As the Wall Street Journal put it:
They may not realize it, but the millions of readers who have made bestsellers out of Art Spiegelman’s “Maus” (1991), