police commissioner, Dolan; his gorgeous blond daughter, Ellen, whose waifish manner belied the occasional vicious uppercut or scathing remark she could throw; and Ebony White, an orphaned African American child who served as the Spirit's sidekick, surrogate son, and kid-appeal comic relief, whom the other characters treated with a casual, inherent respect not always seen in the pop culture of the time, but which also drew criticism for its racial caricature.
While Eisner's later graphic novels were entirely his own work, he had a studio working under his supervision on The Spirit. In particular, letterer Abe Kanegson came up with the distinctive lettering style which Eisner himself would later imitate in his book-length works, and Kanegson would often rewrite Eisner's dialogue.[7]
Eisner's most trusted assistant on The Spirit, however, was Jules Feiffer, later a renowned cartoonist, playwright and screenwriter in his own right. Eisner later said of their working methods "You should hear me and Jules Feiffer going at it in a room. 'No, you designed the splash page for this one, then you wrote the ending I came up with the idea for the story, and you did it up to this point, then I did the next page and this sequence here and...' And I'll be swearing up and down that he wrote the ending on that one. We never agree".[7]
So trusted were Eisner's assistants that Eisner allowed them to "ghost" The Spirit from the time that he was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1942 until his return to civilian life in 1945. The primary wartime artists were the uncredited Lou Fine and Jack Cole, with future Kid Colt, Outlaw artist Jack Keller drawing backgrounds. Ghost writers included Manly Wade Wellman and William Woolfolk. The wartime ghosted stories are been reprinted in DC Comics' hardcover collections The Spirit Archives Vols. 5 to 9 (2001-2003), spanning July 1942 - December 1944.
On Eisner's return from service and resumption of his role in the studio, he created the bulk of the Spirit stories on which his reputation was solidified. The post-war years also saw him attempt to launch the comic-strip/comic-book series Baseball, John Law, Kewpies, and Nubbin the Shoeshine Boy; none succeeded, but some material was recycled into The Spirit.
Death
Eisner died in Lauderdale Lakes, Florida, of complications from a quadruple bypass surgery performed December 22, 2004.[10][11] DC Comics held a memorial service in Manhattan's the Lower East Side, a neighborhood Eisner often visited in his work, on April 7, 2005, at the Angel Orensanz Foundation on Norfolk Street.[12]
Eisner was survived by his wife, Ann Weingarten Eisner, and their son, John. In the introduction to the 2001 reissue of A Contract with God, Eisner revealed that the inspiration for the title story grew out of the 1969 death of his leukemia-stricken teenaged daughter, Alice, next to whom he is buried. Until then, only Eisner's closest friends had even been aware he had had a daughter.
1) Official Will Eisner Website (http://willeisner.com/index.html).
2) MSNBC Interview with Will Eisner (http://cagle.msnbc.com/hogan/interviews/eisner/home.asp)
3) Wikipedia Article on The Spirit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit)
4) Will Eisner: A Spirited Life Interview Series & More! (http://feeds.feedburner.com/aspiritedlife/WAJF)
5) Washington Post Article - Every Picture Tells A Story (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11308-2004Jun2.html)