Will Eisner Champion of the Graphic Novel ( PDFDrive )

Original art for Chapter 1 of A Life Force, 1988.

Cover, Maus, Pantheon Books, 1986. Art Spiegelman began serializing Maus in the second issue of Raw magazine (December 1980), always envisioning it as ultimately becoming a book. The powerful narrative of his family and the Holocaust earned him the only Pulitzer Prize ever awarded for a graphic novel, a special award in 1992. It was the breakthrough that granted comics the broad respect Eisner craved. The award, the serious subject matter, and his own extraordinary creativity enabled Spiegelman—a powerful evangelist for the form—to reach out beyond comics fans to the literary community. Eisner and Spiegelman shared a mutual respect but had a complex, sometimes difficult relationship.

Splash page, “The Kingpin Must Die,” Daredevil: The Man Without Fear no. 170, Marvel Comics, May 1981. Inspired by Eisner’s work and his efforts to popularize comics, Frank Miller took the medium beyond the established limits for super heroes.

Eisner’s contribution was less a singular successful graphic novel, either artistically or commercially, but more his persistence in producing graphic novels, standing up for them, and conversing one on one with his surviving peers and aspiring successors. Eisner was relentless in wanting his work to be judged by the standards of art and literature and to be marketed as such. And as a businessman he understood that the creation of a critical mass of such graphic novels would make it more likely for them to get the exposure they needed to reach a new audience. A single graphic novel was, in many ways, an eccentric masterpiece. A shelf of graphic novels with literary value was a cultural movement. ALL THE RISING AMBITIONS for comics in their new form came together in 1987, the watershed moment for the credibility of the graphic novel. Three books were published in close proximity: Frank Miller and Klaus Janson’s The Dark Knight Returns, a moody look at an aging Batman in an increasingly corrupt world; Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’s Watchmen, which examined what might have happened if super heroes had been real; and the singular breakthrough of Pantheon’s first volume of Spiegelman’s Maus. There is ample room for debate over why these three volumes came together when they did, and there were certainly vastly different cultural forces affecting each of their creators. Spiegelman was a part of the underground movement; Moore and Gibbons had developed their skills working on the British weekly comics magazines (and their political consciousness railing against Margaret Thatcher’s conservative government); and Miller was a quintessentially American farm boy from Vermont making his reputation on Marvel’s Daredevil but fascinated by the manga his girlfriend, comics editor Laurie Sutton, had brought him. All three projects had been published in serial form initially. The two from DC Comics certainly owed some of their breakthrough quality to the institution of royalties a few years before, changing the willingness of mainstream comics creators to innovate and put more of themselves into their work. The third volume, a unique step by one of publishing’s most prestigious imprints, was surely acquired by Pantheon with the importance of the subject matter overcoming any prejudice against the form in which the story was told. Regardless, the three works created a critical mass. Each of these projects was tremendously influential. Miller’s demonstration that even the most iconic of characters could be successfully reinterpreted, along

with Moore and Gibbons’s rejection of the ideal hero, combined to trigger an era of darker super-hero stories and more complex, novel-form storytelling in what remained a largely periodical world. Spiegelman’s courage in explicitly unveiling the personal trauma his family had gone through opened up the potential for memoir on a wider scale than Harvey Pekar had been pioneering in his underground American Splendor comix since 1976. While Pekar’s tales were notable for their “everyman” drama of ordinary life, Spiegelman showed that the most challenging moments in human history could be told with dignity in cartoons. Spiegelman also established an art style that would be a benchmark for many future graphic novelists, drawing on the underground and cartooning traditions for a very straightforward storytelling approach. The explosion was felt within the comics field but, for the first time, widely beyond it as well. Rolling Stone waxed enthusiastic about The Dark Knight Returns and talked about comics undergoing “perhaps the most wide-ranging and meaningful creative explosion … spawning a new generation of storytellers who are among the more intriguing literary and graphic craftsmen of our day.” Respect was far from universal, with the New York Times announcing in stentorian tones, “Come on now, we’re talking about a comic book, not the Sistine Chapel.” But even the Gray Lady was taking the medium more seriously than before. Another piece in the Times quoted Bernard Riley, a Library of Congress curator, as saying Spiegelman “takes underground comics into new territory, making comics over into a kind of psycho-history, with highly literary and meticulously observed autobiography.”

