LEGENDARY HEROES #42

THE SPIRIT

It has been said of Will Eisner that he was to comics what Orson Welles was to cinema.  Eisner was the most important artist-writer-creator in the Golden Age of Comics, and he was responsible for the creation of The Spirit, Blackhawk, Sheena, Doll Man, and a dozen others all by the time he was 22 years old.  Will Eisner was born in 1917 to Jewish immigrants in Brooklyn.  His first comic appeared in WOW magazine in 1936, the same year that he graduated from high school.  In 1938 he started a studio with Jerry Iger - the Eisner-Iger Studio - which they started with $15.  Will financed the venture so his name came first and pretty soon they were flourishing.  They created original comic art for comic book publishers who didn't want to employ a stable of artists and writers.  Eisner-Iger Studio made a lot of money.  They were producing all of the content for Fiction House comics as well as some for Quality Comics, and developed a reputation for being reliable.  Several cartoonists got their start at Eisner-Iger including Bob Kane (Batman), Jack Kirby (Captain America), Jack Cole (Plastic Man), and Lou Fine (one of the finest cartoonists ever).

By 1940 the Sunday newspapers were beginning to feel the competition from comic books and syndicates wanted a comic book of their own to insert into Sunday papers.  The Register-Tribune Syndicate approached comic book publisher "Busy" Arnold of Quality Comics and they called on Will Eisner.  They wanted a caped superhero like Superman to which Eisner flat-out said "NO!"  Will was just 22 years old and newspaper comics were the gold standard for cartoonists.  Eisner worked out a deal with the Register-Tribune that while they would provide the copyright to the published creation, Eisner would actually retain the rights to the character that he created.  Creator ownership was unheard of at the time but the syndicate agreed.  Will Eisner created a detective called The Spirit and gave him a costume as a concession to "Busy" Arnold who wanted a superhero - a standard blue suit, red tie, with blue gloves, blue mask, and a blue fedora.

On June 2, 1940, The Spirit appeared in Sunday newspapers in the form of a 16-page insert printed on newsprint.  It would become widely known as "The Spirit Section" with an 8-page Spirit story and two 4-page stories featuring secondary characters Mr. Mystic and Lady Luck.  Later the Spirit stories would be reduced to seven pages to allow for an extra page of filler.  In the origin story readers met Denny Colt, a detective/criminologist who is presumed killed by the evil mad scientist Dr. Cobra.  But in actual fact Denny Colt is in a state of suspended animation and is buried in Wildwood Cemetery where he awakens.  Realizing that everyone believes him to be dead, he dons a mask to become the Spirit and uses his anonymity to fight crime as a vigilante.  The Spirit builds a residence and base of operations in Wildwood Cemetery beneath his own headstone and is aided in his war on crime by Ebony White, a young black youth.  Police Commissioner Eustace Dolan is the only person who knows that The Spirit is really Denny Colt and despite the Spirit's outlaw status Dolan chooses to work closely with him.  In addition to appearing in the Sunday papers, The Spirit stories were reprinted in Quality's Police Comics title from 1940-1947 in issues #11 through #102.

Eisner came into comics when everybody saw them as cheap and disposable, while he perceived comics as an art form.  "I aspire to be a 'social reporter'," Eisner once explained.  "My stories deal with the human condition and seek to call attention to things that human beings must deal with in the struggle for survival".  Eisner became a key influence in the comics industry primarily because of his groundbreaking artwork, often dubbed "cinematic".  His visual style was not unlike camera angles in a movie, and much of his look possessed a shadowy film noir element.  But of equal importance was his story-telling ability.  Eisner was probably the greatest story teller in comic history.  In 7 pages he created a self-contained adventure that mixed elements of humor, tragedy, parody, suspense, action, and slapstick farce.  At times The Spirit seemed to be equal parts of hard-boiled pulp fiction and the Marx Brothers with ironic O. Henry-style endings.  The Spirit had it all and only Will Eisner had the skill to pull it off.  Comic book writer Neil Gaiman said of Eisner, "He was better than any of us and he was trying to find stories that could be told and different ways of telling them."

