Will Eisner: Conversations

272 Pages·2011·2.97 MB·English

by  M. Thomas Inge

WILL EISNER: CONVERSATIONS
Conversations with Comic Artists M. Thomas Inge, General Editor
Will Eisner: Conversations
Edited by M. Thomas Inge
University Press of Mississippi Jackson
www.upress.state.ms.us
The University Press of Mississippi is a member of the Association of American University
Presses.
THE SPIRIT and WILL EISNER are trademarks owned by Will Eisner Studios, Inc. and are reg-
istered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Used with permission. All rights reserved.
All illustrations are copyrighted © 2011 by Will Eisner Studios, Inc. Reprinted by permission.
Copyright © 2011 by University Press of Mississippi
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
First printing 2011
∞
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Will Eisner : conversations / edited by M. Thomas Inge.
p. cm. — (Conversations with comic artists)
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-61703-126-7 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-61703-127-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)
— ISBN 978-1-61703-128-1 (ebk.) 1. Eisner, Will—Interviews. 2. Cartoonists—United
States—Interviews. I. Eisner, Will. II. Inge, M. Thomas.
PN6727.E4Z92 2011
741.5’6973—dc22
[B] 2011000935
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
For Ann Eisner
and
Donária Inge
“I was not attracted, even as a young man, to the dumb-but-pretty girl. My
own thinking, my own tastes, were always very much in favor of the intel-
ligent competent women.”—Will Eisner, 1986
This page intentionally left blank
CONTENTS
Introduction ix
Chronology xv
The Only Real Middle-Class Crimefighter 3
Marilyn Mercer / 1965
Having Something to Say 8
John Benson / 1968
Will Eisner: Before the Comics 24
John Benson / 1973
An Interview with Will Eisner 33
Dave Sim / 1974
An Interview with Will Eisner 40
Jerry DeFuccio / 1976
Will Eisner Interview 47
cat yronwode / 1978
A Talk with Will Eisner 79
Ted White, Mitch Berger, and Mike Barson / 1983
Will Eisner 87
Dale Luciano / 1985
Mastering the Form: An Interview with Will Eisner 103
Ben Schwartz / 1988
vii
viii contents
A Cartoonist’s Cartoonist 108
Elinor Burkett / 1989
Getting the Last Laugh: My Life in Comics 113
Will Eisner / 1990
Will Eisner: The Old Man on the Mountain 121
Stanley Wiater and Stephen R. Bisette / 1993
Night of the Paper Noir 131
Peter DePree / 1996
Will Eisner’s Vision and the Future of the Comics 176
R. C. Harvey / 1998
Interview: Will Eisner 185
Tasha Robinson / 2000
Eisner Wide Open 196
Tom Heintjes / 2000
The Spirit of Comics! The Will Eisner Interview 205
Danny Fingeroth / 2003
Auteur Theory 220
Michael Kronenberg / 2004
Index 231
INTRODUCTION
To study the life of Will Eisner, comic artist extraordinaire, is to study the ori-
gins, history, and development of the comic book and the graphic novel. They
were profoundly interrelated and one could argue that the fate of the graph-
ic narrative in general would not have been the same without the presence
of Will Eisner. He demonstrated from the start that telling stories through
words and pictures was not simply some ephemeral way of amusing readers
in search of temporary pleasure. Rather he saw it as a new and exciting way to
address the age-old questions about human nature and the human condition
through a familiar but freshly energized and revitalized art form.
People have been telling stories with symbols and images from the earliest
times of recorded history, through the development of narrative art, and into
the twentieth century with motion pictures. It was not until the 1930s, how-
ever, that the small magazines we know as “funny books” or “comic books”
began to engage millions of readers in the startling full-color adventures of
larger-than-life heroes and caricatured comic figures. In an age of aesthetic
elitism, their very popularity served only to have them labeled as trash, but
slowly and surely the comic magazines turned into lengthier, more complex
works which by the 1970s would come to be known as “graphic novels.” As
they have become a permanent part of our literary and cultural landscape
here and throughout the world, no one calls them “funny books” anymore.
Will Eisner made much of that happen.
It was two high school friends from Cleveland, Ohio, Jerry Siegel and Joe
Shuster, who jump-started the comic book into national popularity with the
creation of Superman in Action Comics Number 1 in the summer of 1938. Be-
fore that from 1933 on most comic books were composed of reprints of news-
paper comic strips, but Eisner, a young nineteen-year-old artist from Brook-
lyn, was among the first to realize that the medium would soon require lots
of new stories and features to fill its pages. Thus he and a friend, Jerry Iger,
ix