elu xe

D on
d iti
E

A Spirited Life
by Bob Andelman

Introduction
by Michael
Chabon
Foreword by
Neal Adams
 Table of Contents

Acknowledgments .......................................................5
Authors Note ...............................................................7
Introduction by Michael Chabon .................................8
Will Eisner: An Appreciation by Neal Adams ................9
Epigraph ...................................................................11

FOUR-COLOR
1. The Eisner & Iger Studio .......................................13
The Ken Quattro Interview ...........................................23
2. The Spirit (and Quality Comics) is Raised .............29
The Howard Chaykin Interview .....................................41
3. Joe Dope Saves the U.S. Army (from Itself).............46
4. The Spirit Returns .................................................55

OPAQUE
5. The Painters Son ..................................................... 63
6. Nice Girls Are for My Mother ................................ 71
7. The Unknown Man .................................................... 74

GREY
8. PS Magazine ............................................................. 79
The Ted Cabarga Interview ............................................. 93
9. Official Member, National Cartoonists Society ........... 99
10. Moving Cars, Filling Jobs and Singing Dogs? ..... 101
11. The Kitchen Sink Experience, Part 1 ..................... 106
12. Jim Warrens Dream ............................................. 111
13. What If Will Eisner Ran Marvel Comics? ........... 116
14. Cats Tale .............................................................. 120
15. The Kitchen Sink Experience, Part 2 ..................... 129
 BLACK & WHITE
16. An Artist Rediscovered ........................................... 135
The Gary Chaloner Interview ........................................ 143
17. School of Visual Arts .............................................. 146
The Drew Friedman Interview ...................................... 155
The Scott and Bo Hampton Interview ............................. 161
18. God, Will Eisner,
and the Origins of the Graphic Novel ..................... 168
19. The First Spirit Movie ............................................ 174
20. The New Adventures .............................................. 177
21. The Library ............................................................ 181
The Mike Richardson Interview .................................... 186
The Pete Poplaski Interview ......................................... 190
22. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Eisner ........ 200
23. The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards ................. 203
24. Epilogue ................................................................ 207
The Benjamin Herzberg Interview ................................. 211
The Abraham Foxman Interview ................................... 220

LEGEND
25. DC Puts the Spirit Back in Comics .............222
26. Documentaries, Museum Shows,
and the Love of a Grateful Nation .................232
27. Frank Millers The Spirit ...........................237

APPENDIX
A. Jerry Iger: A Postscript ................................247
B. A World of Influence ...................................249
FOUR-
COLOR
12
1 The Eisner & Iger Studio
S
am Eisner was impressed the first time he saw his sixteen-
year-old son Billys bylineby William Eisneron an
original comic strip in his DeWitt Clinton High School news-
paper, The Clintonian, in 1933.
It looks like you really want to do this, he said.
Billy smiled and nodded.
Inspired, Sam told Billy about a cousin of his who ran a large
boxing gym in New York City, Stillmans. It was the in place where
well-known boxers trained. Sam called Lou Stillman and told him
about his eldest sons desire to be a professional cartoonist and
asked if he knew any other cartoonists.
Stillman said, I know one; he hangs around the gym a lot. He
does a comic strip about a boxer. Let me get you an appointment,
maybe Billy can get a job with him.
The cartoonist was Ham Fisher, creator of Joe Palooka.
One day, Billy carried his big black portfolio up the stairs of an
old, yet posh Tudor building. He went up the elevator, knocked on
the outsize oak doors, and who should open the door but James
Montgomery Flagg. Flagg, whose early published work appeared
in Judge, Life, Scribners Magazine, and Harpers Weekly, was
the painter of perhaps the most famous piece of American propa-
ganda in the twentieth century, the World War I poster of Uncle
Sam pointing his finger above the slogan, I Want YOU For U.S.
Army. Eisner would have recognized Flagg anywherehe looked
like his famous character.
Eisner was awestruck. All he could say to the legendary artist
was, Uh, what pen do you use? Will Eisners original cover art for British publisher T. V. Boardmans
Okay Comics Weekly, featuring Ham Fishers Joe Palooka. Boardman
Gillott #290, Flagg said.
was one of the Eisner & Iger Studios first clients.
I went out and bought Gillott #290 pens, Eisner said later. Courtesy Heritage Auctions
But I couldnt draw like him. Startled by meeting one of his idols
in that way, Eisner replayed the scene many times in his mind. exposed and kicked out. Fisher himself was eventually banned from
Retelling the anecdote to art students sixty years later, he said, I the National Cartoonists Society for allegedly manufacturing fake
always wished I could redo that moment. evidence against Capp.)
Ham Fisherhis full name was Hammond Edmond Fisher, in his That son of a gun is a dirty crook! Fisher snapped. I am fed
fifth year of producing Joe Palooka at the time Eisner met him up with assistants!
appeared a few seconds later and Flagg introduced their young

guest. But Fisher didnt even want to look at Eisners work. Instead,
he railed about someone Eisner had not yet heard of, Fishers rotten Since meeting Ham Fisher was not the big break Billy imagined, he
assistant who cheated me and stole my charactersa fellow by finished high school and applied for jobs at advertising agencies.
the name of Alfred Gerald Caplin, better known a year later as Al College was not a financial option. His struggling parents needed
Capp, creator of Lil Abner, one of the most beloved strips in comics whatever income he could bring home to the family. He made the
history. (Capp quit Fisher in 1933, complaining of poor pay, and rounds with his big black portfolio and was turned down over and
allegedly lifted several hillbillies for his own use. They fought like over again. In New York City, that is a lot of rejection. Then as now,
cats and dogs through the 30s and 40s. In the early 1950s, Fisher there were more agencies in Manhattan than in any other city in
took Capp to the National Cartoonists Society and tried to get him the world.

13
 Referring to Blums daughter, Bob Powell once told Willin
front of the entire studioI could fuck her anytime. Incensed,
Tuska slowly cleaned off his brush, placed it on his desk, and
decked Powell. Then he walked back to his table and calmly
returned to drawing.
Eisners telling of the Tuska story in his 1986 graphic novel The
Dreamer left out many details. For example, he himself had an
unfulfilled crush on Toni Blum.

One day Eisner received a letter and sample art from two Cleveland
kids, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. They were peddling two comic
strips, one called Spy, the other Superman. Eisner wrote back
and told them they werent ready yet and suggested they study their
craft at the Cleveland Art Institute for another year.
The truth of the matter is that when I saw their stuff, I didnt
think that any of our customers would buy it, and I was right,
Eisner said. They sent their work all over New York, and none
of the publishers bought it until Harry Donenfeld, publisher of
National Comics (now known as DC Comics) got it from Maxwell
Charles M. C. Gaines (publisher of the first comic book, Famous
Funnies) as part of feature material for his new Action Comics
series.
Siegel and Shuster, of course, went on to great fame, if not great
fortune, and Superman became one of the worlds greatest cultural
icons. Eisner shrugged off the missed opportunity because virtually
everyone else in the industry missed it, too.
Wonder Comics #1.
Courtesy Gemstone Publishing

Victor Fox, a small-time publisher housed in the same building as
National Comics, played a strange and unpleasant role in Eisners
early comics career. Privy to Nationals financial books, Fox saw how
much money the company made on its Superman and Action comic
books. He quit working for Donenfeld and started his own company,
hiring the Eisner & Iger Studio to produce his books at $7 a page.
What I want, Fox told Eisner at a meeting, is a guy with a red,
tight-fitting costume, and a red cape.
By the time Eisner returned to his studio, he was more than a
little dubious about Eisner & Igers new assignment.
Hey, Jerry, Eisner said, this sounds just like Superman.
Dont ask me any questions, Iger said. Just do it. Hes paying
us well for it.
Eisner tried arguing with Iger, but it went nowhere. A paying
customer with deep pockets was like a newly crowned head of
state as far as Iger was concerned. Bow, scrape, and collect your
money on the way out the door was his attitude.
Just do it, Iger said.
So Eisner did it. The character he created was called Wonder
Man.
Shortly thereafter, Fox Features Syndicate published Wonder
Comics number one featuring Wonder Man and was promptly
sued by Donenfeld. It was the only issue published, although Eisner
did produce a second, unpublished story for the character, who in
real life was mere mortal Fred Carson, a timid radio engineer
and inventor. Carson received his powers from a magic ring given
to him in Tibet by a yogi.
As Wonder Mans creator, Eisner was subpoenaed. He felt the
weight of a great dilemma. Iger, however, didnt see what the big
deal was, and couldnt understand his partners angst. Its simple.
Go into court and say you thought up the idea, and thats it, Iger
said. They cant sue you because you were paid for it.
I cant do that, Eisner said. Its not true. Victor described the
character exactly the way he wanted him in a handwritten memo.
Obviously, a complete imitation of Superman.
Will, the guy owes us $3,000. We need that money.
And Fox was no better. Worse, actually. This guy was a little
Edward G. Robinson type of a guy, Eisner said. He looked me
straight in the eye and said, Kid, you go into court and you tell
them it was your idea. Try anything else and you will never see the
money I owe you.
Iger, meanwhile, told Eisner, Were dead in the water without
that dough. The studio was growing and thriving due to its reputa-
tion as a reliable source of quality art and stories, and Fox was a

19
 The Ken Quattro Interview
A
mong the many reputable experts on the work of Will Eisner
is Ken Quattro, a long-time comics fan and self-proclaimed
comics detective, who started reading comics around 1960.
He became interested in Eisner not long after reading a Harvey
Kurtzman penned article about his friend and The Spirit in Help!
magazine. He immediately started seeking out Eisners stuff to
learn more about the forgotten early master.
At first, it was kind of hard, because I was just finding old color
comic sections in antique stores or bookstores, Quattro recalled.
Eventually, when Eisner became a hot property again amongst
comic book collectors, in the late 1960s, I started literally trying
to find everything I could about him. Every article, every interview,
anything. Over time, I became intrigued by the man as much as the
work that he put out. He was a fascinating person.
Quattro eventually wrote Rare Eisner: The Making of a
Genius,1 which was posted online in 2003, and four years later
published a print edition Will Eisner: Edge of Genius,2 which is
adapted from Rare Eisner.
His Eisner scholarship has proven to be extraordinary for fans
and his reason for inclusion here is because in 2011 he uncovered
Detective Comics, Inc. vs. Bruns Publications, Inc., Kable News
Company, and Interborough News Co., a long lost court document
relating to Eisner that, in many ways, he wished had never been
found.
The transcripts, which include complete court testimony from the
DC Comics case against Victor Fox for alleged copyright infringement
in Eisners creation of the character of Wonderman, dramatically
The first page of The Wonder Man from Wonder Comics #1.
contradicted Eisners years of contention that he was an innocent in Courtesy Michael T. Gilbert.
Foxs lifting of core concepts from Superman lore.
These [court] transcripts were just a byproduct of my own something I had looked for for over 40 years, and it just fell into
curiosity about everything, Quattro explained, because [Eisner] my lap.
referred to the trial so often in different interviews. I even went as I admired Eisner, the man, as much as the artist, and one of
far as contacting lawyers in New York City to see if they could find the things that I really admired [was this story]. It really took some
anything about it, and nobody could find any transcripts. I just guts for a young kid to stand up to a big-time publisher as large
assumed they were lost years ago. One lawyer told me that after as Fox at the time and to defy him and to end up losing thousands
a period of time, most trial transcripts are destroyed, and I just of dollars because of it. And since he said it so many times, in so
went with that until I got an email from this guy. He just happened many interviews, I just assumed thats the way it was.
to read my online article, Rare Eisner, and he became curious. So I was stunned when I read the [transcript].
Theres a National Archives building in New York City, he After I read it, I talked to my wife, and said, What am I
went there, and he looked it up; it was in the National Archives. supposed to do with this?
I was stunned when he sent me this email saying, Would you Because I had this blog and Im in touch with a lot of comic
like to read this? I almost fell out of my chair, because this was historians and collectors and fans, a part of me felt obligated to let

1 Rare Eisner: The Making of a Genius, by Ken Quattro: comicartville.com/rareeisner

2 Will Eisner: Edge of Genius, by Ken Quattro (Pure Imagination Publishing, 2007), www.amazon.com/Edge-Genius-Will-Eisner/dp/B004F8I81G

23
2 The Spirit (and Quality Comics)
Is Raised
E
verett M. Busy Arnold, publisher of Quality Comics, called
Will Eisner in the fall of 1939. It was one of those fateful calls
that less fortunate people never receive, or dont recognize the
opportunity it presents until years later.
I dont want to speak to your partner, Arnold said rather
mysteriously. I want to speak to you.
Most of the studios customers didnt like Jerry Iger, particularly
when it came to discussing creative matters, and it wasnt unusual
for someone to seek Eisner out for a private conversation.
Arnold and Eisner met for lunch, which led to another secret
rendezvous. As a guy who spent much of his life reading pulp maga-
zines and creating comic books, there was nothing like a whiff of
mystery and intrigue to keep Eisner interested. If nothing else, he
could always use it later as a plot point in a story of his own.
At the second lunch, Arnold introduced Eisner to Henry Martin,
sales manager of the Register & Tribune Syndicate. We have an
idea, Arnold said, and we would like to see if you are interested.
Newspapers around the country were taking note of the explo-
sive growth of comic books. They felt they were in danger of losing
a segment of their readership to this new industry. Conversely,
they thought comic books, properly presented, could be a magnet
for new readers. Martins idea was the production of a sixteen-
page ready-print, a freestanding insert similar to todays Parade
magazine or the regional TV listings magazine distributed in Sunday
newspapers. What the newspaper syndicate needed was somebody
like Eisner to put it together.
Arnold was at the meeting because he was the publisher of The front page of the July 21, 1940 edition of The Spirit as it appeared
Quality Comics, as well as a printer. He could print the newspaper in the Baltimore Sun.
The Spirit The Will Eisner Estate. Courtesy Heritage Auctions.
supplement for the syndicate.
Eisner said to Arnold, Why come to me? You have all these would be a full-time job. Seven or eight pages a week were a daily
guys working on comic books for you. Eisner discovered that grind, not to mention supervising production of a second eight
the syndicate already tried the best guy on the Quality staff, but he pages. Besides, Arnold said the only condition of the deal was that
proved not good enough. The medium was still in its infancy and Eisner produce it independently of Iger. He wanted nothing to do
not everybody understood it yet. Not only that, but the syndicate was with Iger. This obliged Eisner to make a decision.
afraid that this particular artist wouldnt meet deadlines because The Eisner & Iger Studio was a corporation of which Eisner
he drank heavily. In newspaper production, there is no margin for owned fifty percent of the stock; Iger owned the other fifty percent.
lateness. Newspapers come out at the same time every day, 365 The partners had agreed that the first person to leave the corpora-
days a year. Nobody would stop the presses because the comic tion would offer his stock to the remaining partner. This arrange-
book artist was on a bender the previous night and didnt finish ment, common to partnerships, assured that, in the event of a
the current installment. Eisner was reliable, and he respected an separation, neither of them would be saddled with a partner he
inflexible deadline structure. So much for art! But Eisner was also didnt know or like.
astute, and sophisticated enough to recognize that his reliability Eisner offered Iger the option to buy his stock and Iger agreed,
was his trump card to play. with the proviso that Eisner would not raid their bullpen for talent.
Eisner took the assignment with the understanding that it meant Eisner would be restricted to hiring no more than three or four
leaving Eisner & Iger. The comic book newspaper supplement people out of the Eisner & Iger Studio.