Interior page from Watchmen no. 5, DC Comics, January 1987. Writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons were both admirers of Eisner’s work, and in their groundbreaking series they used many of the techniques he’d pioneered decades before. The 1987 trade paperback edition went on to become the first American graphic novel to sell over a million copies.

Interior page from Batman: The Dark Knight Returns no. 4, DC Comics, June 1986. Collected in trade paperback and hardcover in 1987, Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns became the first graphic novel featuring an established super-hero character to achieve runaway commercial success and critical appreciation. Both this and Miller’s Daredevil (opposite) were inked by Klaus Janson, who succeeded Eisner as a teacher at SVA.

On a commercial level, the success of these volumes began to motivate bookstores to create graphic novel sections, and comics shops to devote more space to stocking these perennials instead of just the latest comics issues. There were still very few titles to fill these shelves, and not enough works of equal quality to keep customers excited, but a beachhead had been established. The awards followed. Maus would ultimately win the most prestigious, becoming the first and only comic to win a special Pulitzer Prize for letters, although it wouldn’t happen until 1992, after the remaining chapters of the serialized story had been collected as Maus II (a full seven decades after the Pulitzers established a category for editorial cartooning). Watchmen became the first comic to win science fiction’s prestigious Hugo Award, in their “for other forms” category. Twenty years later, the Hugos would add a category for graphic novels, but in the intervening years they energetically changed the rules so no other graphic novel could follow Watchmen. And while it would take the National Cartoonists Society another twenty years to establish a separate Reuben Award category for graphic novels, the sheer quality of 1987’s crop caused the comic book world to immediately start graphic novel award categories. There had been awards for comics since 1961, under various names and given by various organizations, but in 1988 a graphic novel category was created, and Watchmen won the two most prestigious awards, each named for the first time that year after a pioneer creator: the Harvey Award (named after Harvey Kurtzman) … and the Eisner.

Detail, original art from the cover of Invisible People, 1993.

WHETHER WILL EISNER KNEW IT or not, The Spirit had been a fan favorite since the very early days of comics fandom. The first organized comic book awards, the Alley Awards, gave one to the series in 1966, the first time it was eligible, as Best All-Reprint Title for the Harvey Comics issues. The very first time a Hall of Fame designation was made, it was for The Spirit by Will Eisner, in 1967 (the Alleys treated the series as the designee, rather than the individual’s work across various properties). Eisner’s appearances at the early New York Comic Art Conventions had led to his enduring friendship with Denis Kitchen, but Eisner only slowly immersed himself in the expanding world of the conventions and fandom. By 1975, Eisner was at the San Diego Comic-Con and was awarded their Inkpot Award (a cross between a lifetime achievement award and a “thanks for coming” recognition). But in 1988, the name Eisner became synonymous with Comic-Con’s most enduring event: the Eisner Awards. It took a while for comic books to achieve an awards program that lasted. The Alleys had been awarded in 1962 through 1970, based on fan votes, but ended when the volunteer organizers became overwhelmed with other obligations, limiting the time they could spend on their hobby. A short-lived professional organization called the Academy of Comic Book Arts gave out

professional organization called the Academy of Comic Book Arts gave out awards from 1971 to 1975, including giving Eisner their second Hall of Fame award (after Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the creators of Superman, whose super-hero descendants were providing work for most of the academy members). A host of other awards stepped into the breach, but none proved able to survive for more than a few years. San Diego Expo, 2000. Eisner was the cartoonist most supportive of comics shop retailers and the go-to guy for illustrations such as this promotional poster for the trade show where publishers would present their lines.