The Christmas Spirit was an annual feature of The Spirit in which the hero took a backseat to a heartwarming story of holiday cheer.  For instance, in the 1948 Christmas Spirit a crook dressed as Santa Claus (a disguise employed to escape jail), uses his stolen loot to pay for an operation to restore a blind boy's sight.  Eisner also did an annual Halloween story usually featuring Hazel P. Macbeth, a 14th generation witch that resulted in humorous situations.  Other characters in the strip included Commissioner Dolan's daughter Ellen, a feisty, strong-willed woman who was in love with the Spirit.  At times it seemed that marriage was in their future, but it was never to be.  Officer Sam Klink was a brave but not-too-bright member of the police force.  The Octopus was the arch-enemy of The Spirit whose face was never revealed but was identified by his purple gloves.  There was P'Gell, a femme fatale who often tried to seduce the Spirit...she married wealthy men who had the habit of soon dying.  And there was Silk Satin, an adventuress who reformed her ways and was madly in love with The Spirit.

The most controversial character was Ebony White, the Spirit's black assistant.  Eisner was criticized for his depiction of Ebony as a racist caricature, which it was.  Eisner admitted that he consciously stereotyped the character of Ebony but pointed out that at that time in America such depictions were the norm.  That doesn't excuse the fact, but Eisner was responsible in his treatment of Ebony, who was always treated with respect by other characters in the strip.  It is interesting to note that no Black organizations criticized Eisner for his portrayal of Ebony, but by 1949 Eisner had eased Ebony out of the stories and replaced him with a white youth named Sammy.  At the height of its popularity "The Spirit" comic book appeared in 20 newspapers with a readership of 5 million.  In comparison, popular comic strips like "Blondie" and "Dick Tracy" appeared in hundreds of newspapers and had tens of millions of readers.  Still, The Spirit was unique in that it was a comic book within a newspaper.  It was popular enough that a daily newspaper strip was launched on October 13, 1941, and was largely drawn by Jack Cole and Lou Fine.  The daily strip ran until March 11, 1944.  And then America entered WWII and Will Eisner was drafted.

Eisner turned his strip over to the capable hands of Lou Fine, one of the best cartoonists working in comics at the time, but without Eisner's expert story-telling capabilities The Spirit became boring, and by the time Eisner got out of the service in 1946 it was on it's last legs.  He quickly turned his creation back into his own and revitalized the comic stories.  He added new assistants to his staff like Jules Feiffer who scripted stories from 1946-1951 and would go on to become a Pulitzer winning cartoonist.  Jerry Grandenetti did backgrounds and in the end Wally Wood assisted.  As the years went by Eisner lost interest in his creation and began relying more and more upon his assistants and readers noticed a difference in the style.  By 1952 Eisner felt that there was nothing more to do with the character and the last Spirit section appeared on October 5, 1952.  In the mid-1970s Jim Warren of Warren Publishing (Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella) began reprinting The Spirit stories in it's own magazine with new original covers by Eisner.  This lasted for 16 issues and then Denis Kitchen of Kitchen Sink Press took over the publication of the reprints.  In the meantime, Will Eisner created the first graphic novel in 1978 called "A Contract With God" and began a new art form for the comics.

In 1987 ABC-TV aired a 90-minute live action movie of The Spirit that also served as a pilot for a proposed series.  The series was never sold.  Sam Jones who played Flash Gordon in the 1980 film portrayed The Spirit and Nana Visitor played Ellen Dolan.  The ABC movie was faithful to Eisner's classic comic - The Spirit was handsome and idealistic, he melted female hearts while pounding on villains, and proved once again that America loves a hero.  The same cannot be said of Frank Miller's 2008 movie version.  Despite an all-star cast that included Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, and Eva Mendes, the film managed to be dull and offensive at the same time, perhaps being one of the worst movies ever made.

Will Eisner died in 2005 at the age of 87.  He had become the elder statesman of the comics industry, a survivor from the days when it all started.  Eisner had inspired generations of creators who came after him and was such a titan of the medium that in 1987 the comic book industry christened its annual accolades after him - The Eisner Awards.  Jules Feiffer, who worked for Eisner,  said of him, "He took the combination of pictures and words to their apex with great charm and style and wit.  He not only mastered the art form, but also the business of comic books."  One can write thousands of words in an attempt to convey the greatness of what Will Eisner did, but one has to read "The Spirit" to truly appreciate the enormity of Eisner's achievement.