The Portrait of a Sequential Artist: Will Eisner

By David Gallaher
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Born in March 6th of 1917, William “Will” Eisner spent many of his 86 years as both a comics illustrator, and as solider in the United States Army during the Second World War. It was as a young man, that Eisner found himself influenced not only by the tragedies of war but also by the imaginative power of the comics medium.

Studying under the supervision of anatomist George Bridgman, Eisner went on to discover his true vocation as an illustrator and cartoonist in the late 1930s. After illustrating pages for the comic-book, “Wow! What A Magazine!” in 1936, he partnered with Jerry Iger in developing the first “comic-art shop” in 1937. The Eisner-Iger shop while employing such artists at Bob Kane, Lou Fine, and Jack Kirby, became a place where comic publishers could have stories developed for them.

After leaving in 1939, Eisner continued to work within the profession and in early 1940 he came up with the idea to package three stories into a sixteen-page comic book within the Sunday comics section of the weekly newspapers. It in this book, on Sunday, June 2nd of 1940, that The Spirit made his debut.

The Spirit told the story of policeman Denny Colt who was killed in a fight with a mad scientist while trying to save Central City. As the story unravels, it is revealed that Colt was in fact only knocked into suspended animation, upon waking up Denny discards his old identity and becomes the masked vigilante: The Spirit. Eisner’s strip became extremely popular due in large part do his experimental and innovative nature of his illustrations. Soon, The Spirit developed into a daily strip, while gaining worldwide syndication.

In May of 1942, Eisner was called into active service for the United States Army. It was during this period that he drew for the camp newspaper and other military periodicals for the government. His duties in the Armed Forces prevented Eisner from maintaining the schedule for his daily strip, so in 1944, The Spirit daily sequence went on hiatus and was eventually discontinued.

When he was demobilized in 1946, Eisner returned to the adventures of Denny Colt with a story entitled, ‘The Christmas Spirit’ which heralded a long run on the feature for quite a few years. After nearly a dozen years, The Spirit was laid to rest on October 5th of 1952 while Eisner devoted his time to developing educational comics for his American Visual Corporation. Among such projects were technical manuals that used comics as a means of instruction for the United States Army and a published teaching material for in comic-art form for schools and learning institutions. Interest in The Spirit was rediscovered in the mid-60s, which reprints of the old strips were published through Harvey.

After many years, Eisner returned to the first focusing in the potentially and possibilities of ‘sequential art as a story telling medium’. In 1978, Eisner published what, by many, is consider to be the first American graphic novel, ‘A Contract with God’ which recalls tenement life in 1930s New York.

Since that time Eisner has produced over a dozen graphic novels, ranging from the serious and tragic to the comedic and satirical, including such titles as: Family Matters, The Building, Dropsie Avenue and City People. His book Comics and Sequential Art, published in 1985, is a collection and accumulation of the ideas and theories his presented while as an instructor at New York’s School of Visual Art and has been hailed by many to be the first definitive guide book to the field comics.

Fans and professionals universally alike acknowledge Eisner as a masterful storyteller and a legendary creator. Over the years he has been a staunch supporter of creator-rights and free speech. His name is connected with one of the most prestigious awards in the profession: The Eisner Awards, which are handed out every year to the best and the brightest talent in the field of comics. Ever diligent, Will Eisner continutes his comic tradition with creative input into his project JOHN LAW.

Will Eisner was gracious enough to talk to me about his insights, struggles, and influences in the world of sequential art.

You have been called the most respected yet least recognized man in the field of comics. Do you feel as though this is an accurate assessment given that Comics And Sequential Art is consider by many to be the definitive textbook of the medium?

As far as being the most respected, I really don't think I could answer that, somebody else would have to tell you that. As far as being the least recognized, I've had a fair share of recognition; of course, it would be nice to have more of it.

Easily one of the most coveted awards in the field of comics is the Eisner, which is, for all intents and purposes, like the Academy Awards of the profession. How did the Eisner come about and what part do you play in all of it?

Really the only part I play is that I hand out the awards, I have absolutely no role in the selection of the awards not any part of the management. Originally, the request came to me, and I gave them permission to use my name provided that they abide by certain conditions, which I promised to withdraw should they ever fail to abide by them.