In 1987, the Kirby Awards had become the latest casualty. After three years of being given by Fantagraphics, an alternative publisher founded by Gary Groth and Mike Catron, the program was ending. The awards administrator, Dave Olbrich, was leaving the company and, after initially proposing to take the awards with him, reached a compromise under which Fantagraphics would continue the program but rename them after Harvey Kurtzman. Olbrich brought the awards event to the San Diego Comic-Con, which was “neutral ground” for the industry. San Diego had replaced New York as the site of the field’s largest conventions, with changes in New York City’s tourist industry and the death of Phil Seuling in 1984 having taken Manhattan out of contention. Moving the awards away from Fantagraphics’ sponsorship to the convention’s placed them in a more nonpartisan situation, allowing for support from more publishers. It also required yet another name change, with Fantagraphics retaining the Harveys. Eisner had been a guest of the convention, and the organizers were able to work with Olbrich to get Eisner’s consent to rename and relaunch the awards. Unlike Kurtzman’s passive role with the Harveys (he was already suffering from the Parkinson’s that would end his life a few years later), Eisner took an active role in the Eisner Awards from the beginning. While he didn’t contribute financially to the awards or add his voice to either the nominating or voting process, he participated that first year both as a stage presence at the ceremony and as a winner. Although not chosen for any of his current work, at least Eisner had the pleasure of being one of the initial inductees into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame, along with his former studio mate Jack Kirby and Carl Barks, the adored cartoonist of Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge McDuck comics. The process was choppy the first few years, with no awards in 1990, and Olbrich passing the torch to San Diego Comic-Con organizers at the suggestion of Eisner and Denis Kitchen. Longtime convention staffer Jackie Estrada became the administrator, a role she continues to this day, and she managed the process as the awards grew from a small ceremony to one of the convention’s annual centerpiece events.

Original art for the San Diego Comic-Con program, 1975. Eisner’s affiliation with the West Coast event went back to its early days. This was the year he received the Inkpot Award for lifetime achievement.

At the Eisner Awards: Eisner with administrator Jackie Estrada and cartoonist Batton Lash (Supernatural Law), 1995.

Cartoonist Jeff Smith (Bone) and writer Kurt Busiek (Astro City) enthrone Eisner at the awards ceremony, 1998.

Estrada’s destiny was already connected to Eisner; she had just begun her relationship with Batton Lash, her future husband and one of the students who had led the petition drive to bring Eisner to SVA fifteen years before. As the awards grew, Estrada became an active collaborator with Eisner in that growth. She and her husband began sharing an annual breakfast with Eisner to prepare for the evening, and they brought suggestions such as adapting the judging process to select nominees used by the Angoulême comics festival awards in France. Eisner didn’t take the institution of the awards in his name as an official transition to senior-statesman status, as other artists entering their eighth decade might. He continued a steady flow of new graphic novels: The Building (1987) told the intertwined stories of people whose lives connected in a building being destroyed to make room for a shiny new tower; City People Notebook (1989) captured the feel of Eisner’s sketchbook, mostly wordless but telling stories of brief moments in the lives of passersby; the Will Eisner Reader (1991), which collected the remaining short stories from the Quarterly; and then, more powerfully, To the Heart of the Storm (1991). To the Heart of the Storm took Eisner back to his emotional “fuel” by exploring his childhood, his parents’ frustrations, and the shadow of anti- Semitism spreading over the world as he grew to manhood. The story mixed reality with fiction, perhaps in ways even he couldn’t completely sort out. “It turned out to be a period of deep therapy. I had to deal with untrustworthy memory and the residue of guilt about the fairness and accuracy of the portrayal of loved ones,” Eisner later observed. If it lacked the singular moment of pain that A Contract with God drew upon, To the Heart of the Storm was built on many years of smaller ones, and the reality of that shone through. The book won both the Eisner and Harvey Award for Best Graphic Album in 1992, in a field that was becoming more crowded with quality work—crowded enough that a year earlier the awards had separated out graphic novel reprints that collected previously published work from those volumes that were created especially in that form. It was a distinction the consumer marketplace would never make, but it seemed significant to both the critics and the creative talent themselves. For the talent, part of the distinction was the amount of time the creators had spent on the work before any of it was published, acknowledging that original graphic novels were often the result of a more significant singular commitment than were the serialized collections. And it would certainly prove to be the case over the years that—given the nature of the periodical format—serialized collections often included the work of multiple writers and artists.