29

Eisners handwritten notes from February 1941 detailing the price each
newspaper pays for The Spirit.
Courtesy Will Eisner Collection, Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum at The Ohio State
University
after Bob Kane gave Batman a Batmobile. It just wasnt necessary
in the stories that I wanted to tell.
In addition to The Spirit, Eisner needed two additional features to
fill the Sunday supplements weekly sixteen pages.
He added Lady Luck (created by Klaus Nordling) and his
own creation, Mr. Mystic (itself a remaking of an earlier
Eisner character, Yarko the Great), and turned them over to
the veteran artists he brought with him from the Eisner & Iger
Studio, Mazoujian and Powell, respectively. Powell offered the
extra bonus of being able to write his own scripts.
As for Lou Fine, the third man in the new bullpen, he came with
Eisner because he wanted the freedom to work in his own way on
features of his own making. As part of his deal with Busy Arnold,
Eisner was to create several traditional newsstand comic books. In
fact, Eisner had aspirations of becoming a publisher himself.
Unlike the packaging operation of Eisner & Iger, Eisner made
a deal with Busy Arnold to publish two more magazines as equal
partners, plus The Spirit. One of the magazines was Hit Comics
for which Eisner wrote X-5 Super Agent; the other was Police
Comics, which soon began reprinting the Spirit strips.
32
In addition to the three artists who came over from Eisner &
Iger, Eisner hired artist Phillip Tex Blaisdell. Dave Berg and Al
Jaffeewho both later became famous at Mad magazine for their
distinctive humor and strange characterseventually joined the
shop as steady freelancers, with Berg drawing Death Patrol, a
predecessor to Blackhawk.
Back in the Eisner & Iger days, Eisner laid out pages for story-
telling, and he had developed generally agreed-upon production
standards. Like the Walt Disney Studios or any other, there was a
creative philosophy characteristic of Eisners shop. Eisner insisted
on stories that made senseeven in a comic book realityand
had a beginning, middle, and end. He believed in continuity of
characters and their features, as well as keeping them similar to
real people in speech and behavior when appropriate. His love of
adventure and short stories gave him a grounding that less well-
read competitors lacked.
The Spirit made its first appearance on June 2, 1940, in five Sunday
newspapers with a total national circulation of one and a half million.
The Philadelphia Record, one of the sections charter newspapers,
reported a ten percent increase in circulation after The Spirit began
to be distributed. At the height of The Spirits success in the mid-
1940s, the strip appeared in twenty newspapers and was available to
five million readers.
Adults were drawn to The Spirit because of Eisners ability to
produce and tell a noir B movie every week in just seven pages.
And his opening splash pages were amazing and consistently inno-
vative. Unlike other artists, Eisner didnt rely on a set logo every
time, a practice that was unheard of in comic books, newspapers,
or magazines. To put what he did in context, imagine The New
York Times changing its front-page logo every day. Not likely. The
Old Gray Lady is known for her moribund consistency. Because of
Eisners gutsy originality, The Spirit became universally recognized
for the proud inconsistency of its brand mark.
Despite his characters instant popularity, Eisner always worried
that someone else would come along with a competitive newspa-
per supplement. And, indeed, the Hearst Syndicate tried produc-
ing one. Will Gould created a detective hero called Red Barry.
It didnt last long. Hearst abandoned the product after about six
months, and no one ever challenged Eisner again.
On the other hand, Eisner said, competition is something
that you really dont worry about because it opens up the market-
place; it lends a legitimacy for your own product. The amazing
thingastonishing, reallyis that The Spirit was the first of its
kind and the last of its kind. Stan Lee (creator of Spider-Man,
Fantastic Four, X-Men, Silver Surfer) told me that he was going to
try to start one at Marvel Comics in 1980 but he never got anywhere
with it.
The new Eisner studio at 5 Tudor City consisted of
one large room, a bedroom, and a small kitchen
that was nothing more than a wall. Eisner used the
bedroom as his private office. (Staffers frequently
borrowed the key on weekends as a place to bring
their dates. There was no bed, but the couch was
extremely popular.)
Only Bob Powell was given his own key to the
Tudor City studio apartment. If Eisner wasnt there,
he could count on Powell to open up in the morn-
ing or close up at night. By his own description
confirmed by those who knew him at the time
Eisner led a monastic life during those days. While
guys like Powell were leading wonderful, colorful
lives, Eisner was the outsider, drawing the lives he
thought other people were having.
One Friday evening, Eisner took a dinner break,
planning to return and spend a quiet night drawing.
But when he opened the door to his private studio,
he discovered Powell with twin redheads. Embar-
rassed, Eisner quickly closed the door and waited in
the outer room for them to finish.
Eisner drew beautiful women, but Powelllike
Igeractually got the women.
In one famous example, Eisner gave the character
Sheena the looks of one of Powells girlfriends. But
what Eisner introduced to the pages, Powell some-
times took away. In Mr. Mystic, a backup feature
in the weekly Spirit comic, there was a character
called the Shadowman of Death. Every time Powell
dumped a girlfriend, the Shadowman took her away.
Powell horrified Eisner because he was so casual The February 7, 1943, edition of The Spirit with its variation of the title logo.
with women. Powell would sometimes start a conver- Courtesy Heritage Auctions.
sation with, I picked up a couple of whores.
He made snide remarks about Jews from time to time, which

Eisner usually let slide, not feeling like it was worth making it into
The main room in the Tudor City studio was the bullpen, the an issue. But when the war started and the world realized that the
production shop where Powell, Fine, Blaisdell, and Mazoujian focus of Hitlers wrath was the Jewish race, Powells complaining
worked on The Spirit newspaper insert and the comic magazines and nastiness became bolder.
Eisner created for Busy Arnolds Quality Comics imprint. Busy Arnold offered Powell a sizable raise to leave Eisners shop
Fine worked on the studios superheroes, The Ray and The and join the Quality Comics staff in Connecticut. Powell told Eisner
Flame. He was a good artist, but Eisner found he needed better about the offer, thinking he would get his bosss blessing and be
writers to carry out his concepts. He hired Blaisdells brother-in- on his way. But Eisner was incensed. He called Arnold and let him
law, Dick French, to be a full-time writer. have it.
Fine sometimes slept overnight on the couch at the Tudor City Do you want a lawsuit? Eisner asked. This is terrible, stealing
apartment. He had polio as a child, which left him with one leg talent out of my shop! Were partners!
shorter than the other, and he couldnt walk well. Arnold backed down. He called Powell and apologized. Im
Unlike Fine, Powell wrote and drew his own stories. Like Eisner, sorry, Bob, he said. I have to cancel the deal because Will Eisner
he also wrote scripts for other artists in the bullpen. He wrote the is threatening to sue me if you come up here.
Eisner-created feature Death Patrol. To Powell, Eisners actions confirmed everything he always
Another thing Powell was known for was being anti-Semitic. believed about Jews. In a rage, he stormed into Eisners office.

33
 The Howard Chaykin Interview
O
ne of the interesting facets of writing Will Eisners biography It looked like it was gonna get into a fistfight, Eisner said. Joe
was determining the reliability of my subjects memory. Kubert finally separated us.
Eisner was 85 when I met him in February 2002 and, Sounds like a great anecdote. And across two years of being inter-
with repeated exposure over the next almost three years, I came viewed for this book, Will told many stories that were confirmed
to believe his mind and recall were easily as sharp as mineand down to the final detail. But in this rare case, his memory of events
I was half his age. was not shared by others who were there.
There were only a few stories that Eisner told me that gave me Howies the kinda guy that says a lot of things for effect more
pause over that time, tales that didnt quite add up with indepen- than anything else, Kubert said when asked about the incident. It
dent confirmation. One of them was about an encounter he had may have seemed to Will that it might have led to something. Im
with artist Howard Chaykin at a Barcelona comic book convention. sure it happened and that Will felt that way. But I couldnt imagine
When I was dubi- Howard ever getting
ous about his account, into an actual fight with
Eisner told me to Will.
call his old friend
Joe Kubert. Joe will Eisner insisted the story
confirm what Im telling happened the way he
you, he insisted. told it. He was pretty
So I called Kubert, frustrated with me
who got his first job that I left it out of the
working for Eisner at book, in fact. But with
his studio in Manhat- Kubert deflating Eisners
tans Tudor City in 1941. version, there wasnt any
Kubert told me a lot point in going further
of great stories, but he and calling Chaykin.
didnt exactly recall the Fast-forward to Febru-
Barcelona incident the ary 2006. I was a guest
same way that Eisner did. at MegaCon in Orlando,
Heres the way I wrote it promoting the book. On
for a draft of A Spirited a break from my table, I
Life: Blackhawk by Howard Chaykin (left) and Will Eisner (right). dropped by to say hello to
Blackhawk DC Comics.
artists Nick Cardy and Al
Eisner told a story about attending a comic book convention in Feldstein, both of whom I interviewed for A Spirited Life. To Feld-
Barcelona several years ago. He and several prominent artists, steins left was Chaykin.
including Howard Chaykin and Joe Kubert, were talking about When I bid adieu to Cardy and Feldstein, I dropped promo-
different comics. Chaykin mentioned Blackhawk, which he once tional postcards for my book at several booths. Seeing Chaykin was
illustrated. occupied with a bunch of autograph seekers, I dropped a postcard
Will created Blackhawk, someone said. on his table and tried to move on quickly.
It was one of the few fascistic things Ive done in my life, Will Hey! Chaykin called out to me. Why the fuck do you think Id
said. care about a book about Will Eisner?
Fascist? Chaykin said. Im one of the most liberal guys youll Uh-oh.
ever meet! Trappedand with an audience, tooI introduced myself.
Eisner, as gentle and amiable as he was about most things, on Chaykin didnt have anything nice to say about Eisner, so I tried to
occasion antagonized a fellow artist and this was one of those excuse myself. Didnt work. Instead, I told Chaykin about the miss-
times. Chaykin felt Eisner was calling him a fascist and it made him ing story from the book. That stopped him in his tracks. He couldnt
quite angry. believe Eisner would ever tell an unflattering story about himself.

41
3 Joe Dope Saves the U.S. Army
(from Itself)
W
ill Eisners impending draft notice was like having the
Sword of Damocles held over his head.
From the day he walked out of the Eisner & Iger
Studio, Eisner kept telling himself, You are crazy! You will be
drafted, and this whole thing will fall apart on you!
Eisner sent the following letter to his partner, Busy Arnold, on
July 30, 1941:

Dear Busy,
I was interviewed by the Board last night and I
feel that they looked favorably upon the sheaf of stuff
in my dossier. What they want is proof, in the form
of an affidavit, from the Syndicate, stating in effect
that without me there would be nothing, and that this
section is a new innovation and, consequently, in my
absence, men in the engraving and printing plants
would be without employment. The Syndicate might
also state that, inasmuch as a great deal of the feature
is my style of writing, artwork, mind, and personality
and is unique, they feel sure that newspaper editors
might refuse to accept substitution and, possibly,
cancel present contracts, which they are permitted
to do. You might also add that a daily strip is now in
preparation for distribution in the fall, which will give
Eisner in uniform, circa 1945.
my features an even greater daily circulation.
Courtesy Will Eisner Collection, Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum at The Ohio State
It might not be amiss if you, too, in the official University
capacity of publisher, state that you depend upon me to
guide the policies and edit Military, and that my services brain storm to write Wood in Washington and see if he could use his
in that capacity are unique and cannot be duplicated. drag to get you in the Army on a soft job with plenty of spare time.
Besides, the only reason you invested in a publication

was because of my personal services. I think it best
to keep my position that of a nucleusout of which When notice was finally served on him in late 1941, Eisner was at
things come, rather than that of a bottleneck. first quite dismayed. There goes my career, he thought. But, after
As always, Eisner absorbed the first sobering shock, the draft notice provided
Bill him with a feeling of immense relief.
At the age of twenty-four, Eisner had spent his entire adult life

working alone in one studio or the other, day and night. Work was
Busy Arnold tried getting Eisner deferred as a journalist via the his mistress; the Tudor City studio was his home. Suddenly Eisner
Register & Tribune Syndicate, which possessed some credible felt like Uncle Sam offered a chance to find out what the real world
political power. But his attempt went nowhere. He did that not so was about. And, like other Americans, he was imbued with a sense
much out of friendship, but as a matter of self-defense, because if of patriotism. America was at war. The horrible, despicable Nazis
Eisner was gone, Arnold was contractually bound to maintain The were slaughtering Jewsmy peopleand I was given the oppor-
Spirit property. tunity to kill some of them for what they were doing to the Jews.
When a deferment didnt arise, Arnold wrote Eisner of another All of those feelings were in effect for me, Eisner said. But to
idea in this handwritten, undated letter: P.S. he wrote, Just got a be perfectly honest, I was overwhelmed by a secret feelingand I

46
Promotional material for the daily Spirit strip.
Courtesy Will Eisner Collection, Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum at The Ohio State University
remember it so clearlythat, wow, this is my opportunity to really
see the world.
While Eisners professional position didnt exempt him from the
draft, it did give him a little special status. Because he was a busi-
nessman with responsibilities for the livelihoods of at least five
men, the draft board gave Eisner three months to put his business
affairs in order. He immediately set to work on organizing the team
that would continue in his absence.
He visited Busy Arnold in Connecticut and talked about the
problem of going into the Army. Arnold suggested moving Eisners
studio to the Gurley Building in Stamford, alongside Arnolds own
operation. Eisner agreed and, effective March 28, 1942, he leased
space right next door to Arnolds office, on the same floor. He even
established a fund to help artists who wanted to move up there,
generously offering each of them enough for a down payment on
home mortgages.
Arnolds own on-site staff included editor Gill Fox, who had
long admired Lou Fines work on The Ray in Smash Comics.
Fox, Fine, and their wives soon became close, lifelong friends.
47
Because of his success in maintaining copyright ownership, the
value of that clause in Eisners contract with the syndicate came
into play at this point. Eisner retained silent ownership of the prop-
erty because the work would be continued while he was away.
In addition to producing The Spirit Sunday supplement, Eisner
started a daily newspaper version featuring his reborn detective.
Arnold and the syndicateled by the Philadelphia Record
pushed him into it, but Eisner wasnt ready.
To this day, he said, I dont think Id enjoy doing a daily. To
me, its like trying to conduct an orchestra in a telephone booth.
He didnt get any satisfaction from it. But the Register & Tribune
Syndicate wanted a daily strip almost immediately because they
thought it would be a natural tie-in.
The daily Spirit debuted on October 13, 1941. Eisner only did six
weeks of dailies before he went into the service. The dailies didnt do
well because he tried all sorts of weird ideas, such as a whole daily
strip without dialogue and with nothing but footprints in the snow.
Criticism came from some of the Sunday Spirits strongest supporters:
I think the daily Spirit is hard to follow from one day
to another because of the complicated plots, wrote
 In its new format, and with Eisner as art director, the magazine

grew rapidly; at its height, it reached a distribution of one and a
Preventive maintenance was a new concept in 1942. Two civil- half million copies per issue. Eisner created a comic strip for the
ians at Holabird, Norman Colton and Bernard Miller, produced magazine featuring a character called Pvt. Joe DopeM-1. Joe
a mimeographed instruction sheet called Army Motors that was was a guy who always did things wrong. His mission, as reported
distributed to maintenance soldiers. It was full of field fixes and in the September 23, 1944, edition of the Washington Post, was
equipment maintenance ideas. Eisnerentrepreneurial despite to sell preventive maintenance to cut down on necessities for
the uniformsuggested that what they were doing could be more repairs or requisitioning new articles. In the field, officers say
effective as a proper magazine, with cartoons demonstrating the his accomplishments are far above conservative estimates.
right way to do things. Army Motors became extremely popular. There were two
I designed the magazine; I laid it out, Eisner said. They were million men in the Army at that time, and the newsletter went to
technically the creators of the concept, but I increased the concept every shop involved in vehicle and weapon maintenance.
and changed it and made a package of it. I was more responsible at Before long, Eisner was transferred to the Pentagon in Wash-
that moment for the packaging than I was for the editorial content, ington and joined the Chief of Ordnances staff. His new job was
which they really were in charge of. providing visual materials for General Levin H. Campbell, World
War IIs Chief of Ordnance.
Eisners first assignment was an unin-
tentionally funny one. As he sat at his
desk one Friday, the general called him
into his office in the Pentagons E Ring.
The general held a stack of mimeo-
graphed sheets in his hand. He said,
Senator Trumans oversight committee
is complaining about the Garand rifle
because we are still paying the same price
even after we bought a million units.
Then he pushed a stack of papers, full
of statistics, toward Eisner. I want you
to develop a bunch of charts for me. We
will go into a meeting on Monday morn-
ing, and Ill speak while you will flip the
charts.
Eisner spent that weekend develop-
ing charts and learning how to lie with
statistics, he said. He learned that if
you run a line graph from zero to ten and
spread it out, it looks like a very slight
increase, but if you compress it and put
the one to ten very close, its a spike.
With thinking like that, the charts were a
success and the general was immediately
indebted to his new assistant.
Next, Eisner helped start another
magazine, Firepower (The Ordnance
Mans Journal). Strangely, it was not
financed by the Army, but by the civilian
Army Ordnance Association. It published
inspirational stories rather than specific
instructional stories, something the
From 1942, one of Eisners Joe Dope preventative maintenance posters for the U.S. Army. Army felt it could not finance with tax
Courtesy Heritage Auctions. dollars.