I feel as though it is very important for a profession to have awards. I believe the function of the "Eisners" or any other seriously conducted award, is to recognize accomplishment and thereby help improve the standards of the field.

Do you feel as though the glamour of the Eisners has anything to do with your belief that comics are in and of themselves a form a literature? It seem that the contestants that are nominated put together some breathtaking work that easily rivals a Shakespeare sonnet or a William Faulkner novel. Do you agree with that?

I certainly do. I think that the body of quality work being put out now has come a long way but I still think we have a long way to go to deal with content. But it is my belief that awards stimulate and elevate the kind of content; which, achieves the recognition and the acceptance of the cultural arbitery of society. This produces the kind of subject matter that people that will be interested in. Historically, comics have had a very difficult time dealing sophisticated and real-life subject matter, but recently we have seen some wonderful stuff from the more thoughtful practitioners.

Popular opinion contends that comics are a disposable and insignificant artform at best -yet- you remain one of comicdom's staunchest advocates in relation to the classification of "comics as literature". Aside from content, why do you this the "popular opinion" is such a negative one?

The reason is history. Comics suffer from a stigma that comes from its early use. It began in the Middle Ages as a popular morality vehicle for readers of limited literacy and continued as an entertainment medium in the newspapers from the beginning of the 20th century. It evolved as a kind of artistic shorthand; a highly simplified abstraction of ideas. Consequently, people assumed that it was a kind of joke. Comics, the comic medium, is very much like Jazz, there was a time when jazz was not considered real music in the pantheon of music. Comics suffer largely from its history and also from a lack of content. It has only been about 30 years since the practitioners of the artform have attempted serious subject matters and adult narration. I am optimistic that the proliferation of better content and sophisticated execution will change "popular" opinion before too long.

Do you think it has anything to do with the way the American culture is structured, insofar as the way comics in Europe and Japan seem to be a celebrated artform and the medium seem almost infinitely more popular? And do you think that Frederick Wertham's book, Seduction of the Innocent helped contribute to the negative connotation that comics have in our society?

Well, not quite. The Wertham book opened a whole series of peripheral attempts at censorship. He believed comics were responsible for the development of what were called 'juvenile delinquents'. Common to the American scene is that we are we are constantly forming committees to protect people in somebody else's living room. We try to protect people from ideas that we think are bad. We have done that for centuries. For example we are trying to save people from the violence of television. Strangely enough, there is more of that kind of thing here than there is in Europe, where they have a long history of thought control. We are still living and fighting against the corsetry of the Victorian Era, trying to suppress things in a highhanded way anything that is considered anti-social. No, I think it still goes back to history. Comics in this country were considered trash, where as in Europe, cartoonists play a much more significant role in social change. They have a history of people who used their artistic talents to address social conflict. Cartoonists in Europe have gained a much higher level of respect as not such much as entertainers but as social observers and satirists. Another thing, in this county they are put things into categories very arbitrarily. Take 'Science-Fiction", there is no reason why a 'Science Fiction' book by Isaac Asimov or Harlan Ellison should be classified as other than basic literature. But basically, I think it all boils down to history.

Both Graphic Storytelling and Comics And Sequential Art cover the practical aspects of the medium likening it to a form of movies on paper - do you think that the cinema heavily influenced your style?

Well, my style was not influenced my cinema necessarily, I should explain that a bit. The answer is neither yes, nor no. When I started working on The Spirit, film was the major communication medium. Something happens to popular reading habits when it is impacted by a medium like film or radio or television. It affects the reading rhythm of the audience and those working in communication must be conscious of the reading rhythm of their reader. If you lose contact with the reader you are doing a disservice to them. It is much like trying to tell a story to a man running on a treadmill. If you adjust the way you tell the story, to his kind of rhythm you communicate more effectively. When I came to the end of doing The Spirit, I realized that I was telling a story to an audience who's attention span had been affected by film, so I began to employ aspects of film into my stories. Later on, when I started A Contract with God, I went back and decided to look at the elements of live theatre so as to get closer to the characters and closer to their reality.