Besides the honor of the award, Eisner had another source of pleasure at San Diego Comic-Con in 1992. With the growing interest in comics in the two decades since Michael Uslan taught the first accredited college course in comics at Indiana University in 1971, there was enough of an academic community to make a formal gathering possible. The first Comics Arts Conference was held in the back corridors of the convention, organized by Randy Duncan (a professor of communication arts at Henderson State University) and Peter Coogan (then a graduate student at Michigan State University). Formal papers were presented, and two panels were devoted to looking at the field from a scholarly perspective. Eisner participated and was supportive and delighted at the same time. It was yet another sign his field was being taken seriously. Eisner attended again over the years and participated in more panels as well. A particularly sweet moment came in 1998, as Eisner attended the twentieth anniversary of the graphic novel conference at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, organized by his friend and editor at Kitchen Sink, N. C. Christopher Couch, celebrating the two decades of graphic novel work that had elapsed since A Contract with God.

Original art for City People Notebook, 1989.

Original art for “The Long Hit,” Will Eisner’s Quarterly no. 8, Kitchen Sink Press, 1986.

Whether it was academic theory or practical artistic logic, Eisner could be counted on to energetically debate any aspect of creating comics. Cartoonist Scott McCloud became the leading theoretician of the form with his publication of Understanding Comics in 1993. In his acknowledgments he writes, “Eisner’s Comics & Sequential Art was the first book to examine the art form of comics. Here’s the second. I couldn’t have done it without you, Will.” McCloud and Eisner spent endless hours discussing the esoterica of what lay behind the panels the readers were seeing, forming a friendship like that of two physics scientists engaged in researching the same elusive particle. Besides debating the theory of comics, Eisner continued to encourage practitioners of the form, especially throughout the 1990s as the range of material being published exploded. His presence at the annual awards ceremony ensured that he had an opportunity to meet the important new talent, and he would often strike up friendships. Asked about the number of close relationships that Eisner had with much younger people, from Denis Kitchen on through a pack of the most talented writers and artists to work in the comics form, Ann Eisner noted, “Will didn’t think much of age. We had friends of all generations, not just the ones in comics.”

Original art for “A Sunset in Sunshine City,” Will Eisner’s Quarterly no. 6, Kitchen Sink Press, 1985.

One of those friendships was with Neil Gaiman, who would go on to shelve his Eisner Awards with science fiction’s Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Awards; horror’s Bram Stoker Award; the World Fantasy Award; and even the Newbery Medal. Gaiman’s Sandman was a major factor in changing periodical comics into a literary form, and the series was important in attracting new readers to the medium when the individual issues were collected into a perpetually bestselling series of graphic novels. Gaiman—who recalled his reaction to Contract as, “Will was writing for grownups. Will was writing for me”—gave the first keynote address at the Eisner Awards in 1996. Eisner could be counted on to support recognition of comics in any fashion that advanced his long-held goals for the form. As Jackie Estrada commented, “It’s the medium that he thought was unlimited in what it could do, and that we had just scratched the surface.” Eisner would send notes of encouragement to young cartoonists whose work had been nominated for an award, or whose work, passed on to him at a convention, captured his interest. And comic shop owners knew Eisner as a legendary professional who understood that without their hard work and success, his stories would never reach the hands of readers. Eisner had been defeated by distribution too often in his career not to recognize the unique contribution that passionate fans of comics behind the counters were making. As Dark Horse Comics editor Diana Schutz recalled, “Will was happy being the ambassador of comics” in any context.

Unpublished original art intended for City People Notebook, 1989.

Original art for The Building, 1987.

Original art for To the Heart of the Storm, 1991.

That attitude led to another unique moment in Eisner’s long career. Eisner had learned the importance of distribution back in his brief moment as a comics publisher, and he had been fascinated by the evolving methods used first for the undergrounds, and then, in a more structured fashion, for the comics shops. He’d made friends with many retailers by walking into their shops on his travels, and after their awe of talking with a famous cartoonist eased, he discussed why they placed books on their racks in certain patterns, learning all that he could about the business from the retailer perspective. Eisner suggested to Estrada that the awards be expanded beyond the content of comics, to add a Spirit of Comics Retailer Award—a tangible recognition of the difference a great retailer could make to the field, and perhaps a way of encouraging others to follow the best practices that could be highlighted in the process. With comics shops being fundamentally an owner/operator business, there were no franchise guidelines (or at least no franchises that had ever lasted very long), and the stores very closely reflected their owners’ tastes and personalities and idiosyncrasies, too. Estrada and the convention accepted the idea, and Santa Cruz retailer Joe Ferrara stepped in to administer the award, starting in 1993. As the years went on, Eisner had other warm moments at San Diego Comic- Con’s awards ceremonies. In 1994, he was in the wings listening to Ruth Clampett’s speech about the year’s honoree for the Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award, named for her father, an animation pioneer. As Ruth went on, Eisner commented to Estrada, “He sounds like a good guy”… and then blushed as his own name was called out as the awardee.

Original art, Graphic Storytelling & Visual Narrative, Poorhouse Press, 1996.

“Gossip and Gertrude Granch,” final page of The New Adventures of the Spirit no. 1, 1997. Eisner finally allowed others to do stories of the Spirit, starting with Watchmen creators Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.

Conventions became an opportunity to mix with his friends and keep up-to- date on the industry. Estrada recalled Eisner at an early SPX (Small Press Expo), energetically going from table to table, engaging with the young cartoonists one after another, until finally he headed back to his room, saying, “I’ve got to get back to my board; these kids are getting ahead of me.” One way the kids wouldn’t be getting ahead of Eisner was by walking. Many of his guests at breakfast shared the experience of taking the mile-long walk to the convention center and being outpaced by Eisner’s strides. He liked hanging out with people half his age, but he refused to be slowed down by them. While many recipients of the Eisner Awards commented on how amazing it was to come onstage and be handed their trophy by the legend it was named after, some worried a bit about Eisner himself. While he wasn’t outwardly showing his age, he was an elderly man, and hours of standing for the ceremony would wear anyone down. So one year, writer Kurt Busiek and cartoonist Jeff Smith conspired with Comic-Con’s Sue Lord, who also worked for the San Diego Opera. A throne was borrowed from the opera’s prop department and was sprung on Eisner by the two men, who bowed deeply to the master. Eisner sat down, said it was very nice, then stood up for the rest of the awards ceremony. THESE NEW RELATIONSHIPS opened up Eisner to something he’d steadfastly rejected for decades: allowing other creators to do Spirit stories of their own. Will Eisner’s the Spirit: The New Adventures from Kitchen Sink began in 1998 by reuniting Watchmen creators Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, and the line of writers and artists willing to pay tribute to Eisner continued with award winners, nominees, and a litany of talented admirers. Eisner’s graphic novels didn’t slow down, either. Invisible People (1993) collected his serialized stories about the overlooked in society; Dropsie Avenue: The Neighborhood (1995) expanded on Eisner’s approach in The Building and traced a neighborhood through its evolution from Colonial days to the period after the Vietnam War; and Family Matter (1998) looked at the secrets and burdens that pulled a family together or apart. Eisner’s twenty-five-year collaboration with Kitchen Sink had led to a solid library of graphic novels. Continuing his many-faceted approach to moving comics into more literary and artistic territories, Eisner also published one last book through Poorhouse Press: Graphic Storytelling & Visual Narrative (1996). Eisner expanded on his discussion of specific techniques that the storyteller could utilize, with examples from his own work and some selections from cartoonists such as Milton Caniff,

who was an influence on his work. Although Eisner had finally stopped commuting to teach at SVA, he couldn’t resist the impulse to teach more through his books, or to produce more original works. Unfortunately, while Eisner continued to be ready to go at full speed, Kitchen Sink hit hard times. Kitchen had moved east in 1993 to merge with Tundra, the publishing imprint of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles co-creator Kevin Eastman, and later brought in outside investors, but the volatile boom- and-bust cycles of the comics business had exhausted Kitchen’s capital, and the company closed in 1999. Denis Kitchen remained Eisner’s close friend, collaborator, and agent, but he no longer had a publishing arm to offer. So he helped Eisner find good new homes for his literary children, both existing and unborn.

Detail, Invisible People, 1993.

Original art for Invisible People, 1993.

Original art for Dropsie Avenue: The Neighborhood, 1995.

It was a personal pleasure for this author to be able to announce to retailers at the 1999 San Diego Comic-Con that DC Comics would be launching a program to reprint the entire Spirit series in chronological order, in library archival– quality format. I pointed out that it fulfilled a youthful goal of mine, since I had abandoned collecting The Spirit when I was unable to accumulate more than half the set. Eisner oversaw the production of the series, setting standards for the paper and coloring approach as well as the overall design. DC also became Eisner’s publisher for his two latest graphic novels: Minor Miracles (2000), a collection of stories about miraculous moments in very ordinary lives; and The Name of the Game (2001), Eisner’s last sprawling generational saga and his final Eisner Award–winning book. DC’s strongest editor, Karen Berger, set aside her projects at the Vertigo imprint, which she had built and nourished, to edit Eisner’s graphic novels. During the transition, one Eisner book went to Dark Horse Comics, where Eisner built strong relationships with owner Mike Richardson and editor Diana Schutz. Last Day in Vietnam: A Memory (2000) went there moments before it needed to go to press, with Richardson promising Eisner, “We will do the impossible,” and telling Schutz, “Do the impossible.” The book told vignettes of life in combat zones, inspired by Eisner’s trips overseas during his PS days. The friendships built during this rush project were strong enough that when Eisner came out to a local arts festival in Portland, Oregon, he ended up at dinner with Richardson, Schutz, science fiction author Harlan Ellison, and cartoonist Paul Chadwick. Ellison was so much a Spirit fan that his famously unorthodox home, Ellison Wonderland, included a “Spirit window,” architecturally designed to mimic the one Eisner had drawn in the Wildwood Cemetery hideaway of his hero. Eisner and Schutz ended up in deep conversation at one end of the table, and Schutz recalls hearing the story of his daughter, Alice’s, illness and death for the first time that night, perhaps because she was a woman almost exactly the age Alice would have been. Or perhaps, with over thirty years having passed, Eisner was finally able to tell the tale directly to a good friend. Eisner had already gone outside the Kitchen Sink embrace for a couple of small children’s picture-book projects that had different target audiences. NBM, a small publisher specializing in bringing European graphic albums to the American market, published several adaptations by Eisner: a Grimms’ fairy tale, The Princess and the Frog (1999); a version of Cervantes’s Don Quixote under the title The Last Knight (2000); Melville’s Moby-Dick (2001); and an African myth entitled Sundita (2003). Without the personal comfort of his relationship with Kitchen, however

Without the personal comfort of his relationship with Kitchen, however positive his relationships with his new publishers were, Eisner reverted to a long-held belief. He was happy to help his publisher make money because, as he explained, a successful publisher could do more to make his books succeed. But the lure of the abilities—real or imagined—of “a big New York publisher” behind a book continued to call to him. The last two graphic novels in Eisner’s career went to two of the most literary publishers in New York, thanks to the increased acceptance of the form he had helped champion and the efforts of agent Judy Hansen, a publishing lawyer who had teamed up with Kitchen. Doubleday published Fagin the Jew (2003), a more radical reenvisioning than the projects Eisner had done for NBM. Fagin examines the anti-Semitism prevalent in England at the time of Dickens’s Oliver Twist, and it uses Fagin’s life story to make it touching and real. Then Hansen organized a deal to place most of Eisner’s lifetime of graphic novels with W. W. Norton & Company, hoping to capitalize on a major effort they would make around the publication of Eisner’s next graphic novel, The Plot. Norton believed that with Eisner’s warm and articulate personality to publicize it, a graphic novel detailing the true story of the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which had been used to defame world Jewry for a century, could be an important book and a bestseller.