50
4 The Spirit Returns
W
ill Eisner was in the Army for almost four years. In many
ways, they were the best four years of his life, a period
during which the man matured into the talents that first
surfaced in a boy on the sidewalks of Brooklyn. When he mustered
out in 1945, he finally began telling the kind of Spirit stories he
always intended to do. His first post-war Spirit was published on
December 23, 1945. He wrote or pencilled or inked virtually every
story from that day until August 12, 1951, when he would turn The
Spirit over almost completely to his assistants.
It was a wonderful time for me as a comic artist because I was
free to do anything I wanted, he said. There was no censorship,
no editorial direction from the [Des Moines] Register & Tribune
Syndicate at all because, as far as they were concerned, they didnt
know anything about comic books, and I was the authority.
One of the few times Eisner got into any trouble with the syndi-
cate was in the pre-war days when he wrote back-to-back stories
about an ape that fell in love with a human girl (Orang, the Ape
Man and The Return of Orang, the Ape That is Human!). Busy
Arnold called me at work and said that the San Antonio newspaper
objected strenuously to what it felt was the promotion of racial
mixing, miscegenation, he recalled.
And then there was the issue of the Spirits black sidekick and
taxi driver. One day, Eisner heard about Ebony from a high school
classmate who was now a union organizer in Philadelphia. He
was ashamed of me for writing this Negro stuff the way I did,
Eisner said. The former classmate didnt appreciate the overt cari-
cature of Ebony. The September 1, 1940, Spirit strip (and the following weeks strip)
received a complaint over perceived miscegenation.
This is terrible, the friend complained.
Courtesy Heritage Auctions.
The same week, Eisner got a letter from the editor of an African-
American newspaper in Baltimore who complimented him on the
nice treatment of this character. old Tudor City bullpen either moved to Connecticut with Busy
Eisner, who was never troubled by his portrayal of Ebony, had Arnold or became a freelancer. Bob Powell was still in the service,
his own issues with the feature. After about two years of doing The Lou Fine was exiting the business, and Jack Cole was eager to move
Spirit, he said, I found it harder and harder to deal with a hero on from The Spirit. Not that Eisner ever socialized with those guys
walking down the street, wearing a mask, dealing with real situa- anyway; they were his employees, not his pals.
tions like standing in a subway train. Needing a place to work, a leasing agent found him an office at
37 Wall Street.

That was a very significant address, Eisner said. When I
Freed of his military obligations, Eisner nonetheless found himself walked into the building, I realized that I had sold newspapers in
as socially isolated as he was before being drafted. The Army front of that building during the Depression.
changed him in many ways, forcing him out and about, and he Artist John Spranger, his first new staff hire, assumed responsi-
discovered the fully formed, social animal within. He made a lot of bility for pencilling The Spirit as Eisner worked himself back into
friends during his service. But civilian life found him once again the rhythm of strip life.
entrapped by his own creations, particularly the seven-page weekly

Spirit comic. There was no studio to return toeveryone in his

55
 He didnt give me any instructions at
all, Grandenetti said. Bill was busy writ-
ing his stories. He left it up to me. He was
never critical. As I look back on it, it gave
me an air of confidence.
The Spirit pages Grandenetti received
from Eisner typically had the figures and
heads already drawn and inked. In the
background, Eisner left scribbled direc-
tions as to what should be filled in or left
blank.
Soon after Grandenetti arrived, John
Spranger left the studio to draw The Saint,
a syndicated comic strip. Letterer Abe
Kanegson shared the load with Ben Oda,
and a young Jules Feifferthe future
Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonistjoined
the bullpen, which relocated to 90 West
Street about a year after Grandenetti came
aboard. Artists Klaus Nordling and Andr
LeBlanc became regular contributors
to The Spirit and other Eisner projects
around this time.
Marilyn Mercer joined the staff as a
secretary in 1946, but, like many people
who started in menial jobs in an Eisner
studio, it turned out she, too, could write.
Heres how Mercer remembered those
days in an article for the Sunday New York
Herald Tribune Magazine from January 9,
1966:

As I remember it, I was a writer

and Jules was the office boy. As
Jules remembers it, he was an artist
The December 30, 1945, Spirit strip, Eisners second after returning from the war. and I was the secretary. Will cant
Courtesy Heritage Auctions.
really remember it very clearly. It
Jerry Grandenetti is another artist who received his first break in is his recollection that Jules developed into an excel-
comics thanks to Eisner. Until he met Eisner, he was a junior drafts- lent writer and I did a good job of keeping the books.
man with a landscape architecture firm who daydreamed about Neither one of us could, by Eisner standards, draw.
drawing comic books.
One day in 1945, Grandenetti ducked out of work and, tuck- Mercer later became a freelancer and, in the early 1960s, intro-
ing a portfolio under his arm, paid a visit to Quality Comics. Busy duced her ex-boss to another up-and-comer, Gloria Steinem.
Arnold, sufficiently impressed by the work he saw, said, Theres Gloria Steinem was an editorial assistant at the time for Harvey
a guy named Will Eisner looking for an assistant. He gave him Kurtzmans Help! magazine, Eisner recalled. We talked for a few
Eisners new studio address in Lower Manhattan and set Granden- minutes, and Marilyn said, Maybe you should hire her. Frankly,
ettis career on a new path. at the time I wasnt impressed with her. She seemed to be kind of
Eisner started Grandenetti as a background artist (he was a a reclusive person, not at all the outgoing person that she later
landscape architect, after all) until he learned the craft. And there became. Good looking, very attractive, thoughI noticed that.
were a few skills to pick up, such as inking, which he never tried

before.

56
 The end of the line for The Spirit was
in clear sight by then. Eisner lost interest,
Wood was gone, and Feiffer was drafted
away from the business by his country,
much as Eisner was a dozen years earlier.
He was getting second- and third-rate
artists, and the quality of the work really
declined, Feiffer said. Continuing was
only of interest to me if I had a free hand
writing it. But Will still insisted on chang-
ing stories and doing things I didnt agree
with. It became a tethered situation; the
fun had gone out of it and I was only doing
it for the money. I was relieved to give up
the job when I went into the Army.
The final reason Eisner gave up The
Spirit in 1952 was that it no longer
attracted new subscribers. The Spirit
topped out at about twenty newspapers,
and never reached beyond that. It was
carried in the Bronx in the Parkches-
ter Review. Other major newspapers
around the country included the Chicago
Sun, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadel-
phia Record, Minneapolis Star, and the
Washington Star.
In terms of sheer numbers, The Spirit
Sunday supplement had far more copies
in circulation than any comic book in its
day, including Superman and Captain
Marvel, whose circulation topped one
million copies per issue. And, while
comics such as Superman and Batman
were published monthly, The Spirit was
printed weekly. But unless you lived in a
community where the local newspaper
carried it, you never heard of The Spirit.
It was a strange duck.
The problem with continuing the Page 6 from the August 3, 1952, Spirit strip drawn by Wally Wood.
comic was that the manufacturing cost was Courtesy Heritage Auctions.
continually going up, and, after a while, it
outweighed the value inherent in the feature. One year, the newspa- in the newspaper was going nowhere. The cost of it was getting so
per distributors went on strike and demanded extra pay for insert- high, I was unable to sustain the sales of it, and I realized that if
ing, or stuffing, the paper with inserts like The Spirit. That raised I dropped anything, The Spirit would be the thing to drop. It was
the subscription cost. The other rising cost was newsprint. When an emotional period there. Personally, I felt that I failed because
Eisner went into the Army, newsprint cost about $75 a ton. When it never became the great success story financially or circulation-
he got out, the price had almost doubled, hitting $150 a ton. Today, wise that I had hoped it would be. I was satisfied with the work I
newsprint is about $500 a ton. had done. I had worked hard on it, produced a lot of interesting
Eisner abandoned The Spirit completely in 1952. stuff, but it wasnt until years later that I was credited with being
I was sorry to see it end, yes, Eisner said. It was caused by a innovative. It left me with a sense of failure about what I did.
combination of things. It was obvious that the future of this insert

61
OPA
QUE
62
5 The Painters Son
B
illy Eisner, like most kids maturing into teens in the mid-
1930s, didnt know his family was poor until much later in
life. Everybody in his corner of Brooklyn suffered equally
from the ravages of the Great Depression; going without new
clothes or what would later be called disposable income wasnt
an issue for him.
Growing up in the Depression was hard
on ambition and opportunity. The lack
of opportunity put a perpetual economic
squeeze on all but the hardiest of dream-
ers. For Fannie Ingber EisnerBillys
motherhowever, going without was never
good enough. Born at sea as her parents
emigrated from Romania, Fannie grew into
a statuesque woman with high cheekbones,
a swarthy complexion, and a tough exterior.
She kept friends at arms length and family
only slightly closer, never growing comfort-
able with physical affection, not even with
her children.
Her Austrian husband, Samuel, was the
familys sole source of income, but only
thanks to Fannies perseverance. Through
their entire married life, Fannie regularly
pushed Sam away from dreaming and doing what he lovedpaint-
ingand toward the practical aspects of supporting a family.
Part of her problem might have been a result of the suspicion
with which she treated everyone she encountered. Another expla-
nation that her eldest son discovered in his thirties: Fannie was
illiterate. Her husband always read the newspaper to her, a custom
that seemed quaint until her children were old enough to realize
she couldnt read it herself.
Fannie dreamed of owning a bakery, although she was a lousy
cook. But a bakery, she believed, was a clean business and would
convey status upon her. Fannie was preoccupied with her financial
and social status in the community. It was a trait her husband, who
was a good man and father in so many other ways, never devel-
oped, despite fathering three children.
Fannie often blistered her husband about his better-off siblings;
he was too ready to accept their handouts, she said, and not will-
ing enough to stand on his own two feet. One time, her husbands
sisters delighted in pointing out that Fannie wore the same dress
to two different weddings, which embarrassed and irritated her.
Eight-year-old Billy was like other kids in many ways, from
collecting the baseball cards that came with his fathers Murad
63
Frannie Eisner with Will at the age of five
(above), and eight-year-old Will playing the
violin (left).
Courtesy Will Eisner Collection, Billy Ireland Cartoon
Library & Museum at The Ohio State University
cigarettes and playing immies
marblesto watching cowboy serials at
the movies and pretending to be Cowboys
and Indians afterward.
He also got into fights, sometimes for
no reason other than because he was Jewish and that made him a
target, sometimes because he couldnt control his own anger.
I was trading baseball cards with a kid named Jummy and we
got into a fight, Eisner recalled. He cheated, and I ran after him
down the street to get my cards back, and he ran into his house.
This house had French doors as you went into the little lobby, and
he put his foot behind the door so I couldnt push it open. Well, he
made a fatal mistake. He stuck his face in one of the windowpanes
of the French door and stuck his tongue out. In a blind rage, I
slammed my fist against his face, breaking the glass, and as I pulled
it out, I cut my wrist and blood gushed out like a fountain. I ran
home. My kid brother, Pete, had measles, so he had to stay in a
dark room and my mother was sitting with him. The first thing my
motherthe classic Jewish mothersaid was, How could you
do this to me? My father ran around all day, it was Sunday, trying
to find a doctor. It took six stitches. The stitches are still visible on
my wrist.
When he lived in the Bronx, before high school, Billy became a
Yankees fan, attending games as often as he could. He even caught
a fly ball in the outfield bleachers once and got several players
including Lou Gehrigto sign it after the game. He lived with his
7 The Unknown Man
W
ill and Ann Eisner became parents in 1951 when their
son John was born, and again a year and a half later when
Alice arrived.
The family moved to 8 Burling Avenue in the Gedney Farms
neighborhood of White Plains in 1952. Living in the suburbs was
something of an adjustment for the Eisners, both of whom grew up
and lived much of their adult lives in the concrete canyons of New
York City.
Until then, the family journeyed only twice a year to the suburbs.
Will liked to get his biannual fresh air fix, but if you told Ann she
could never go to Manhattan again, shed say, Fine. She would
miss the people, but not the environment.
The Eisner family was extremely close, with Will providing his
children the emotionaland finan-
cialsupport largely missing from
his own childhood. He knew what
they were doing in school, who their
friends were, and what they liked to
do for fun.
Will taught John to play chess. He Above, Will, Ann, John, and Alice Eisner enjoy the
surprised the kids once by bringing hot tub, and at left, Will feeds baby Alice.
home an old rowboat from the pier Courtesy Ann and Will Eisner

at Long Island Sound and filling it

with sand for them and their friends
to play with in the backyard. And
the kids always loved watching dad
work at his drawing board.
I felt that I was giving John
something more than I had because
I was a reasonable success, Eisner
said. Never talked to him about what he should do. One summer,
we sent John and a friend to a summer school in Switzerland. He
was about fifteen. Ann said to me, You know there are girls out
there. Have you talked to him about sex? So I went to Johns room
and said, Id like to talk to you about sex. He said, What do you
want to know? Left me speechless.
Ann, John, and Alice were able to endure Wills long absences
on civilian Army business in the 1950s and 1960s by reading the
wonderfully illustrated letters he sent home. One letter detailed his
first day at the Akasaka Prince Hotel, near the Imperial Palace in
Tokyo. Among the images included in the letter was one depicting
Will in the bathroom, still in his traveling suit, trying to figure out
which knobs would turn on the shower. Settling on one, he pulled
it. Water came out from everywhere. He was drenched.
Apparently, he wrote, the whole room was a shower.
In another letter, to Ann, he wrote: Many
Americans here who have married Japanese girls
(AND I DONT BLAME THEMWOW!!).
Stopping in Hawaii on the way back from
Seoul, Eisner sent separate notes to each of the
children.
Dear John,
I got your letter and Im glad to know that the hurri-
cane did no damage. Im proud of the way you are
taking care of the girls.
Your buddy pal
Dear Alice,
You wrote a very, very fine letter. Im glad you helped
John put up those tracks. Im sure the willow tree will
grow back as it did once before when you were very
little. I miss you and mommy and Johnny.
Your daddy-o
The family went to Europe in 1966. John was fourteen and becom-
ing a teen in words and deeds. During the trip, something Ann did

74
or said rubbed John the wrong way. He turned to his father and Alice never knew what was wrong with her. Will made the deci-
said, How can you stand her? sion that she was not to know; he insisted that the doctor only tell her
Alice was very much her fathers daughter. She had his tempera- that she was anemic. The rest of the family abided by his decision.
ment and compassion. Whenever she heard on TV that someone I didnt want the doctor to tell her that she was dying, he
was starving, Ann had to send something. explained. She was sixteen! When you are sixteen, you are at the
I had to save the world for her, Ann said. bloom of your youth, and you dont think that anything can really
Then there was the other side of Alice, the one recognizable by happen to you. You think, Mom and Dad will take care of this.
any father who has ever been twisted around his daughters finger. One evening she came in our room and said, Can I get into
Ann was the tough parent, but Will couldnt refuse Alice anything. bed with you and Mom? My bones hurt. She had myeloid cancer,
She would con him into things. When Ann told Alice she didnt which is cancer in the bones. Today, they probably would have
need a new pair of boots, Alice did what any determined teenage been able to do something by exchanging the marrow. In those
girl would do: she asked her father days, they didnt know what to do
to take her shopping. for her. It was hard. It was very, very
One day, John, Alice, and Will hard. The whole family structure
watched a Saturday morning wasnt great. I was trying to keep
cartoon together. my sanity down at the office. John
Daddy, John said, why arent did not know how to handle it and
you famous like (so-and-so)? we werent sure how to help him,
Before he could answer, Alice either, Eisner said.
spoke up. Just before Alice died, she said
Well, she said, hes famous to her father, Daddy, buy Mom
enough. a present for her birthday. Dont
The children were as different forget! You always forget things!
as night and day. John was popu- Buy Mom a present.
lar, athletic, and brilliantfull of The day Alice died, sickeningly
beans, his father said. For example, enough, was Anns birthday.
he had braces on his teeth for a year It was a tough day. A devastat-
and he played trumpet anyway, even ing day, Eisner said. It was very,
John and Alice at the lake.
though it caused his lips to bleed. Courtesy Ann and Will Eisner
very hard.
Alice was none of those things, When Alice died, something
but for her parents, in her own way, she was much, much more. strange took place that Eisner never publicly mentioned until now.
The boys on the PS magazine staff came up to attend the funeral,

he said. That weekend, they hit me with a bill for overtime as a
A cartoonist working in Eisners shop during The Spirit days had a result. It stuck in my throat like a stone. As a parent, the whole world
sixteen-year-old daughter who died of cancer. The grieving father has fallen all around you, and its like a house that has crashed. You
came in the office the day after she died and sat at his drawing are just standing there, and you dont know what to do next, and your
board, crying. normal reaction isnt normal any more. You either become immo-
Look at him, Eisner said to his brother Pete. If that ever bilized, which is what you do to defend yourself, or you do stupid
happened to me, I couldnt do it. things. And I was doing dumb things at the time.

One day in 1969, Alice wasnt feeling well. Ann took her to the doctor Will wanted to move away from White Plains after Alice died, but
for a blood test and none of the Eisners were ever the same again. Ann couldnt bring herself to take her daughters room apart until
The diagnosis was leukemia. 1975, five years after her death.
Ann gave up work and everything else to care for Alice over the Six months after Alice died, Ann became director of volunteers
next eighteen months. Will, on the other hand, buried himself in for New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, Westchester Divi-
his work for the Army. sion (since renamed The New York Presbyterian Hospital) located
I only had her sixteen years, Ann said. I lived with her at Mt. in White Plains, New York. She enjoyed the work and stayed there
Sinai Hospital for a long time. I insisted on a cot there. I would until they moved to Florida permanently in 1983. In a lot of ways,
go home when friends came in to relieve me briefly, change my the work was her salvation, a place to go each day and find people
clothes, and go back. that needed her skills, humanity, and good humor.