I heard an analogy once that I thought was pretty appropriate to what you are saying, it said "The page is the stage and the line is the actor." and so keeping the line within the proscenium arch of the page allows you direct the line where ever you need it to go to tell your story.

And I happen to agree with that. The theatre presents an intimacy that I am constantly trying to pursue. Everything I write is done with that in mind. That, by the way, is the difference between comics and film. Comics is participatory medium whereas movies is spectator medium. Movies in their darkened room are paced and timed to invoke virtual reality. Emotions are real and the 'reading' reflexive. The audience is not really expected to work. Comics are designed in a way that allows the readers to move at their own speed and to imagine the events as they are unfolding, you can go back to re-read a panel, you can imagine the action, where as in film they tell you when can see it, not only that but each frame is presented under the control of the projector. You can't say, "Hey wait, I want to go back and see that last frame again". They are totally different; comics are much more than 'movies on paper'. They are totally different mediums; that was that what prompted me to write Comics And Sequential Art. I realized that those of us who grew up in the medium understood the medium only viscerally. We sat down behind a desk and just drew. One of my old colleagues came up to me once after reading my book and said, "I knew that all the time, I just never thought about it, I always just did it."

How would you characterize your other influences? Looking at the body of you work over the last several decades there a traces of vaudeville, film-noir, religion and war interlaced within the pages. Do you believe that these elements helped define your "voice" and personal style?

The answer is: "Yes". I think we are all influenced by our culture if we are aware and observant; we are influenced by our environment. We are also influenced by the accomplishments of others. Yes, there are people who strongly influence you. I credit George Harriman and his Krazy Kat as a strong influence on my early work. I used to study Milton Caniff and analyze what made him so great, he taught me how to tell a story much of my story telling ability came from pulp novels and the O. Henry novels. Influences are very important as long as you don't get trapped into simply imitating them.

The Spirit, in particular, seems to be part pulp novel, part film noir, a part super-hero - from what I understand The Spirit was originally supposed to be a designed as a super-hero … is this true?

He was never really designed as a super-hero. He was more in keeping with The Scarlet Pimpernel, if you would. The mask was something that was forced on me by the newspaper syndicate. In those days, they weren't called super-heroes, they were called 'costumed characters' or 'masked adventures' which was what the syndicate associated with a comic book, but The Spirit was intended to be a real person with real experiences he never was designed to change the planet or fight mutants who wanted to take over the world.

Charles Schulz always used to say that he was 100% Charlie Brown, do you find that you share any similarities with Denny Colt – The Spirit- is he your alter-ego?

Well, I started out looking like The Spirit, and ended up looking like Commissioner Dolan, I think somebody put a magical curse on me at one point. We always tend to invest ourselves into the characters we are working on. Sparky and I always used to joke about that. I think he was one of the greatest minds comics. I heard him say that several times.

DC has recently begun publishing the Will Eisner Library … including A Contract With God. What works in this collection would you say that you are the proudest of?

I would have to say that A Contract With God is like my first child, but I don't think there is anything that I have ever done that I'm not proud of, now there are some things that I think I could have done better. But, as far as content I was very proud of Comics and Sequential Art, but I was also very proud of my work in the military. I'm proud of the content of my graphic novels, but I would have to say that A Contract With God is the most highly charged and the most personal.

Who do you feel are some of the modern innovators today?

Oh boy! This is tough. It is very hard for me to single out one or two people. Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo is one of the recent books I really liked, but this is very difficult to answer because the moment I pick out someone there would be other people equally good I would leave behind. There are a number of really bright young men out there, Jeff Smith of Bone, Scott McCloud, a formidable thinker about the medium.

How would you describe the Will Eisner legacy?

I don't know. You'd have to ask somebody else. I'm not ready, yet, to ponder my legacy. I'm so involved with challenges that I haven't really thought about it. That's something you should really ask somebody else who has a better perspective.

Would you then say, that your greatest challenge as an artist is to always push yourself to do something new?

The answer to that is: "Yes!" I have kind of a hunger to conquer the medium - to achieve the impossible dream kind of like a Don Quixote of the comics.

Kind of like The Spirit?

I guess so.

Has David gotten it right?
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