Continuing our celebration of “Will Eisner Week” and the 80th anniversary of The Spirit, with additional creators’ takes on the beloved and influential character.
The very talented (and underrated) Brazilian artist Will Conrad is a self-professed Will Eisner nerd. When he heard that Eisner would be attending a Brazilian comic book convention, he labored over this oversized Spirit piece to show Will, who was nothing but flattered and supportive.
Will held on to the piece for many years, but he knew how much I loved
it, and after some atypical patience on my part, he ultimately let it go.
(Thanks Will!)
“Sometimes
Eisner used an empty street as part of the story. When he drew fog, the page
was damp.
And the
rain, always the rain, dripping off everything including the Spirit logo. He
lingered over environments until you could almost smell the cheap hotel rooms,
taste the tension, or feel on your flesh the chilly pall of a rain swept
street.”
— Jim Steranko, History of The Comics, Volume 2
Raining on his parade — Eisner’s Spirit page from 1996 and Darwyn Cooke’s cover from 2009.
The original Spirit series is collected in its entirety in an impressive 26-volume archive series from DC, and select stories in the original large art format (Artist’s Editions) are available in two gorgeous volumes from IDW.
Continuing our celebration of “Will Eisner Week” and the 80th anniversary of The Spirit, with other creators’ takes on the beloved and influential character.
The late Darwyn Cooke? The closest thing to Will Eisner this modern generation of talent had seen. Visionary storyteller, writer, illustrator, letterer and more. Not only could he do it all, Darwyn could do it well. VERY well.
He was the logical choice for an ongoing series of Spirit stories
— the first since Eisner’s run ended in 1952.
DC launched the series with a Batman Sprit crossover, and this terrific splash is the final page of that story. Inked by J. Bone, this issue, and the subsequent ones of the ongoing series are the closet in spirit (ahem) to Eisner’s vision more than 50 years prior.
Darwyn, we miss you.
“I think everybody who is consumed by storytelling within
this medium has had some profound schooling from Will…
I can remember it was one of those days when I was thirteen,
and I was in a comic store, and there was nothing that I wanted to get. On the
wall was a copy of Warren’s Spirit magazine. I think it’s number three, where he is
running down the elevated track straight at you, and the train is behind him.
It’s just one of the most exciting images I have ever seen…”
-Darwyn Cooke interview From Will Eisner: A Spirited Life by Bob
Andelman
Young Darwyn Cooke found a copy of Warren’s Spirit #3 and the world was never the same. Also pictured, his cover for the first issue and collection of DC comics stories.
The Spirt, Register and Tribune Syndicate, September 12, 1948
2020 marks the 80th Anniversary of the Will Eisner’s Spirit, a comic series that ultimately became a game changer in the medium. This week is also celebrated annually as “Will Eisner Week,” dedicated top one of comics’ most influential legacies. So let’s dive in…
This cool page is from “Cache McStash”, and is from Eisner’s peak period on the Spirit. In fact, it is published just one week after his own personal favorite story, “The Story of Gerhard Shnobble,” perhaps the most perfect film noir ever created for the comics.
And don’t let the misleading credits on the otherwise great Grand Comics Database fool you. This story is all Eisner — script, pencils, inks, and letters — as confirmed by Denis Kitchen.
I was fortunate enough to be asked write the intro for the Spirit story “Sound” featured in the hot-off-the-presses Spirit 80th celebration from Clover Press. No spoilers, but, I love the way Eisner integrated sound effects into his storytelling, and, on this page the simple ticking of the clock enhances tension and movement.
Like everything else he did, he found a way to make his two
dimensional comics cinematic in scope.
“I grew up
on the movies, that’s what I lived with. The movies always influenced me… Doing
the Spirit strip was like making movies. It gave me a chance to be an actor,
producer, author and cameraman all at once.”
Clover Press has just published an 80th Anniversary celebration of Will Eisner’s Spirit, available directly from the publisher or in comic book stores and other traditional outlets.
Color me alive — three different color takes of the Spirit’s origin from 1966: The original, possibly colored by Jules Feiffer; The 1975 Warren magazine reprint, possibly colored by Richard Corben; and the brand new Clover Press version, definitely colored by Jeremy Cox.
Continuing our series on the roots of the Watchmen characters.
Isn’t the Silk Spectre actually Nightshade, the only female superhero in the Charlton superhero line-up? After all, all the other main characters are derived from silver-age Charlton heroes.
Or, if not, perhaps she is an altered version of DC’s Black Canary, who, thanks to retconning, became a mother/daughter Golden Age/Silver Age legacy character?
What does Alan Moore say? He said at one time that she’s based on the Phantom Lady (Sandra Knight), created by the Eisner Iger studio in 1940, and first published by Quality Comics in 1940. (Moore says Nightshade was “boring.” I’m not sure what, if anything, he’s said about Black Canary.)
Phantom Lady had quite a few incarnations in the Golden Age, moving from publisher to publisher, ultimately becoming yet another casualty of the Golden Age.
She is perhaps best known for the cover of Fox Features issue #17 (by Matt Baker), prominently featured in Frederic Wertham’s infamous anti- comics tome Seduction of the Innocent as an example of titillation (costume) and sadism (bondage.)
She first appeared in the DC universe as part of the Freedom Fighters, a group of superheroes fighting Nazi domination of an alternate Earth (“X”), in Justice League #107 (October 1973.) The rest of the Freedom Fighters are also superheroes from Quality Comics — DC obtained Quality’s characters in 1956, but with the exception of Plastic Man, had kept the characters in limbo.
Between her multiple iterations and publishers in the Golden Age, and her (at least) four incarnations at DC, there are likely more versions of Phantom Lady than any other secondary character in comics history.
In this post-crisis version, she is retconned as Starman’s cousin, helping him fight crime in the “Golden Age.” In fact, this great action page by Mike Mayhew is from the classic James Robinson Starman series.
As for Charlton’s Nightshade? She can’t catch a break. She was briefly introduced as a partner for Captain Atom and received a short-lived back-up feature in his title just prior to its cancellation. Despite some fine early art by Jim Aparo, those stories have never been reprinted — other than public domain press.
Silk Spectre 1 and 2 from the 2009 Watchmen film, plus SS 1 from the Before Watchman series.
Phantom Lady made the wrong kind of headlines when Matt Baker’s cover appeared in the sensationalistic and dunderheaded Seduction of the Innocent.
Phantom Lady’s original costume, above, which was modified only slightly when she first appeared in the DCU, below. The illustration for the DC Who’s Who entry below right is by the legendary Dave Stevens (Rocketeer).
Key Black Canary appearances include her first solo story in the Golden Age, along with her reintroduction in the Silver Age, culminating in her moving from Earth-2 to Earth-1 to join the Justice League. Got that?
Post Crisis and Post Watchmen, Black Canary ultimately becomes officially two characters, mother (original) and daughter (modern), as outlined in Secret Origins #50, leftand Who’s Who in the DCU, right.
Nightshade made her first appearance alongside Captain Atom in issue #82, and they received her own back-up feature a few issues later. Despite being Charlton’s only female character, Alan Moore says she is not the model for Silk Spectre.