75
GRAY
78
8 PS Magazine
N
orman Colton, civilian editor of Army Motors, stayed on with
the Ordnance Department when World War II ended and the
magazine suspended operations.
In 1949, with the Korean War on the horizon, Colton came
to see Will Eisner in New York. Colton said that the Army wanted
to start a new magazine similar to Army Motors; would Eisners
studiostill licking its wounds after a disastrous attempt at inde-
pendent comic book publishingbe interested in bidding on the
production work? Eisner said sure.
Colton was eager to have me because
I had a history of success with Army
Motors and was identified with the publi-
cation, Eisner said. But it had to go
through the process of bidding. Al Harvey,
of Harvey Publications, found out about
it and competed for it, but I won the bid
and I helped write the contract. It was
totally different than most contracts that
the Army had at the time. At that time, the
Army paid for services on the basis of time.
My contract was based on a flat sum with
a profit measurement that allowed the
government to restructure the contract
downward only.
Colton was one of those guys we all
meet sometime in life who thinks he has
it all figured out. An operator, Eisner
PS #1 from June 1951.
called him. At his own cost, Eisner Courtesy Heritage Auctions
designed a dummya sample edition of
what the magazine would look and feel like. The effort paid off;
the actual dummy of the book helped Eisner win the contract to
produce what became PS: The Preventive Maintenance Monthly.
PS implied Postscript to other, more traditional Army equip-
ment and maintenance publications.
Once all the ts were crossed and the is dotted, Colton dropped
his own bomb on Eisner. I would like to have a piece of this, he
said.
I cant give you a piece of this, Eisner said, surprised by
Coltons boldness. Youre an Army employee!
Not if you give me stock, Colton said. I can exercise options
on it later.
Thats illegal!
I got you into this contract! Colton said. I recommended
you! You owe me!
Technically, thats true, Eisner said. But in fact, you didnt.
79
The quality of our work won this contract. I saw what the competi-
tion offered lousy!
I approved it.
That doesnt mean anything to me, Eisner said. Besides, I
cant give you ownership in the magazine; its against the law.
Colton, who became the magazines first editor and continued
in the position until 1953, wouldnt take no for an answer. On the
pretense of production business, he came up to New York every
other week, always with a new scheme for
getting away with what Eisner knew to be
wrong. Eisners lawyer advised him not to
discuss Coltons schemes. But the more
Eisner said no, the angrier Colton became.
He thought Eisner was trying to cheat him
out of what he was convinced was his.
Colton was a colorful guy, small in stat-
ure, but always nattily dressed. He didnt
just smoke cigarettes like the other guys;
he used a long cigarette holder.
He was a strange kind of guy, a quiet
guy, but an incredible promoter, Eisner
said. He would do things that really shook
you up in the military. He would get things
done in the military in a very, very quiet but
devious manner. He was quite devious in
his ways. His talent was his ability to put
these things together. He was, I guess, what
the Germans called a luftmensch, an air
person.
One day, there was a new twist. As usual, Colton was expected in
New York to visit Eisner. That morning, however, Eisner received a
preemptive visit by two FBI agents. Dark suits, tall, good-looking
guys, he recalled. One carried a little envelope with him, the other
a note pad.
We would like to talk with you, one of the agents said.
I dont know what this is about, Eisner said, but I would like
to have my attorney here.
No, that wont be necessary, the agent said sternly. Were not
after you. We just want to have a conversation. Off the record.
They said that the man harassing Eisner was suspected of cheat-
ing on his Army travel expenses. Not that it surprised Eisner. But,
he thought, Oh boy, Im going to jail. By coincidence, at the same
moment that Eisner was talking to the FBI in his studio, the phone
rang. It was Colton.
Im at Grand Central Station, he said.
Sketches from a 1965 PS magazine trip to West Germany.
Courtesy Will Eisner Collection, Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum at The Ohio State University

88
to try to solve that problem or
please his father, tried to be a
businessman rather than just an
artist, and I later found out that
it was his mother. In one of
his novels he talked about that,
so it turned out that it was actu-
ally his mother that was trying
to discourage him. So I thought
that that was sort of eating at
him and that that was why he
had this image of himself, that
he wanted to be a businessman
rather than just an artist, which
is ironic, since he was a great
artist and a lousy businessman.

ANDELMAN: What was Mike

Ploog like to work with?
CABARGA: Ploog was terrific. I
just have to tell you that Murphy
Anderson, poor Murphy Ander- Joes Dope Sheet from PS #222 (May 1971), quite possibly inked by Mike Ploog.
Courtesy Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries, Digital Collections
son, he was the most wonderful
guy in the world, but he was slow, and he would work nights, and he production of the artwork, and that would force the production
would work two weeks in a row overtime late into the night trying people to give us less time to finish the book. We really felt like we
to get the book inked. When we were finally across the street and were being cheated by them. So at one point, Gary and I confronted
away from the office and we were running our own sort of little mini- them and just really laid it on the line, and they thought that Will
business there getting out PS magazine, Ploog would come in and ink Eisner had put us up to it. That was absolutely not true. Will had
the whole damn book in one day, and he was just stupendous. When nothing to do with it, and I could never convince them that Will was
he first got there, his art was a little tentative, because I guess he was not behind it, that it was us who were pissed off at them, not Will. But
cowed by the great Will Eisner, but very soon, within a few months, after that point, there was a rift, and we were never the same again.
he was in stride, and he was just very fast and very good. Dan and Chuck had their quiet little clique, and we were no longer
friends, but before that, we had been good friends.
ANDELMAN: What was he like to be around? Dan was a pretty solid guy. He was not really a cartoonist. He
CABARGA: He was a great guy. He was a mesomorph; he was did the technical stuff.
built like a fire plug. He had these big arms. He was a little guy
but very stocky and sturdy, and he had come from the West Coast. ANDELMAN: I want to ask you again about Will and money. One of
He was working at Hanna-Barbera. I dont know why. I guess he the things that he told me that drove him crazy was when the folks
wanted a change or something, so he was hired from the West down at Ft. Knox would want changes. I dont know if he said that;
Coast, but apparently he wasnt happy, because he finally went back maybe Ploog said that, that they would want changes, and it drove
there. During the time that I knew him, he was very congenial, very him crazy because it meant overtime, and it meant more cost, and
nice in every way. I had no problem with him. As I say, he was really it cut into the budget.
very good. CABARGA: Absolutely. When I was talking about them being
insulted by Wills unwillingness to come and talk to them and
ANDELMAN: And Dan Zolnerowich? see them, part of the way they punished us was to watch every
CABARGA: Dan was a good guy, too. I also had an assistant art comma and every line space and every tiny little thing that they
director working with me, Gary Kleinman. Gary was assistant art could possibly find wrong with the book. They would call us on
director for a few years. I dont remember how many, but maybe as it and make us re-do it, and that was part of that whole thing of
many as five. At one point, Gary and I got really pissed at Kramer and costing money.
Zolnerowich, because we felt that they were featherbedding and in
so doing were hurting the whole operation. They would delay the ANDELMAN: Did Pete work there at the time?

97
10 Moving Cars, Filling Jobs
And Singing Dogs?
W
ill Eisner, a newlywed and legend in the comic book busi-
ness at the ripe old age of thirty-four, recognized in 1951
that his long run in the industry was winding down. New
sales of the Spirit Sunday section topped out several years earlier.
In many major American cities, competition for circulation dimin-
ished because conglomerates often owned both the morning and
evening newspapers. Meanwhile, newsprint prices were rising and
publishers resisted increased rates for the product. Top talent was
more interested in magazine illustration and graphic design than
four-color costumed characters. And kids were rapidly trading in
the genre for another emerging mediumtelevision.
PS magazine was on the verge of first publication when Eisner
decided that it could be the project to lead him in a new career
direction. It would fulfill his belief that the medium had teaching
potential, as he demonstrated in the Army from 1942 to 1945.
In the late 1940s, Eisner founded a commercial art company
called American Visuals Corporation and began a twenty-year
detour away from comic books in favor of working with corporate
America. The shop produced PS, as well as educational cartoons,
illustrations and giveaway comics, primarily for East Coast clients
such as the Baltimore chapter of the American Medical Associa-
tion. His other clients were a diverse bunch that included RCA
Records, Fram Oil Filter, the Baltimore Colts, and New York Tele-
phone. In the early years he wrote and illustrated the booklets, or
at least roughed them out and drew the covers.
There were two kinds of comics produced at American Visu-
als. The first was attitude conditioning, creating propaganda
for everything from jobs and vacations to fire safety, political
Sample panels from Grammarfun.
campaigns, and dental hygiene. The other was product proce- Courtesy Will Eisner Collection, Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum at The Ohio State
dures done in the mode of PS. University
Job Scene, for example, was a series of comics produced for the
Department of Labor. Americas Space Vehicles was a hardbound He created sequential training booklets that instructed foreign
textbook containing no comics at all. Grammarfun was an illus- nationals in the care and operation of military equipment, farming
trated supplement for elementary English classes. Deadly Ideas procedures, and social concepts. These products were purchased
was used by General Motors in its job safety program. and distributed by the Agency for International Development, the
Eisner created the Rip Roscoe series for New York Telephone, United Nations, the U.S. Department of Labor, and the Department
touting the excitement of using a Touch-Tone phone. Hoods Up of Defense.
was a magazine For Profit-Minded Fram Dealers. And Eisner

even drew the jacket for an RCA Victor album of music by The
Singing Dogs entitled Hot Dog Rock n Roll. In 1957, one of Eisners salesmen was trying to sell General Motors
The impression that I was an operatorI was, Eisner said. I on an informational, labor-relations pamphlet called Help! What
enjoyed business; I enjoyed the chess game. Makes a Boss Tick?
For twenty years, Eisner explored his belief that comic books Jules Feiffer was just out of the Army, out of work, and he
could be more than childs play, bringing the mediums potential dropped by American Visuals to say hello to his former boss and
to the attention of government leaders and business executives. inspiration.

101
 Jules, Eisner said, would you like to do this pamphlet for
us?
Feiffer worked up a dummy and the salesman took it to General
Motors, which rejected it, outright.
The artwork is lousy, the automaker said.
And the salesman wasnt too impressed, either.
Will, he said, youre running a soup kitchen here for all your
old comic artists and friends. Why dont you get some real profes-
sional artists in here?
About a month later, Feiffer sold the Village Voice on a regular
comic strip and suddenly he was a name in circles beyond comic
books. Not long after, the salesman was back in Eisners office.
Hey Will, he said, can you get that guy Feiffer back? I think
we can sell his stuff now.
Three years laterwithout Feiffers involvementGeneral Motors
Corporation finally signed on with Eisner and American Visuals for
an educational comic book. The companys initial
response to the manuscript demonstrated how
much tougher working with corporations versus
newspaper syndicates could be:

June 2, 1960
Dear Mr. Eisner:
Attached is the manuscript you submitted
on How Your Company Buys. This doesnt
seem at all interesting and I doubt that it
would do much for GM or its employees.
Cordially yours,
William H. Lane
Editor, Special Publications
Personnel Staff

Six days later, Lane passed along his editorial

boards comments on another sequential art
training idea, How to Get Across the Street and
Survive. It must have made Eisner wish for a
Yarko revival.
It left me cold, one corporate critic wrote.
And a week after that, Lane returned the
dummy of a third concept, Stop and Go on Ice
and Snowfor good.

August 1, 1960
Dear Mr. Eisner:
The people who reviewed How to Get
Across the Street and Survive said that they
were not too impressed with it. They felt the
presentation was rather scrambled. Also,
they still feel there is a general indictment
against motorists. Possibly the title is partly
responsible for this feeling.
Cordially yours,
William H. Lane
Editor, Special Publications
Personnel Staff

A Rip Roscoe page for New York Telephone. Give and take flew back and forth in page after page
Courtesy Will Eisner Collection, Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum at The Ohio State University of itemized notes from General Motors to Eisner. If

102
11 The Kitchen Sink Experience, Part 1
D
enis Kitchen discovered The Spirit in the early 1960s via Jim Buglewhose name was inspired by the newspaper in Spider-
Warren and Harvey Kurtzmans Help! magazine. Harvey wrote Man comics. He drew a weekly comic strip and many Bugle covers.
a feature on Eisner and reprinted one of the Sand Saref About the same time, Kitchen started Krupp Comic Works and
episodes of The Spirit, which became an eye-opener for Kitchen. Kitchen Sink Enterprises to publish and distribute underground
A decade had passed since the last original Spirit adventure; it comix. Initially, it was fun and daring, but profit-challenged. In The
was largely unknown to teenagers in the age of Gilligans Island Bugles 1970 Christmas issue, Kitchen and his comix cohort Jim
and Elvis Presley. A few years later, in 1966, Kitchen picked up Mitchell placed a quarter-page ad with examples of their art for
the short-lived Harvey Comics reprints. They whetted his appetite sale, and wrote, Save a starving artist from sure death and give
further. He became a fan, although it wasnt easy. a unique X-mas gift at the same time. They didnt get any response
The original newspaper sections from the 1940s and early locally, but, remarkably, a couple weeks later they received a Coney
1950s were impossible to find. There were no comic shops yet Island salami in the mail with a tag on it that said, Never let it be
and few mail order operators. Collecting was the luck of the draw. said that Phil Seuling let a cartoonist starve.
Sometimes Kitchen found a reprint in a used bookstore or flea Seuling, Kitchen later learned, was a Brooklyn schoolteacher
market, but it was far and few between. These were the prehistoric and comic book buff who almost single-handedly imagined and
days of collecting comics. produced the comic book convention system, and later invented
the direct market comic book distribution
method that essentially saved the industry
from extinction.
Seuling liked Kitchens sardonic,
humorous style, both artistically and
personally. He hired Kitchen to create the
cartoonish ads that became a trademark
of his conventions, and invited him to be a
guest at Seulings 1971 4th of July show at
the New York Commodore Hotel on 42nd
Street, next to Grand Central Station. It was
the first convention that Kitchen attended,
and while it was Eisners second, there was
no comparison in scope. They were both
in awe. It was amazing for them, coming
from completely different corners of the
industry, to see thousands of people in a
single place with a single thing in mind:
comic books. When Eisner started in
comics, no one ever dreamed the industry
would spawn ravenous fans, collectibles,
or conventions.
Promotional ads by Eisner for the debut issue of Harvey Comics The Spirit #1.
In the dealers area, Kitchen was brows-
Courtesy Will Eisner Collection, Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum at The Ohio State University
ing through display tables looking for old
copies of Humbug, Lil Abner, and Tip Top Comics when the man

next to him read his nametag. He did a double take and said, with
In 1969, Kitchen wrote, drew, and self-published an underground a heavy French accent, Oh, Denis Kitchen!
comic book in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, called Moms Homemade Yes? Kitchen said, startled. Do I know you?
Comicssubtitled Straight from the Kitchen to You. In the fall It turned out to be French comics historian Maurice Horn,
of 1970 he co-founded an alternative weekly newspaper called The co-author of A History of the Comic Strip, one of the earliest seri-

106
12 Jim Warrens Dream
J
im Warren first encountered Will Eisners Spirit in the Phila-
delphia Record as an eleven-year-old boy in 1941. But he
didnt read it.
Other people read it, but I didnt, Warren said. I studied it
every panel, every black shadow of India ink, every architectural
rendering of a section of a house, layouts that could make the eye
go exactly where Will wanted it to go. It was unbelievable to me.
This man, for me, and for the rest of the world, single-handedly
changed so-called comics into a sequential art form. Sequential
art form, thats a technical term. A timeless thing of beauty was
what Will produced.
Two decades later, Jim Warren was a magazine publisher. In August
1960, with Harvey Kurtzman as his editor and partner, he launched
Help! magazine, which ran until September 1965. The magazine
featured standup comedians such as Sid Caesar, Jerry Lewis, and
Jonathan Winters on its covers, reprinted comics by Winsor McCay,
George Herriman, and Milton Caniff, and introduced to America such
future underground innovators as Robert Crumb and Gilbert Shelton.
It was hip before its time, bursting with talent and creativity.
We had an incredibly small budget, Warren said. One day,
Harvey matter-of-factly said to me, I have always liked Will Eisners
work. I jumped up, and I said, You like him? The man changed
my life! Will agreed to let us reprint seven pages from a classic
Spirit story in Help!
Fast-forward to 1973 and Jim Warren was essentially Americas
most successful alternative yet mainstream comic book publisher. If
The first issue of The Spirit from Warren Publishing.
Marvel and DC were the mainstream, and Kitchen Sink Press and Rip Courtesy Heritage Auctions
Off Press were the underground, Warren Publishing was somewhere
in the middle. It was mainstream in that its major titlesCreepy, After a tour of military duty in the 1960s, W. B. DuBays first
Eerie, and Vampirellawere available on most U.S. newsstands. professional art interview in New York was at a Park Avenue studio
But it was alternative in that it published comics in a magazine format where he had been directed after answering an ad in The New York
and in black and white. Warrens gore and horror fests were as likely Times. They were looking for a layout artist for what he recalled as
to be found racked next to Time or Good Housekeeping as Batman a little military magazine.
or X-Men. And where Marvel and DC made household names of Stan Will himself interviewed me, DuBay said. I think he was
Lee and Jack Kirby and the underground comix made Robert Crumb impressed with my credentials. Id just been discharged from a two-
and Gilbert Shelton famous, Warren developed his own stable of year stint as editor of the Armys biggest post newspaper and had won
craftsmen, including renowned fantasy and horror artists Richard a few design awards in the process. Moreover, I showed him I could
Corben, Esteban Maroto, and Jeff Jones. draw anything in any style he wanted, including his. And I was partic-
What Warren didnt have was a product that would draw in ularly good at diagrammatic cutaways of the Armys biggest diesels.
comic book buyers who disdained the blood and guts stuff. As it turned out, another military veteran, Mike Ploog, got the
job. DuBay was more disappointed than at any other time in his

life. After six months and a stint at Warren Magazines, he went back
Many of the men and women who worked for Warren in those home to California.
days became stalwarts of the comics business behind the scenes Several years later, DuBay returned to New York. During his
for decades to come. time away, he wrote and drew several horror stories for Warrens

