"The Spirit" of Will Eisner is Warmly Remembered

Yesterday was the anniversary of the birth of a man credited as the 'father of comics', a man who was among the first to push the formal boundaries of the comics medium (most definitely the first to utilize the unique aspects of the comic-book format). He chose to leave behind the creative effort of commercial comic-books in the 1950s for something even more commercial: instructional illustration. And after making a bundle of money doing that, in the Sixties he suddenly encountered the underground 'comix' movement, sold his company, and began a third career creating, publishing, and codifying what we now call, thanks to him, graphic novels. Sadly, we lost him in 2oo5.

That man was, of course, Will Eisner.

Google knows how to show respect, the famous corporation's search-engine homepage looked like that yesterday! That fun and inventive manner of showing and telling at the same time is all Eisner. His comics splash pages usually looked like this (but often far more elaborate) in the series starring the character he created, and is attached to by posterity, The Spirit.

The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (@MoCCAnyc) wins by bringing even more respect to the day. The museum held a screening of the excellent documentary by Andrew and Jon Cooke (@jonbcooke) "Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist" at their gallery on Broadway in grand old Manhattan. I own this particular documentary on DVD and I've seen it multiple times. Bought it at NY Comic-Con directly from the director. Love it. [Read more about it here!]

In fact, MoCCA is holding an exhibit currently called "Will Eisner's New York: From The Spirit to the Modern Graphic Novel" curated by publisher of Kitchen Sink Press and friend to the late Eisner, Denis Kitchen; and former Marvel editor, Danny Fingeroth (@DannyFingeroth).

MoCCA is located at 594 Broadway Avenue and the exhibit focusing on Eisner will be held until June 30th of this year. See a bit of comics history, New York City history, and support a great independent museum at the same time! Or order the documentary on DVD/BluRay and support the creation of high quality film about comics. Most importantly, learn about this truly remarkable man and the huge amount of varied work he produced in his long lifetime. You won't regret it.

~@JonGorga