,47
comic books exhausted the material
available.
At the tender age of 19, Eisner start-
ed to create superheroes and swash-
bucklers, adventure and romance for
the comic books. At various times he
employed a number of future luminar-.
ies, including Bob Kane (Barman) and
Jack "King" Kirby (nee Jacob
Kirshberg). Kirby went on to create the
Fantastic Four, Incredible Hulk, Silver
Surfer and Captain America, among
many others, drawing Stan Lee's visions
at Marvel Comics.
"Comics offered an opportunity to
the young cartoonist, particularly the
young Jewish cartoonist," Eisner
explains. "Similar opportunities didn't
exist for them anywhere else. The
comic book industry was wide open, a
frontier.
"As a matter of fact, Superman came
out of the minds of two Jewish boys.
Superman was essentially a Jewish folk
myth. It was the Golem all over again.
Superman was designed to deal with an
invincible enemy.
'At the time, Hitler and the Nazi
movement seemed totally invincible.
You couldn't see an ordinary hero fight-
ing against them. I really believe that
mythical icons are created out of an
almost visceral response to what people
are going through at any given period
in time.
In 1939, a newspaper syndicate
approached Eisner to do a comic book
they would offer to newspapers as a
Sunday supplement. The character
Eisner created, which he describes as a
cross between Philip Marlowe and
Zorro, was called "The Spirit."
"I never intended to create a super-
hero," Eisner said. "[But the newspaper
syndicate] couldn't sell this thing unless
it was a costumed character.
"I wanted to get out of what I con-
sidered the comic book ghetto. I never
really was happy writing comic books
for the young juvenile audience.
"Here was an opportunity for me to
reach a mature audience. I devised the
idea of delivering a comic every week
which would be a complete story, as
opposed to the endless continuations
like 'Dick Tracy' and 'Terry and the
Pirates.'
"The Spirit turned out to be a flexi-
ble character who really didn't take
himself too seriously. He was mortal.
Feiffer once said, 'We all knew that
The Spirit was really Jewish, even
though he had a small nose.' I guess it's
hard to keep out of your characters the
things that are essentially within you, if
you're writing honestly.
"I didn't start out by saying, 'I'm
going to write about Jewish themes,
I'm going to be a Jewish writer.' I write
about the things I know, which happen
to have a Jewish neshama to them."
As with characters like Sherlock
Holmes and James Bond, The Spirit
took on a life of his own, and once
again will be regularly published.
Eisner, however, has turned over the
title to a rotating stable of his gifted
spiritual heirs, like Alan Moore, Dave
Gibbons, Neil Gaiman, Eddie
Campbell, Frank Miller and a host of
contemporary stars of the panel graphic
medium.
.In mid-career, Eisner's talents took
him to an entirely different sphere.
Upon being drafted into World War II,
Eisner set out to rest a pet theory. He
persuaded the service to allow him to
produce training material in comic-
book form.
"It was so enormously successful,"
Eisner recalls, "that after the war was
over, I began to show it to industry and
schools. It was very successful there, too.
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1998-99 SEASON
The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Scapin by Moliere
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The Playboy of the Western World by J.M. Synge
American Enterprise by Jeffrey Sweet
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1998
96
Wayne State University is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer.
Wayne State University--People working together to provide quality service
From Will Eisner's 'A Contract With
God."
As Eisner devoted most of his work
in the '50s, '60s and early '70s to comics
as instructional media, comic books
went through their own growing pains.
Congress held hearings impeaching
comics as the cause of juvenile delin-
quency. The industry instituted the
comic code, a method of policing
themselves. In response, underground
comics, with their anything goes atti-
tude, rose through the '60s.
In the process, comic books became
collectibles. The growth of the industry
created a need for comic book conven-
tions. On attending one in the early
'70s, Eisner felt the yen ro start using
the medium for fiction again.