111
Negotiation is someone who says, I want X, and then you say,
Well, we will give you X, less something, and then after six hours
you meet halfway. I couldnt do that with him. I hated negotiating
with creative people, but with Will Eisner, it was like negotiating
with God. How do you do that? You say, What do you want? And he
says, This, and you say, Okay, which is exactly what happened.
Eisners terms were simpleto a point. He asked for $1,000 an
issue, paid in advance, plus a royalty from profit sharing.
That was the simple part. The complication was Denis Kitchen.
With his companys broader and more traditional newsstand
distribution system, Warren told Eisner that he could easily distrib-
ute up to 100,000 copies of a monthly Spirit magazine.
Those numbers were hard to ignore, much as Eisner was
indebted to Kitchen for bringing the character out of retirement.
Eisner called him immediately and broke the news.
I am really impressed with how well these have sold, Eisner
told Kitchen, especially in your rickety distribution system. But I
just got an offer I cant turn down from Jim Warren. He thinks he
can get 100,000 in circulation every month. No offense; I hope we
can still do some business, but after you sell the second issue out,
I am not going to renew the contract.
Kitchen was crushed and Eisner didnt blame him. But Eisner
was a businessman and he had somebody who would not only
sell many more copies but could sell them on a regular schedule,
Two preliminary sketches for the cover of Warrens The Spirit #11. Neither concept was used.
Courtesy Heritage Auctions
and in more respectable places than Weird Harolds Head Shop.
Making royalties on The Spirit after twenty years was like receiving
an inheritance from a forgotten uncle.
And it wasnt a total loss for Kitchen, either.
To clear my conscience, Eisner said, I demanded that
Warren buy Kitchens unsold inventory. It was probably this move
that gave birth to a thirty-year relationship.
Eisner made buying out Kitchen Sink Presss remaining Spirit
inventory a condition of his deal with Warren. Will felt guilty
because Denis is a nice guy, Warren said. I said to myself, This
man Eisner also has a loyalty to peoplesomething rare in our
industry. I instantly said, Of course we will. And I sent him a
check immediately. Who else would do otherwise? And I didnt
negotiate Denis price one dollar; we bought it at exactly the figure
Will represented to me, because I knew I was dealing with two
people who werent running a scam. One was Will Eisner, and the
other was Denis Kitchen, and both of these men had reputations
for integrity and honesty in an industry that is not exactly famous
for those qualities.
Years later, Warren told Eisner that he would have agreed to
$5,000 or even $10,000 an issue. I would have sold the farm, I
would have mortgaged the house, I would have sold my first-born
because working with you had been a dream of mine since fifth
grade, he said.
113
13 What If...
Will Eisner Ran Marvel Comics?
S
tan Lee called Will Eisner twenty years after production
ceased on The Spirit and Eisner had turned his back on the
comic book industry.
The creator or co-creator of every major Marvel Comics
character from Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four to the X-Men
and the Hulk, Leeborn Stanley Lieber, himself a graduate of
Eisners alma mater, DeWitt Clinton High Schoolwas editor
and publisher of the Marvel line in 1972. Lee, in fact, had over-
seen Marvela company started and run for decades by his
uncle and boss, Martin Goodmansince his teenage days in the
1940s. Every modern Marvel comic book began with the line
Stan Lee Presents. He was the first brand name talent in the
maturing business. But after more than a decade of incredible
growth and fame, Lee was ready to move on. He wanted Eisner
to replace him at Marvel so he could go to Hollywood and make
movies.
Lee felt that Eisner might be the only comic artist around who
had the respect of cartoonists and who also had the business expe-
rience to manage an enterprise of Marvels size and scope.
When Lee rang in the 1970s, Eisner figured it was a social call.
Eisner had been out of comic books for twenty years. Comic book
conventions were still a relatively new phenomenon, and the direct
sale comic book market was still a few years off. Eisner, recently
separated from PS, was not yet a revered legendmore like an
old-timer with a portfolio.
I hear you are at liberty, Lee said.
Eisner laughed. They chatted for a minute or two. Eisner still
didnt know what was coming.
Why dont you come down to my office at Marvel, Lee said. I
would like to talk with you about something.
So Eisner went. When he arrived, Lee didnt mince any more
words. To tell you the truth, he said, I need somebody to
replace me here. I want to go to Hollywood. I love the Hollywood
scene. This isnt for me any more. But they wont let me go unless
I can find a suitable replacement.
Eisner was pretty stunned that that was why Lee wanted to see
him, thinking originally that perhaps Lee wanted him to do a book
for Marvel. Many artists from the Golden Age of Comics were turn-
ing up for a last hurrah at Marvel, DC, or Charlton, and Eisner
figured that Stan opened his Rolodex and his wandering finger
landed on E. Eisner remembered Lee being surprised to learn
when they met years earlier that Eisner wrote all the Spirit stories.
Lee said he had been impressed that Eisner could write and draw.
You have business experience, Lee said. Youd be ideal for
this job.
During the course of the conversation, Lees boss from Marvels
then-corporate parent joined them. The meeting quickly became
a job interview. He wanted to know what Eisner thought about
comics, where he thought the industry was going, and what he
would do about it.
Well, Eisner said, one of the first things I would do is aban-
don the work-for-hire system that you have here.
There was a noticeable evacuation of air in the room.
Lee winced.
Oh, we cant do that, Lees boss said. Thats impossible to
do here.
I dont see why, Eisner said. First of all, allow the writers and
artists to keep copyrights. The book publishing business does that
and does it quite profitably. Then return their original art to them.
You asked me what I would do in my role here; thats what I would
do right away.
Other comic book artists that Eisner knew sustained a certain
amount of animosity toward Lee. Jack Kirby, for example, always
maintained that he brought the idea for Spider-Man to Stan. Until
the Spider-Man movie debuted in 2002, Lee generally took sole
credit. The movie credited the characters creation to Stan Lee and
artist Steve Ditko.
Stan wasnt terribly popular among other artists, either, Eisner
said later. He was regarded by and large as an exploiter, which is
the fate of all publishers. Creators will always regard publishers
as exploiters. I guess it is something that psychiatrists can discuss
better, but I have always regarded it as a child/parent relationship.
Artists need somebody to hate. In the comic field, the publishers
are close at hand.
After more idle chat between Lee and Eisner, it became clear that
Marvel was unprepared for Eisners independent-artist approach
to corporate policy. Its understandable that the company was star-
tled by Eisners ideas; there wasnt yet a large comic book indus-
try press, so his views were still pretty revolutionary. In any event,
Eisner could see where the conversation was going. Finally he said,
Gentlemen, I dont think this is for me.
Lee walked Eisner out to the elevator. He tried one more time.
Cmon, Will, he said, Why not?
Stan, Eisner said, this is a suicide mission.
The pay is good, Lee said in desperation.
I understand that, Eisner said. But money is not what I am
interested in right now. I have money.
The idea of working for Marvel was not attractive to Eisner,
but not because it was Marvel. The idea of working for any large
corporation again after the Koster-Dana fiasco was unattractive.
116
 I never had the outlook necessary for the mainstream comic
book market, Eisner said. I could never do superheroes well.
My heroes always looked like they were made of styrene
foam. The Spirit evinced psychological problems.
Spider-Man did, too, of course. Stan once told
me that he liked the idea that the Spirit was
human and not quite superhero-ish.
Lees memory of meeting with Eisner was
hazy at best, but he didnt doubt Eisners
account. Will certainly would have been a
good choice for me to want to run the place
if I were not there any more, he said.
When Eisner laid out his conditions, Lee
knew they would never be accepted by the
corporate bosses.
At that time, that wasnt the way it was
done in comics, Lee said. I am sure that
whoever was the publisher then wouldnt
have been willing to go along with that.
But it would have been fine with me. I just
wanted Will to be part of Marvel. I wanted
in some way to have an association with
him, because I certainly would have
thought that he would be a great asset
to us. You can quote me on that. Unfortu-
nately, I had nothing to do with the business
arrangements. I would have said to whoever
the hell handled the business, I want to hire
this guy, or I would love this guy to work with
us, but then he would have had to talk to the busi-
ness department and make the deal, because I was
never part of that.
I wasnt a big reader of The Spirit, Lee added, because it
was never in a newspaper that I read. I was in New York, and as far
as I know, it wasnt in New York, but I had heard about it and I had A Spirit watercolor commission.
seen bits and pieces of it here and there, and I was always incred- Courtesy Heritage Auctions

ibly impressed with the artwork, with the layouts, mainly with the
first page, with the opening page. Each title was done differently on
each weekly episode where the title The Spirit was really part of
the artwork. And that impressed the hell out of me. I thought that
Will was a really fine designer.
He is really one of the only creative people in the business who
was also a businessman who was able to make money at it and was
smart enough to own everything he did. And I have always admired
him for that.
Writer and former Marvel Editor in Chief Marv Wolfman, who
joined Marvel Comics in 1972, clearly remembered Lees interest
in hiring Eisner.
Stan was a huge fan of Eisners work, Wolfman said. I more like a Marvel Comic, and then it wouldnt be The Spirit.
remember him talking about getting in touch with Eisner to head
up something.
Roy Thomas, longtime Marvel Comics writer and editor in chief
from 1971 to 1980, also knew that Lee reached out to Eisner. I
have a memory of it, he said. I suspect it was between 1972 and
1974.
If Eisner took the job, it would have caused many more changes.
It would have hastened my departure to DC by about ten
years, Thomas said. I dont think I could have worked for Will.
As for Marvel Comics publishing The Spirit, Thomas doesnt
think that would have worked for anyone.
The things Will Eisner did had a lot in common with Stan,
Thomas said. But if Stan were to do The Spirit, it would have been
When Eisner said no, Lee made a run at Harvey Kurtzman. He
turned the job down, too.

117
14 Cats Tale
C
at Yronwode, born Catherine Manfredi, was a single mother Not Cat Yronwode.
and comic book fan who lived in an isolated rural cabin near She went to New York City in the company of her friend, Denis
the town of Cabool, in the Missouri Ozarks in the 1970s. McFarling, and stayed at the home of another comics fan, Ken Gale.
Visually impaired and unable to drive, she tried freelancing maga- In preparation for actually meeting Eisner, she haunted the stacks
zine articles on crafts, gardening, antiques, and comics history as of the New York Public Library, looking for old Spirit sections in the
a way of earning a living. But it wasnt until she landed a weekly newspaper morgue. Many already were knifed out by collectors.
column for Alan Lights influential and widely read comics fanzine When she finally met Eisner at the School of Visual Arts
The Buyers Guideand a job as comic strip editor for Ken Pierce Yronwode arrived barefoot just as he began teaching a classhe
Publicationsthat her comic book hobby began to pay off. handed her a book to read and promised theyd talk when class
When she was home, comics helped Yronwode pass the time. was over. The book was hot off the pressA Contract with God
The daughter of a special collections librarian at University of Cali- by Will Eisner.
fornia Los Angeles, her particular inter- I was laughing, crying, Yronwode
est was putting credits to old comics that said. I was blown away.
often carried inaccurate or incomplete When they finally talked, she got right to
creator credits. the point. All the Spirit sections are gone
Her first interest was in cataloging and from the Public Library, she said. Can I
identifying the work of Steve Ditko, the come to your place and index yours?
co-creator and original artist of Spider- It tells a lot about both these charac-
Man and Doctor Strange. From Ditko, ters that she invited herself to the home of
she moved on to an immense challenge, a perfect strangerand that he said yes.
Will Eisners Spirit sections. A fellow I went to his house and met Ann,
collector she met shared her interest Yronwode said. We had a lot of things in
in The Spirit. But he didnt have all the common, among them that we both had a
issues; Yronwode thought maybe Will daughter who died. Were both Tauruses.
Eisner himself might. We really hit it off.
Looking for an excuse to contact Eisner She arrivedstill barefootbut
directly, she called Gary Groth, publisher packing an already encyclopedic knowl-
of the comic book industry criticism and edge about Eisners body of work and
review magazine The Comics Journal, career, more than even he could
and asked if she could interview Eisner The Comics Journal #46 including Cat Yronwodes remember, Ann said.
on assignment for the Journal. Her secret first interview with Will Eisner. Meanwhile, the interviewwhich
goal was discovering whom the inkers started after that initial encounter at
were that worked on The Spirit. Not exactly something the world SVAwent on for some time. They met again at the Princeton Club.
was crying out to know, frankly, but Yronwode was not your typical It was there that Yronwode told Eisner that she was a single mother
comics fan, either. living in the Ozarks on a $200 monthly welfare check.
If you can get to him, go ahead, Groth said. Were going to have to work on making a capitalist out of you,
Yronwode wrote a letter to Denis Kitchen requesting an interview Eisner told her as they left the club and he paid for her cab fare.
with Eisner, giving Groths name as a reference. Kitchen called Groth. The interview appeared in the May and June 1979 issues of
Who is this guy Cat Yer-Ron-Woodie? he asked. The Comics Journal. It dealt with three main topics: A Contract
First, Groth replied, Cats not a guy. Second, its Iron-wood. with God, Eisners lost history as an artist, and the previously
Shes okay. uncredited identities of inkers who worked on The Spirit. In the
Reassured, Kitchen arranged a first meeting. process of producing the interview, Yronwodewith the help of
Most writers working without pay for a small publicationand Eisner fans Jerry Bails, Jerry Sinkovec, Mark Hanerfeld, and John
who literally lived a thousand miles away from the subjectwould Bensonalso began her now legendary The Spirit Checklist.
make an appointment for a telephone interview. She and Benson shared an interest in the work of Wally Wood,