Original art for Last Day in Vietnam: A Memory, Dark Horse Comics, 2000.

Original art for The Name of the Game, DC Comics, 2001.

Original art for Minor Miracles, DC Comics, 2000.

Original art for Fagin the Jew, Doubleday, 2003. In this graphic novel, part biography and part polemic, Eisner explores the notorious villain of Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist.

Eisner continued to press ahead on multiple projects at an astounding pace for a man his age. While The Plot was in production, Eisner occupied himself with other projects, including a short story for an Escapist special Dark Horse was putting together. The Escapist was a character from Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2000), a book set in the early days of comics. Eisner had served as Chabon’s unofficial history consultant and had struck up a friendship with the author, so when Dark Horse was looking for artists to contribute to a celebratory anthology, Eisner was willing to sign on despite being ill. Schutz recalled, “Will pushed himself. He wouldn’t go to the doctor until he sent the art boards out FedEx, after which the doctor announced, ‘Get to the hospital—now.’” Eisner passed away on January 3, 2005, from complications following surgery for a quadruple bypass. He was working until the last evening of his life, because, as Schutz remarked in another context, “Will had stories he had to tell.”

Original art for The Plot, W. W. Norton & Company, 2005. Completed in the last month of Eisner’s life and published posthumously, The Plot examines the twisted history of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Novelist Umberto Eco, in his introduction, called it a “courageous, not comic but tragic book … a story very much worth telling, for one must fight the Big Lie and the hatred it spawns.”

The Spirit Archives no. 1, 2000. In all, twenty-six volumes were published by DC Comics over nine years, collecting the complete Spirit stories and dailies. A twenty-seventh and final volume was published by Dark Horse Comics in 2009, collecting the Spirit’s New Adventure stories, written and illustrated by some of the most famous names in comics, including Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, and Neil Gaiman.

Next six images: Original art for Michael Chabon Presents: The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist no. 6, Dark Horse Comics, April 2005. These were the final pages to come off Eisner’s drawing board before he entered the hospital for the last time, and they would become the first new published Spirit story written and illustrated by Eisner in decades, marking the Spirit’s final appearance by his creator. Eisner was one of Michael Chabon’s key sources in writing his Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.











Detail, original art from the print “The Last of Yesteryear,” 1988. This image was first reprinted in the Will Eisner Reader: Seven Graphic Stories by a Comics Master, Kitchen Sink Press, 1991.

A WILL EISNER’S PREMATURE DEATH at the age of eighty-six didn’t end his influence or slow the gathering momentum of the graphic novel. If anything, it made easier the debate over the parentage of the modern American graphic novel. The New York Times, in Eisner’s obituary, described him as having “created … the first modern graphic novel, A Contract with God,” but that will surely not be the last word. It is indisputable that Eisner, along with Harvey Kurtzman and Art Spiegelman, were the most powerful voices in the movement, with their work, their teaching, and the encouragement they gave to creators who followed in their footsteps. They each took different paths to encourage these developments, converging briefly at the School of Visual Arts in the 1970s. Eisner’s was perhaps the most unusual path of an artist, because his business experience led him to focus on ways he could evangelize the form through awards, support for scholarly conferences, and even a foundation run by his nephew Carl Gropper and Carl’s wife, Nancy, that continues to generously promote both Eisner’s name and the medium he loved. As Columbia University journalism professor David Hajdu put it in his eulogy for Eisner, “Every one of