WILL EISNER CONVERSATIONS SC

The best interviews from 1965-2004 with the classic comics creator of The Spirit and a pioneer of the graphic novel in A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories. Eisner, for whom the industry's awards are named, was also the mentor to Jules Feiffer, Wally Wood, Lou Fine, and Jack Cole and the author of the seminal comics studies book, Comics and Sequential Art. Will Eisner's innovations in the comics, especially the comic book and the graphic novel, as well as his devotion to comics analysis, make him one of comics' first true auteurs and the cartoonist so revered and influential that cartooning's highest honor is named after him. His newspaper feature The Spirit (1940-1952) introduced the now-common splash page to the comic book, as well as dramatic angles and lighting effects that were influenced by, and influenced in turn, the conventions of film noir. Even in his tales of crime fighting, Eisner's writing focused on everyday details of city life and on contemporary social issues. In 1976, he premiered A Contract with God, and Other Tenement Stories, a collection of realist cartoon stories that paved the way for the modern "graphic novel." His 1985 book, Comics and Sequential Art, was among the first sustained analyses and overviews of the comics form, articulating theories of the art's grammar and structure. Eisner's studio nurtured such comics legends as Jules Feiffer, Wally Wood, Lou Fine, and Jack Cole.