120
but change things. There were 1940s pages with 1970s art pasted
on top. She also noticed the way characters in his early comic
books recurred from one Eisner project to another.
Everyone said he drew Lauren Bacall a lot, she said. But
it was actually a girl he once dated who looked a lot like Bacall.
Skinny Bones was the name he gave the Bacall character.
One time when Yronwode asked Eisner about a female char-
acters origins, Ann chastised her husband. I dont want to hear
about your love life before you met me!
Intimately familiar with Eisners early Fiction House comics as
well as The Spirit and his recent graphic novel, A Contract with
God, Yronwode recognized something else about the womenor
a womanportrayed in several stories.
He has this woman he loves/hates. She always gets killed. She
always has another boyfriend. In a way, its so transparent, its sad.
Eisners original art for Harveys The Spirit #2, complete with paste-ups.
Courtesy Heritage Auctions
122
I dont think he realized how much he was wearing his heart on
his sleeve. That was something that really made me love him. I saw
something about his naivet and his innocent immersion in his art.
When I asked him who that woman was, what her real name had
been, he told me right away, and then, really puzzled, he said, How
would I know somebody would put all these stories together and
figure it out?
My thrill about working there was I got the answers to all the
questions I asked, she said.
Yronwode quickly took charge, using the library skills she
learned from the years she spent at her mothers side at UCLA. It
became a life any comics fan would envy; full days spent sorting
through the originals, personal letters, and other miscellany of a
life in graphic art, plus breakfast, lunch, and dinner with a legend.
To the Eisners, Cat was more than just an employee.
Cat was one of the people we would have
adopted as a daughter, Ann said. She was
bright, always full of anecdotes and stories.
Yronwode filled a gaping void in their lives,
providing a view into what their lives might have
been like if their daughter Alice had survived.
One day, for example, Will and Ann were asleep
in bed and Yronwode came barreling inin
much the way Alice once didbut instead of
asking about clothes or shoes, she wanted to
ask some arcane question about The Spirit.
I was still suffering from recent tragedies,
Eisner said. She became a real professional after
a while. To me, well, there was something very
deep there. I thinkin the back of my mind
that she was replacing my lost daughter, and she
seemed to be the age of what Alice would have
been, and I couldnt help it. Ann accused me one
day of talking to Cat like she was our daughter.
A typical day in the Eisner household began
early. Will and Ann got up together, ate break-
fast together, and read The New York Times
together. Yronwode became integrated in the
household routine.
To me, it was like being home at my moms,
Yronwode said. Nice Jewish foodsmoked
cheeses, salmon, grapefruit. Will had a grape-
fruit every morning and half a bagel. Wed talk
about the news. It was inspirational to see what
a loving couple they were. They teased, but they
were very in love and happy together.
Ann went off to work each morning as direc-
tor of volunteers at New York Hospital-Cornell
Medical Center, Westchester Division. Eisner
either played tennis or headed off to his studio.
He would call up to Yronwode at midday and
15 The Kitchen Sink Experience, Part 2
T
he Warren newsstand Spirit magazine looked great and sold
well initially, but its circulation tapered off and Eisners busi-
ness relationship with Jim Warren diminished.
After sixteen issues, Eisner decided not to renew his contract
with Warren and called Kitchen. There are still a lot of stories that
are unpublished, Eisner said, but I wonder if there is any life left
in them. What do you think?
Are you kidding, Will? he said. I would love to continue it.
Whereas Kitchen opened the door a crack for The Spirit,
Warren kicked the door in like the Incredible Hulk, establishing
that the market could easily support publication of fifty thousand
or more monthly copies of a Spirit comic book.
Figuring there were enough collectors who wanted to continue
getting the magazine as Warren had
printed it, Kitchen followed the Warren
numbering system. Where Warren ended
with issue number sixteen, Kitchen Sink
Press began again with issue number
seventeen.
That publication continued until
issue forty-one, at which point Kitchen
split the publication in half. For the first
time, The Spirit sections were reprinted
in comic book format, in chronological
order, and as full-color reproductions.
Meanwhile, Kitchen Sink Press created
a new magazine called Will Eisners
Quarterly that featured newly created
non-Spirit material as well as articles
about his career.
My sense of the marketplace,
Kitchen said, was that there were Spirit
fans and fans of Wills new work that weve come to know as graphic
novels. It tended to be a polarized audience. When Will ran his new
stuff in the Spirit magazine, Id get lots of complaints: We want more
Spirit. Finally we decided, lets give them both. Lets do just The
Spirit for people who want it and the Quarterly for new work and
historical articles about Busy Arnold, Quality Comics, and PS.
Eisner, who enjoyed having his own name on the magazine, also
continued the popular Shop Talk interview series in the quarterly.
These were in-depth, revealing, and sometimes raucous interviews
Eisner conducted with comic book and comic strip greats, includ-
ing Milton Caniff, C. C. Beck, Jack Kirby, and Neal Adams. Eisner
enjoyed the professional give-and-take of Shop Talk and spoke
often of restarting the series.
Kitchen Sink eventually reprinted every episode of The Spirit
from the post-World War II periodwhen Eisner returned from
the Army and took back creative controlthrough the strips
conclusion in 1952.
By then, the Eisner projects replaced underground comix as the
cornerstone of Kitchen Sink Press business. Other living legends,
such as Harvey Kurtzman, Milton Caniff, and Robert Crumb, joined
Eisner on Kitchens growing list.
Despite having Denis Kitchen as a common link, frequent publisher,
and number-one fan, Eisner met Robert Crumb only once. They
went for dinner to a restaurant in Greenwich Village with Harvey
Kurtzman. Crumb, who was a great
admirer of Kurtzman, wore his familiar
porkpie hat.
When Kurtzman got up to use the mens
room, Eisner tried making conversation
with the reluctant Crumb. It wasnt easy.
Then Crumb asked Eisner a question.
Do you know any girls with big legs?
Over the years, the relationship between
Eisner and Kitchen grew from business
into the personal realm. They visited
each other often, and became part of the
fabric of one anothers lives.
The link between Will Eisner and the
comic book underground was Denis
Kitchen.
Kitchen bridged the generation gap
between the comic greats like Eisner, Caniff, and Kurtzman, and
the underground comix stars like Robert Crumb, Skip Williamson,
and Jay Lynch. Unlike other underground publishers, Kitchen did
not feel the need to discard mainstream cartooning in order to
appreciate underground cartooning.
I felt more at home at Kitchen Sink because I didnt feel
required to turn up my nose at people like Al Capp, artist Howard
Cruse said. There was a certain appreciation for the 1930s tradi-
tion among people like the Air Pirates. But most of them felt that
nothing happened from the 50s until they were the great revo-
lutionaries. I felt there was a great arrogance in this. The under-
ground broke into a new threshold of cartooning possibility and I
think Eisner recognized that.
129
Original watercolor painting for Will Eisners Quarterly #6.
Courtesy Heritage Auctions

132
BLACK
&
WHITE
134
16 An Artist Rediscovered
J
ules Feiffer wanted credit where credit was due.
Dare I say that it was The Great Comic Book Heroes that
reinvented Will Eisner? said the author of the 1965 book
that launched the modern age of comic book fandom and made
the field respectable for the next generation of creators. He was
forgotten. I thought the two most important creators in the strip
world were Milton Caniff and Will Eisner. Caniff had plenty of acco-
lades. Wills name was unknown.
Feiffer is correct, of course; just as one generation of future
comic book creators was first introduced to The Spirit in the 1970s
by Jim Warrens black-and-white reprints, an earlier generation in
the 1960s discovered Eisner through Feiffers book and an excerpt
from it in Playboy magazine.
Feiffer wrote:
The Quality books bore his look, his
layout, his way of telling a story. For
Eisner did just about all of his own
writinga rarity in comic-book
men. His stories carried the same
weight as his line, involving a reader,
setting the terms, making the most
unlikely of plot twists credible.
His high point was The Spirit, a
comic-book section created as a
Sunday supplement for newspa-
pers. It began in 1939 [sic] and ran,
weekly, until 1942, when Eisner went
into the army and had to surrender
the strip tothe joke is unavoidablea ghost.
For all the grouchiness and teasing in their latter-day relationship,
Feiffer couldnt hide the pleasure it gave him to provide his former
mentor a boost in recognition and respect.
One of the most compelling, most satisfying aspects of anyones
career is collateral assists, Feiffer said. Just as when people tell
me a book of mine or cartoon of mine helped their kid, these
things are terribly important to me. The Great Comic Book Heroes
helped make comics a big thing again when they were dying out.
I had not been a fan for a long time and never was a fan of the
Marvel Age. The book was a hope it would do something for Will.
Im thrilled it went way beyond what I hoped for. What it did was
make Will have second thoughts about his abandoned career as a
cartoonist. With fanzines and the underground, he was launched
back into the world.
135
Feiffers cause was certainly aided by the fact that becoming a
publishing entrepreneur did not work out as well as Eisner once
hoped.
Had Will become the Henry Luce of ordnance publications,
Feiffer said, we might never have seen the rebirth of Will Eisner
as a cartoonist. Like so many of us, I suspect he backed into this
latter day career.
Maggie Thompson, editor of the Comics Buyers Guide, had
been a friend of Eisners since the 1960s, when she and her late
husband, Don, edited one of the first mimeographed comic book
fanzines, Comic Art. They tracked Eisner
down and proudly put him on their mail-
ing list, starting a relationship that lasted the
rest of Eisners life.
It was Don who introduced Maggie to
The Spirit sections. They blew me away
and we collected them devotedly, she said.
In the 1973 book, The Comic-Book
Book, Maggie Thompson contributed a
chapter on Eisner and the influence of The
Spirit, introducing thousands more people
to the artist and his oeuvre. In the course of
her own study, she elaborated upon a point
of contention that was first raised by Jules
Feiffer in The Great Comic Book Heroes:
Sartorially, the Spirit was miles apart
from other masked heroes. He didnt wear tights, just
a baggy blue business suit, a wide-brimmed blue hat
that needed blocking, and, for a disguise, a match-
ing blue eye mask, drawn as if it were a skin graft.
For some reason, he rarely wore socksif he did they
were flesh-colored. I often wondered about that.
Thompson, in her chapter of The Comic-Book Book titled Blue
Suit, Blue Mask, Blue GlovesAnd No Socks, couldnt help but
bring it up again when describing the Spirits brief and unexpected
return to print in the New York Herald Tribunes Sunday magazine
January 9, 1966:
The Spirit wore a single-breasted suit, a narrow tie,
and button-down collar. Otherwise, he was the same
old Spiritexcept for the socks. People have pointed
 out that the Spirit never wore socks; the leg that Brad Bird, writer and director of the Academy Award-winning
showed between cuff and shoe was almost invariably animated film The Incredibles, paid homage to Eisner in his film
colored flesh in those old sections. The reason has The Iron Giant, when a child shows the Iron Giant one of his Spirit
been cloaked in as much mystery as why the Spirit comic books. And in The Incredibles, the featured characters
always wore gloves, even to bed. But in the Herald masks are all similar to the Spirits. Heres what Bird told Wash-
Tribune that Sunday, the Spirit wore baggy socksand ington Times reporter Joseph Szadkowski in a story published in
even appeared briefly without his gloves. Its as though October 2004:
Eisner decided to break the traditions with that final
appearance. I started getting into The Spirit after reading an inter-
view with William Friedkin and was amazed by how
Eisner responded to Thompson with a sketch of the Spirit saying, cinematic the character was. My first love has always
It was a joke! I had socks! been movies, and it struck me as a comic-strip version
of Citizen Kane.
The angles were tremen-
dous and the lighting was
dramatic. It was even arranged
on the page in a way that was
cinematic. Panels were not
just broken up into geomet-
ric squares, they were longer,
shorter, and abrupt with a feel-
ing of almost movielike timing.
And I think this was one
of the first comic strips to
do that, and I love the fact
that Will Eisner had all of the
draftsmanship that one would
look for but wasnt afraid to
get broad or cartoony with
some of the expressions.
I also tipped my hat to Mr.
Eisners work in Iron Giant.
The kid pulls out stuff that
Will Eisner working on The Spirit for the New York Herald Tribune, 1966.
Photograph by Nat Fein, New York Herald Tribune, courtesy Will Eisner Collection, Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum at The
the giant would enjoy seeing,
Ohio State University and he pulls out a copy of The
Spirit. I thought that not a lot
of people know about this and it is a great thing.

I think Will Eisner is a genius.
In the 1970s, there was an explosion of Eisners influence, past and
present, on the comic book scene. Experiences and opportunities In comic book fandom, there was a disproportionate number
for the writer/artist came from all corners of both the industry of media-savvy, precocious readers who went on to do amaz-
and the world, making them difficult to organize and categorize, ing things, McCloud said. So the name Will Eisner has great
because they all defined the man and his growing mythos. currency in design firms and movie production. Many prominent
For example, Eisners work has long been recognized and revered directors know Wills name. Like Citizen Kane, The Spirit helped
within the comic book and graphic novel industry. But his remark- codify storytelling language that other artists took advantage of. If
able creative output is now credited with touching all kinds of media. his name doesnt travel far beyond our industry, his readership
Scott McCloud, author of Understanding Comics and Reinvent- does. And it goes back several decades. The minds in media that
ing Comics, cited Eisners influence in everything from novels to create media know the name Will Eisner.
movies. He said that Michael Chabon, Frank Miller, Art Spiegelman, The difference between Eisner and the creators of better-known
Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino, and Matt Groening are among characters such as Superman and Batman, said McCloud, is the
those who have spoken publicly of being influenced by Eisners work. difference between the man who built the first internal combustion

136
Original art for page 7 of the January 5, 1947, The Spirit.
Courtesy Heritage Auctions

137
 The Gary Chaloner Interview
G
ary Chaloner is an award-winning artist and writer who Chaloner also designed the official Will Eisner web site at one
created and published the new adventures of Will Eisners point.
John Law.

I interviewed Chaloner via email for the first edition of A Spir-
ited Life. But that was when John Law had yet to be published. BOB ANDELMAN: Tell us a little bit about John Law and how and
Now that its been out and built an independent audience for one when Will Eisner created it.
of Eisners lesser known characters, I thought it would be fun to GARY CHALONER: John Law was devised and created by Will
talk to him again. back in the mid- to late 40s. The Spirit was going very well, and
Eisner fans will also be excited to learn how many more char- Will wanted to expand his range of publications on the newsstand.
acters from Eisners early work returned to action in Chaloners He developed several titles, one of them being the John Law charac-
John Law series. ter, but the first one that he released I think was Baseball Comics,
First, let me tell you a little more about Chaloner. and it didnt go as well as he would have liked, so the other ideas
Hes an Australian-born creator who began his career as a that he had were put on the shelf for a while.
publisher of his own work and the Will, being the frugal person
work of other Australian creators that he was, converted it into
through his own imprint Cyclone Spirit stories. So all those stories
Comics. Cyclone published a didnt see print as Spirit stories
range of popular comic books in until about 1950. So the John
the 1980s and 1990s with titles Law material was a fully formed
as diverse as The Jackaroo, The concept that he had been thinking
Southern Squadron, Dark Nebula, about quite a while, for several
G.I. Joe Australia, Flash Damingo, years, and so that whole idea was
and CCQ (Cyclone Comics Quar- a bit stillborn, so when the oppor-
terly). tunity came along when I talked
Garys overseas work includes to Will and Denis Kitchen about
U.S. editions of The Jackaroo and developing the series wasnt just a
The Southern Squadron; a very Wallpaper for the John Law web comic. dead concept, it was a fully devel-
odd issue of The Badger with Mike oped, ready-to-go set of charac-
Baron; the award-winning Planet of the Apes: Urchaks Folly; The ters in the universe that Will had already worked on and estab-
Olympians, a two-issue prestige series for Marvel/Epic Comics; lished, so that was irresistible.
and editorial and creative duties on Dark Horse Down Under for
Dark Horse Comicsthis series featured the first U.S. appearance ANDELMAN: Was John Law ever published in the 50s or not?
of Garys creation Morton Stone, Undertaker. CHALONER: No, it was not. All of the work was adapted and
His more recent creator-owned projects include the black absorbed into the Spirit universe. John Law in his own environ-
comedy of Morton Stone: Undertaker; Red Kelso, a pulp-inspired ment wasnt published until the 80s in the Eclipse Comics edition.
adventure series; and new adventures of The Jackaroo. They stripped back a lot of the pasteovers and art changes that
Chaloner worked closely with Will Eisner in the development Will had made to the original art to reveal the original John Law
and relaunch of Will Eisners John Law both online and in print art underneath.
through IDW Publishing.
In the 2005 Ledger Awards (Australian Comic Industry Awards), ANDELMAN: How did you first hear of John Law?
Will Eisners John Law received several awards including Inter- CHALONER: Well, being an Eisner reader for many years and
national Title of the Year and Single Issue or Story of the Year. bumping into a lot of the publications that Kitchen Sink first
Chaloner was also awarded the Ledger of Honour (a Hall of Fame released and that other publications had written about Will Eisner,
award) and received industry awards for Achievement of the Year, if you learn a bit about The Spirit, you also learn about these
Cover Artist of the Year, and Inker of the Year. aborted characters that Will tried to publish back in the 40s. The

143
17 School of Visual Arts
I
n 1974, Marvel Comics longtime secretary Fabulous Flo That July, Eisner did something that further impressed Lash and
Steinberg recommended to John Holmstrom that he attend Holmstrom. He sent personal letters to all his incoming students,
either the Rhode Island School of Design or the School of Visual inviting them to a meeting at his Park Avenue office.
Arts in Manhattan, which was founded by Burne Hogarth and Silas I remember going into this office where he had a huge desk
Rhodes. SVAa trade school with a reputation for training gener- and wood paneling, Holmstrom said. He was the nicest guy you
ations of art directors and technically proficient graphic design- could imagine.
erswon out when he learned that two of his heroes, Steve Ditko We had no idea what to expect, Lash said. What shocked
and Wally Wood, both went there. me and John was that only five or six people showed up. We were
But once enrolled, Holmstrom discovered that the school didnt expecting twenty-five to thirty, at least! It was exciting to have that
actually teach the art and business of comic books. audience. We sat in his outer office, waiting. Then Eisner came out.
There were a couple guys there, including myself, who peti- He took a chair, spun it around, and sat like a coach talking to his
tioned the school to start comic art classes. They werent doing team. He told us he wanted to duplicate a shop where he would
it and a bunch of us werent happy, overlook all of us working on stories,
Holmstrom said. kibitz, and show us how its done.
They approached Alumni Director We were impressed that he reached
Tom Gill, who had worked on a strip out to this extent, Lash said. When the
himself and was only too happy to help. class started, it was friendly hellos, but
Who do you want? he asked. we couldnt trade on that orientation. It
With no names beyond their reach in was, Im glad you showed up, but lets
the greater New York metropolitan area, get to work. There was a curtain. You
Holmstrom and the others presented a never got too close to him.
dream list of teaching candidates. At Holmstrom sensed that some of
the top of the list were Will Eisner and Eisners steeliness was caused by the
Harvey Kurtzman. reality of facing a bunch of scruffy,
We were dumbfounded when the counterculture art types every week.
school said yes. And they landed the two I think Harvey and Will were both
greatest cartoonists of all time! Holm- nervous. Neither had done this before.
strom said. We were thrilled. The SVA building where Eisner taught
Around that time, Holmstrom met was the schools main building on East
Batton Lash, a native of Brooklyn. They 23rd Street. His classroom was on the
became fast friends. second floor, just atop the staircase, and
Batton was a charming guy. You Will Eisner reviewing portfolios and talking with a few feet away from the student lounge.
couldnt find a nicer guy, Holmstrom students at the Ringling School of Art & Design in Graphic design legend Milton Glazer
said. He was one of the first people Sarasota, Florida, in February 2004. taught in the same classroom at night.
Photo by Bob Andelman
I met when I came to New York from Eisners first class began with thirty
Cheshire, Connecticut. I didnt know a soul in New York. We students. After the first week it was down to nineteen. I had no
became great friends because we were both nuts about comics academic background, Eisner said. Silas Rhodes said, We dont
and Steve Ditko in particular. want teachers. Youre known to run a shop and train guys. And
And they both couldnt believe their luck in being art students at thats the way I ran my class. I never graded students. My operation
a school where Eisner and Kurtzman would soon be among their was pass/fail. If you didnt show up three or four times, you failed.
teachers. As long as you showed up, no matter how good or bad, as long as
I knew the gravity of that, Lash said. I knew about Kurtz- you kept doing the work, you passed.
man and Mad; The Spirit wasnt around at that time, but I knew Kurtzmans class was the complete opposite of Eisners.
Wills influence. When I read bios of other cartoonists, they all Harvey invited some students to his home, Lash said. Harvey
mentioned him. was a little more open to being manipulated than Will was. I say

146
Scholastic, drawing many of the illustrations himself but buying
the jokes from his class.
If he liked the joke, he paid $1 a joke, Carlin said. I sold him
three hundred jokes. I used to be funny.
Eisners books for Scholastic included titles such as Star Jaws,
101 Outer Space Jokes, Superhero Jokes, Spaced Out Jokes, and
300 Horrible Monster Jokes. They were not his most memorable
works, but schoolchildren of that era ate them up. And, for his
students, they were golden opportunities for rsum entries.
It felt good to get something published, Carlin said. It was
crummy stuff but Will paid in cash. I went to Blimpie right away
and bought a sandwich whenever I got paid. But I didnt care about
the money. I wanted a copy of the book.
A written by credit was very cool.
Years later, when Carlin won an
Eisner Award, he thanked his former
teacher and said, My price is now $2
a joke.
For his contribution to Will Eisners
Gallery of New Comics, Carlin collabo-
rated with fellow student Drew Fried-
man.
Drew was great. He was definitely
already there while the rest of us were
figuring it out, Carlin said. He used to
draw all these weird faces. There was
a husband and wife gardening team on
TV in New York back then, Stan and
Floss Dworkin. I did a weird drawing
of them. Drew took it and did his own
faces. He did, Find Stan and Floss. My
drawing stood out because it was so
awful.
Eisner recognized Carlins story-
telling quite early on. I also know he
thought my draftsmanship needed a
shitload of work, Carlin said, laughing
at the memory. He was cool about how he said things that were
critical. Harvey Kurtzman was more blunt.
Will was literally publishing A Contract with God as he was
teaching the class that year, Carlin recalled. It was an amazing
time.
While most of the artists who went through Eisners class were
interested in comic books and superheroes, the 1975 class
contained two future daily cartoonists, Ray Billingsley, who created
Curtis, and Patrick McDonnell, creator of Mutts.
Even though only seventeen years old, by the time Billingsley
entered Eisners class at SVA in 1975, he was already an established
artist in New York City. He also had a cartoony lookgiant afro,
153
mustache, and goatee. In his own words, he looked like the mean-
est member of the Jackson 5.
Billingsley started drawing professionally at eleven when he was
spotted and hired by the editor of Kids magazine. I was born in the
South and grew up in Harlem, he explained. I was considered an
oddball because I wasnt into anything anyone else was into. He
went to SVA because of its cartooning program and even received
special permission to take Eisners classnormally reserved for
sophomoresin his freshman year.
Eisner, however, briefly slowed him down.
Is this all you can do? the teacher asked his new student
during a portfolio review.
Billingsley didnt know anything
about Eisner at that point. After look-
ing up the mans work and background
in the SVA library, he was impressed
enough to set his ego aside and see
what he could learn.
He put me to task, Billingsley said.
I started improving just to show him
that I could do better. Starting as young
as I did, its hard to show people youre
capable. Will really challenged me. I
knew people who dropped Wills class
because he was too hard on them. A
lot of people fell to the wayside. It was
a hard act. And then Will went one step
further: he published his graphic novel,
Will Eisners New York: The Big City.
That inspired me. Curtis is set in the city.
And I always liked doing street scenes. I
looked to him for inspiration.
Billingsley said that most students
in his class were already at their desks
and drawing by the time Eisner arrived,
and they all continued to draw quietly
when he lectured.
Will looked at projects objectively and asked what market we
were interested in reaching. He was looking to create profession-
als, Billingsley said. It didnt matter if you were underground or
drew with markers, just as long as you were successful conveying
an idea. He wanted us to create a good picture. And each should
stand alone and push a picture forward. Will wanted us to know
what it would be like in the real world where they would have no
sympathy and we wouldnt get a second try. If a gag isnt working,
discard it. Thats hard for a lot of artists. His class was hard work.
In 2000, Billingsley received the Presidents Award from the
American Lung Association for the way his comic strip character
Curtis kept pushing his father to quit smoking. He was surprised to
see Eisner and Mort Walker come onstage and present the award
to him.
 The Drew Friedman Interview
I
knew Drew Friedman was going to be unhappy.
The minute Will Eisner started telling me about his former
student from New Yorks School of Visual Arts, I sensed a land-
mine lurking ahead of me.
Friedman is best known for his portraiture and, more
predominantly, caricature style. I knew his work primarily from
National Lampoon, Spy, and the New York Observer, and was
surprised to learn he was yet another distinguished alumni of
both Eisner and SVA.
But Eisner didnt have anything nice to say about Friedman.
That was odd, because in more than two years of interviewing him
and doing research for A Spirited Life, Eisner rarely said anything
bad about anyone. Even when he talked about Gary Groth, editor
in chief of The Comics Journalwho famously dissed the old
comics master in printhe preferred not to say anything bad on
the record.
As soon as I heard his comments about Friedman, I knew Id
have to contact the artist and give him a chance to reply.
Friedman declined, via email:
Dear Bob,
I appreciate your interest in talking to me about
being a student of Will Eisners, but I honestly dont
think I have much to contribute. The class was almost
twenty-five years ago, and I have very little memory of
it. I dont think an interview with me would be worth-
while to you.
Good luck with your book.
Best regards,
Drew
So I looked for fellow students from that era that could give me
an independent view. None wanted to be quoted for attribution,
but there was a confirmation that at least some of Eisners view of
Friedman could be supported.
In February 2006, a few months after the book was published, I
heard from Friedman again. And my original instinct proved true:
he wasnt happy.
Dear Bob,
I picked up your new book about Will Eisner the
other day, and was surprised to see my name in the
index. I think it will benefit you to know that some
of what Will said regarding me in the book are out
and out lies. He and I had always gotten along well
155
during my days at SVA and I could never understand
why he later came to resent me. Ive heard over the
years, from mutual friends, that he continually (and
falsely) badmouthed me.
To set the record straight, Eisner never contacted my
father at all. My father has never spoken to him. I saw
my father yesterday and he confirmed this. Secondly,
I never made Harvey Kurtzman cry. Harvey encour-
aged chaos in his classroom as he thought such fooling
around contributed to the creativity of his students. He
did, on one occasion, have to leave the room to compose
himself and continue the class, but I was not singled
out as the cause of his distress. In the three years I took
Harveys classes, we were on the best of terms, even to
the point of socializing outside the classroom.
I wish you the best of luck with your book, but if
Eisners other accounts and reminiscences are as valid
as those referring to me, then it should be sold in the
fiction department of bookstores, alongside James
Freys book.
All the best,
Drew Friedman
Friedman also passed along his own supporting document, an
email from his SVA classmate and respected artist in his own right,
Mark Newgarden (We All Die Alone, Cheap Laffs):
Drew:
I just read that amusing Will Eisner-related letter
printout you sent.
For the record everything you say is 100% true (I
was always amazed you actually stuck with that hate-
ful classI know I dropped it after a semesterif I
lasted that long).
My impression of Eisner was that he really liked
you. He even said once you reminded of him in his
youth. (Of course everything reminded Will Eisner of
Will Eisner). But he was probably secretly pissed
that you didnt ultimately fall in line with the Eisner-
grovellers he cultivated in his class. I didnt know he
badmouthed you later on.
And of course the real culprit in making Harvey
cry (actually just get red in the face and leave the
room as you mentioned) was one James Stroud who
latched onto the Stooge noises, etc., and then went way
 The Scott & Bo Hampton Interview
T
here arent many successful brother acts in comics. One of
the first was Stan Lee and Larry Lieber; one of the best known
today would be Joe Kuberts sons, Andy and Adam.
The Hampton brothers, Scott and Bo, have been making two
distinct impressions on the business as artists for more than
twenty-five years. Bo, the older of the two native North Carolinians,
studied under Will Eisner at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan.
He later spent a year as Eisners production assistant at his home
studio in White Plains, N.Y. That summer, he brought his younger
brother, Scott, along to help and learn one day a week. That experi-
ence had an enduring impact on both of their careers and contin-
ues to influence them today.
It also left them with some wonderful, never before published
stories about Eisner.

BOB ANDELMAN: What was the first
that you ever heard of Will Eisner?
BO HAMPTON: I saw the Harvey
reprints and loved them. I was about
ten years old so it was around 64.
SCOTT HAMPTON: I can recall that
exactly. I was at a friends house, and
he showed me the two Harvey reprints
of The Spirit. Id never seen his work
before that. Im not sure when Warren
started to reprint the Spirit material,
and so its conceivable that I had seen a
little bit of it before I saw these Harveys, Eisners original cover art and the printed comic of
but I hadnt really taken it in. I wasnt Harveys The Spirit #1.
really thinking about what it was. When Courtesy Heritage Auctions
I saw the reprints, I was just amazed and
read them immediately and was just floored and became an imme- ANDELMAN: Oh, because they were in color.
diate fan. I would say this was when I was fifteen. SCOTT: Right. Well, not just that. They were comic books. They
were comic book size, and yes, the color was fabulous, I thought.
ANDELMAN: How old are you now? Again, its been a long time since I saw them, but I just felt like this
SCOTT: Im forty-seven. I was born in 1959, so it was in 1974 or is a man who knows how to draw for that form of reproduction,
1975. using the limitations of a four-color process. There are certain
BO: Im as old as the wind fifty-two. artists who know the limitations and then try to make their art
work within that limitation. Its one of the great challenges of doing
ANDELMAN: So it must have been the Warren reprints that you stuff for reproduction. I think Will was an absolute master of it.
saw, Scott. Alex Toth was a master of it. I think that the color work by Marie
SCOTT: No, I may have seen some of them, but what I was seeing Severin on the ECs is a fabulous collaboration between her and the
that knocked me out were the Harvey reprints from the 60s. entire clan of artists that Gaines had. They knew what they were
dealing with, and they worked within those parameters. So those

160
18 God, Will Eisner,
and the Birth of the Graphic Novel
W
ill Eisner was born into a God-fearing family. His mother
referred to God constantly, promising that if Eisner did
the right things, God would reward him.
Personally, though, Eisner had a dim view of religion as an insti-
tution. This feeling grew during the Great Depression years.
One Rosh Hashanah Eve, my father wanted to hear Yizkorthe
Jewish memorial service for the deadbut we didnt have enough
money to pay for the holiday tickets to the shul, Eisner said. We
went anyway and stood outside on the stepsthe doors were
openand we listened from outside.
The humiliation of that experi-
encebeing too poor to participate
inside with the rest of the Jewish commu-
nitystayed with me. In fact, I became
so angry that I never went into a shul
again until I got married.
I began thinking that the institu-
tionnot the fundamentals of Judaism
itselfwas what was wrong. It wasnt
a philosophical or cultural problem.
I was disillusioned by the institution,
the realization that it is conducted like
a business. Here is an institution that is
sustaining myths that may or may not be
true, and in order to do that, the lead-
ership does the same things a dictato-
rial country does. Look at the Catholic
Churchs problems. It is defending an
institution that operates on a concept
that is essentially predicated on myths.
Church leaders conduct themselves in a
way that retains for them absolute power. And, as you know and I
know, absolute power breeds absolute corruption.
When they met, Eisners wife Ann was a member of a Reform
temple, Temple Emanuel in Manhattan. After they were married in
1950, they moved to White Plains and joined another Reform temple.
They didnt attend temple regularly, but they remained members
because of their two children. When the Eisners moved to Florida in
1978, they looked into joining a shul. They attended Shabbat services
one Friday evening, liked it, but never did anything more about it.
I would like to believe that there is a supreme intelligence that
is concerned with our lives and who guides us, Eisner said. As a
result, we have a contract with God that we ourselves created. The
problem with the contract is that neither party has lived up to his
obligation. So I dont know. Id like there to be a God, really.
168
My wife Ann is a firm believer, he continued. She believes
strongly in God or in the existence of God. I am not as sure. I cant
attribute the pattern of my life to the hand of God, although I would
like to because it would seem that somewhere there is a hand that
is guiding it. That would be of great comfort. But I cant find any
reason to it.
All of which set the tableas far as the public knew until
nowfor the creation of Eisners groundbreaking 1978 graphic
novel, A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories. Eisner
was now sixty-one.
American Visuals was going broke by
the early 1970sone of its divisions
was bleeding it dryand Eisner got out
in 1972. But there was the question of
what to do next. He had money in the
bank, and he took the bold step of giving
up his Army contract on PS magazine.
Over the next few years, inspired by the
underground comix scene, he invested
his time and money in a full-time return
to the drawing board. It was, in fact, a
comment made by Ann that focused
him. She said, Why dont you finally do
what you always wanted to do?
They talked about this quite often,
actually, so Eisner finally sat down
and gave it some serious thought. Did
he want to return to comic books?
The solid, rapidly growing base of fan
market and the Kitchen Sink Press reprints of The Spirit generated
a growing interest in his old work. Eisner had already turned down
Stan Lees offer of the editorship at Marvel Comics. Would the aver-
age mainstream or underground comic book reader be interested
in anything more challenging from Will Eisner than this months
issue of Daredevil?
I was struck by the obvious, Eisner said, that readership was
changing and a new approach to comics content was needed. Most
obvious to me was that the time was now. The young preteen comic
book reader of the 1940s was now close to forty years old. He grew
up on the medium but what was there for a mature person to read
in this format? It was an enormous opportunity.
Eisner reasoned that there might, in fact, be a new audience of
adult comic book readers that no one had yet addressed directly.
Eisners preliminary sketches for the cover and page 3 of
Life on Another Planet, and his painted cover for the 1995
reprint of the book.
Courtesy Heritage Auctions and Denis Kitchen respectively

When Eisner wrote a new graphic novel, he treated it like a
state secret. Even Denis Kitchen was out of the loop about
the nature of new books until they were substantially plot-
ted and dummied.
Their typical conversation went like this:
Im working on a new graphic novel, Eisner would say.
And Kitchen would ask, Whats it about, Will?
New York in the Depression; I dont want to say any
more.
Uh, okay.
A month might pass and Eisner would casually mention to
Kitchen that he was still working on the mysterious project.
Can you tell me anything more about it?
Well, its about New York in the 1930s. Id rather not talk about it. I also get an early read from my wife Ann, who has the perspective
Eisner believed it would interrupt his creative process if he of a new reader.
talked about a project too early. Asking for candid advice and receiving it are two different things.
I want to really think it through thoroughly and have the char- At least that was true in the beginning of his relationship with
acters and plot well established, he said. Once I get to the point Kitchen. And that applied to both Kitchen and the man who edited
where the story is in rough form with a beginning, middle, and an most of Eisners books, the late Dave Schreiner. Schreiner was
end, then I eagerly send it to Denis and ask for his candid advice. Kitchen Sink Press editor in chief for years, and Eisner eventually

171
was a very interesting discussion about how to run two plot lines at
the same time. He also had me talk to the class about how under-
ground comic book publishing worked and how to create your
sample. At that point, I was also looking at samples of people who
might be good draftsmen or might have a good comic that Kitchen
Sink Press might want to print. I would sometimes be part of the
team that would go to comics conventions, and rather than have
Denis be bothered by all kinds of people with portfolios, I would
take them all aside and look at them from the point of view of fine
art and stuff like that or critique them in terms of comic strips. I
was really well read as far as what was happening in the comics
world, and I could discuss how people could improve their portfo-
lios. There might have been one or two guys out of all those hours
of looking at portfolios that ever finally came through and were
published by Kitchen Sink Press, but there were a few.
I accompanied Will to an Upper West Side comic book store on
another occasion because he had to do a book signing. I met him
up there, and he was signing some of the first issues of The Spirit
Cover sketch for The Spirit #11 of the Kitchen Sink comic book reprint series.
Courtesy Heritage Auctions
194
comic book, I guess. I had been assigned to be an art designer,
because Will didnt even have time to re-read the stories. He said,
You know what sells, you know what excites people about The
Spirit, so read the stories, and work out some ideas for what
would make good covers, and then I will draw them.
ANDELMAN: Thats trust.
POPLASKI: And so I, of course, went through and found specific
poses that I liked. I would do a big mock-up, then we photocopied
it and sent it to him, and then he put velum over it and totally redid
it. And he gave me the vellum drawing, so I have the first cover to
the Spirit comic, which is fun, because I have the photocopy as
well of the drawing that I did that he then totally revamped.
I went through a few stories, and I think it was the issue that
had the Stop the Plot story, which went on exhibition with the
touring Masters of Comic Art exhibition. I would say, Will, heres
this window that you drew, and we have the Spirit looking out. That
will be a good cover; it actually has a dimensional quality, because
the cover is a window, and the Spirit is stick-
ing his head out the window. And I was giving
him all kinds of real specific things. Will wanted
some basic ideas and stuff, but he didnt want to
copy anybody, and the phrase that he hit me with
was that rather than just being an art director
saying, Will, I want you to draw this, and we
need this by 5:00, he said, When you speak to
me, speak in fundamentals. So I had to stand
back for a minute, and I said, Okay, I need a
rationale as to why this would be a good, excit-
ing scene based on the number of stories that we
are showing, that were in that particular issue,
and how this would work as far as all the covers
in a row would look. And we never did do the
window cover! But from that point of view, I gave
him a choice of different images from differ-
ent stories, or I tried to combine them a little
bit, that maybe he would want to use that as a
springboard.
That was one of the key phrases of my work-
ing relationship with Will, when speaking to him
or working with him, I had to work from the
point of view of fundamentals, and then he could
build on that, or that might inspire him to take a
totally different direction.
I worked with him on his graphic novels as
well, doing the cover for A Life Force. I did thir-
teen or fourteen cover designs for that just to
show him what was possible, different styles,
different city scenes. I had two or three that I
liked a lot, and then a lot of them were just simi-
lar ideas but not as developed. That one, we were

Sketch for the 1978 OrlandoCon, complete with Eisners impressionist take on an alligator.
Courtesy Heritage Auctions
I had a discussion with him about portraiture, and he said, You
know, I have never been good at portraiture. That really takes a
whole different way of looking; I am more of an impressionist.
As he said, impressionist, and he was drawing these figures
and blocking in the calligraphy of his brushwork, it was a perfect
demonstration of that.
ANDELMAN: As close up as you got to see him work and got to
see his work, could you find fault in any of his work? Were there
things where you went, You know, it might have been a little lazy
there, or?
POPLASKI: Will always met his deadlines, which meant sometimes
he probably didnt have time to do his homework. There is a Spirit
cover that he did with the Spirit wrestling an alligator, and he sent it
in finished, and I looked at it and said, This is the worst alligator I
196
ever saw. It looked like a log. He didnt even think
or bother all that much about anatomy and some
of the form, and so Denis called him up and said,
Will, this cover doesnt quite work. Pete thinks
the legs are too stubby. We gave him a very thor-
ough critique on it, and he said thanks. We sent it
back, and he re-drew it.
ANDELMAN: There is a story in the biogra-
phy about how when Denis Kitchen and Dave
Schreiner started working with Will, they were
kind of hesitant to give him direct feedback,
because, God, hes Will Eisner. Did you ever go
through any of that yourself, where you were
kind of holding back a little bit?
POPLASKI: No, because being an artist myself
and talking to student artists all the time, work-
ing with other people, I am very respectful of
where they are coming from. I did the same thing
with a Mark Schultz cover. Mark Schultz did one
of his early Xenozoic Tales; its an underwater
scene, and I said, The poor guy, hes really a
great draftsman, and hes working hard, but he
has this kneecap all screwed up. If anybody really
knows anatomy and looks at this, they will think
he is not doing his homework or he rushed it
or something. We pointed this out to Mark, and
he said thanks, and he changed the whole leg
around, and it looked a lot better, and that was
that. I felt that part of my job as an art direc-
tor working with Will or working with anybody
is respect what they did, but if it really bothered
me, I spoke up.
ANDELMAN: What was Wills importance to
Kitchen Sink Press over the years? When he was
not in the office, how was his work and his being a part of the
organization viewed by the staff?
POPLASKI: I always thought of Will as Uncle Will. I worked
so close with Caniff, I thought of Caniff as Uncle Milt. I think
it comes back to watching too many Mouseketeer shows. Will
could be like Walt Disney walking in and being real friendly and
chummy with the kids and telling them a story or showing them
how to do something, and we were always ready to learn some-
thing, and we were always amazed at some of these stories. We
were cut off from the world, in the middle of Wisconsin, and he
was telling us about Jack Kirby throwing gangsters out of his studio
in 1938. We thought that was great, geez. Everybody loved it when
Will showed up.
When we had done the second Spirit comic, he and his brother
Pete came out, and I had all these figure paintings that I had done.
206
24 Epilogue
A
t eighty-five years old, Will Eisners right shoulder finally
betrayed him.
The rest of the artist and writers body might have been in
denial, but by early 2002, the shoulder on his drawing arm could
no longer be a party to the lie.
Eisner, it whispered, youre old! Give up playing tennis!
And for the next three years, although he bitterly missed his daily
game, he replaced it with a vigorous thirty-minute daily swim and time
on the treadmill. Ann, his wife of fifty-four years, even bought him a
recliner with a built-in heating pad to soothe that aching shoulder.
At the end of the day, it hurts. I couldnt do an oil painting or
murals anymore. But working on a drawing board, that I can do,
he said. One of my problems is Ive always used my whole arm.
Once I start inking, I only use my wrist.
By spring 2004, the pain returned.
Eisner, his shoulder demanded, youre eighty-seven years old!
Stop hand-lettering your books. Use the computer!
For the next year, Eisner and his shoulder reached dtente. He
kept telling his stories in the form he popularized. And his tired
right shoulder throbbed in agony if he pushed it past quittin time
at 4:00 p.m.

The last day I saw Eisner in person was an exciting day in May
2004. The final unedited page of what would be his last completed
book, The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of
Eisner tightens his layout for the final page of The Plot.
Zion, was on his drawing board, and he was excited about getting Photo by Bob Andelman
it to the publisher and into print.
There will be a lot of challenges to this book, he said, antici- accessibly, said Eisners friend, author Neil Gaiman. The Plot is
pating the debate. what the Spirit might have done, if he could draw.
The Plot represented a new dimension in Eisners storytelling. After The New York Times profiled his work in progress in Febru-
Where his previous book, Fagin the Jew, took a supporting char- ary 2004, Eisner was contacted by an executive of the Anti-Defama-
acter from Charles Dickens Oliver Twist and gave him a life and tion League, who expressed interest in helping him with his dream of
legend of his own, The Plot represented his first head-on, non- getting a special edition of The Plot publishedin Arabic.
fiction attack on real-life anti-Semitism. The people who I want to read this are the people for whom
It stemmed from his research into the origins of a book called Protocols of Zion is being published, Eisner said. The whole
The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, which Amazon.com purpose of The Plot, the only justification for doing it, is that this
categorized as controversial and listed it alongside books on medium has the chance of being read by the people for whom
UFOs and conspiracies. Zion is an inflammatory, untrue represen- Protocols was written. There are ten books condemning Proto-
tation of Judaism that has nonetheless circulated in the Arab world cols, all by academics for sophisticated readers. Those are not the
for decades, inflaming contempt for Jews and Israel. The plot, as people who need to be told this book is a fraud. But in a graphic
referred to in the title of Eisners work, is the perpetration of this novel, I have a chance of capturing readers who never heard of this
hoax as truth. before. The chance of them reading something with illustrations,
I think it really remarkable that Will was ready to tackle some a picture book, is greater than of them reading a condemnation
of the most pernicious and monstrous propaganda directly and written in text by an academician.

207
Original art for page 27 of The Heart of the Storm, and Eisner as himself in The Plot.
Original art courtesy Denis Kitchen
A book of this sort would probably stand a better chance of
acceptance by an Arabic audience if a gentile produced it. But
Eisnerwho started his career in the 1930s by producing comic
books under five different namesnever considered disguising
his identity for this work.
I start my foreword by saying, I am Jewish, he said. It would
be nice if it were done by a guy with a non-Jewish name, I suppose.
A Contract with God was the first time that Eisner consciously
produced work that identified him as a Jew. And once he opened
the floodgates, there was to be no turning back. To the Heart of
the Storm was an autobiographical look at not only his life but also
that of his immigrant parents as they struggled against prejudice
and anti-Semitism in America during the early part of the twen-
tieth century. And in The Name of the Game, he told the multi-
generational story of one Jewish familymodeled in part on his
wife Anns familyas it struggled through assimilation and rose
through the social ranks of New York.
Benjamin Herzberg worked with Eisner as both a researcher
and sounding board on both Fagin the Jew and The Plot. He
secured the bona fides of both books, moonlighting from his day
job as a private sector development specialist for the World Bank
in Washington, D.C., and publisher of GASP! Editions.
The Plot, in its final form, is quite different than where it
started, Herzberg said. I was the one who told Will to put
himself in the book. He didnt want to, but I convinced him. The
latter part of the book otherwise lacked a device to advance the
narrative.
Will started at the beginning not knowing where he was going
at the end, he continued. It originally started with white suprem-
acists in the United States and how they were using the Protocols to
fuel stereotypes. But that was in contradiction to what I perceived
he wanted to do. We had this relationship where we could talk and
clarify what he wanted to do.
By focusing his initial introduction on white supremacists, he
obviously would miss addressing the wide spread of the Protocols
in the Middle East. He had an instinct about what he wanted to do
and we reframed that toward something more constructive. At the
same time, events were happening in Europe, especially in France,
where a lot of anti-Semitic acts were happening.
They refocused the introduction and conclusion of the book
which give the book its moral resonanceas well as some chap-
ters on being able to affect a larger audience, including people
subject to the propaganda of fundamentalism in the U.S., silent
witnesses of Old World anti-Semitism in Europe and last but not
least, the population in the Arabic community.
Another issue that Eisner and Herzberg wrestled with was
Eisners desire to state the facts about the Protocols plainly and
simply, putting emotion on the shelf.
208
25 DC PUTS THE SPIRIT BACK IN COMICS
A
t the center of the sustaining Will Eisner Universe there stands
two memorable characters.
One, of course, is the Spirit, the masked detective who
lRSTSURFACEDINSNEWSPAPERSUPPLEMENTSANDHASRETURNED
in various formats to entertain every generation since.
The other is Denis Kitchen, a character in his own right.
Kitchen, at six foot, six inches, with long hair and distinctive
mustache, literally caricatured himself in the funny pages back in
THESWHENHEWASANUNDERGROUNDCOMIXARTISTANDPUBLISHER
The soft-spoken Wisconsin native is known for many commercial
enterprises over the last thirty-five years, including Krupp Comic
Works, Steve Krupps Gallery & Curio Shoppe, Kitchen Sink Press,
Denis Kitchen Art Agency, Denis Kitchen Publishing Co., and the
Kitchen & Hansen Agency.
And amidst all these varied enterprises, Kitchen became Will
%ISNERSPUBLISHERINARELATIONSHIPTHATCONTINUEDWITHSCANT
INTERRUPTIONTHROUGHTHELATESWHEN+ITCHEN3INK0RESSSHUT
down and Kitchenby then a great friend and favored confidante
of Eisnersbecame Eisners art and literary agent (with his part-
NER*UDY(ANSEN 
3INCE %ISNERS DEATH IN *ANUARY  +ITCHEN HAS CONTINUED
coordinating artistic issues for the artists estate.
Today, the hair is shorter and grayer, but the mustache remains,
IF
as does YOU the ENJOYED
sardonic senseTHIS of humor PREVIEW,
and wonder.CLICK I got to know THE LINK
Kitchen in 2002 BELOW when he TO ORDERmeTHIS
pre-screened BOOK!
for several hours by
telephone before endorsing my candidacy to write Eisners biogra-
phy. And WILL one of the EISNER:
great pleasuresAof that enduring relationship is
SPIRITED
that I periodically get LIFE
to engage in long conversations with Kitchen
(DELUXE
about all kinds of things, EDITION)
from comics to politics to baseball.
AnIn the following
expanded, conversation,
full-color deluxe Kitchen talked about the revival &DWDORJGRQHLQVXSSRUWRIDH[KLELWRI(LVQHUZRUNDW0R&&$
edition of the out-of-print
biography that explores the fascinating life of WILL EISNER,
ofdetailing
The aSpirit more thanin70-year
all-new comics,
career that in which hewhich leads into back-to-back
spearheaded comics
interviews with fortwo
adult readers
of theandsubsequent
created the first creators of those series, In the literary world, lets start at the top with W. W. Norton. The
widely accepted graphic novel, A CONTRACT WITH GOD.
Darwyn Cooke and Sergio Aragons.
Eisner's influence has been felt by such diverse talents as Plot found some real success both in the U.S. and in Europe. It did
Batman creator Bob Kane and Jack Kirby, as well as under-
ground comics legend R. Crumb and Pulitzer Prize-winning phenomenally in Europe, especially France, where the publisher
sss
cartoonists Jules Feiffer and Art Spiegelmanall
hailed Eisner's cinematic approach to comics, and his endur-
have
'RASSETQUICKLYSOLDOVERHARDCOVERS4HEREAREALSOTWELVE
BOB ANDELMAN:
ing character The Spirit. FromAs you look
his childhood back
to famously on the time since Will died, or thirteen language editions, including some countries where Will
turning down a proposal for Superman, to educating Army
how doinyou
soldiers assessEisner's
P.S. Magazine, his legacy,
personal in andterms of business, and in any other was never translated into before, like Greece and Hungary. In the
professional
life is told in dramatic detail. Author BOB ANDELMAN
WAYTHATYOUWOULDMEASUREIT
spent almost three years interviewing Eisner prior to his U.S., The Plot sold over 20,000 in hardcover, which by far exceeds
DENIS KITCHEN:
passing, researching his life and work and interviewing
Its amazing how much is out there
friends, family, and colleagues including ALAN MOORE, DAVE GIBBONS, NEIL GAIMAN, DENIS KITCHEN,
and still any other hardcover edition of Wills work. It got generally very
being created. I dont know of any other authors with a posthu- positive review attention.
JOE KUBERT, STAN LEE, JULES FEIFFER, NEAL ADAMS, and PATRICK McDONNELL. In addition to hundreds
of FULL-COLOR IMAGES from Will's archives and private collections (not found in the original edition), this
mous
EXPANDED schedule quiteincludes
DELUXE EDITION like athis.series ofAmong many
new interviews withother things, HOWARD
DREW FRIEDMAN, Wills They have a whole program that is dynamic and first class. Its
CHAYKIN, DARWYN COOKE, SERGIO ARAGONES, MICHAEL USLAN, and others, which clear the air on some
work was
topics left part byofthethe
unfinished Masters
first edition, and addof American
depth to the reader'sComics
knowledge ofexhibition a shame, because Will was alive when the deal with Norton was
Eisners body of work.
Featuring
that toured an insightful introduction A
the country. by separate
MICHAEL CHABON, touring and aretrospective
Foreword by NEAL ADAMS.
was also made, and its the kind of respect he wanted his entire career; to
CONDUCTEDANDHISWORKWASEXHIBITEDIN0ARISAND.EW9ORK!T
(256-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $39.95 (Digital Edition) $12.95
ISBN: 978-1-60549-061-8
be, as he used to put it, with an uptown publisher. And now he is
one point his art was simultaneously in four different
http://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=1197
venues. uptown. They had even planned an author tour. He was fighting

222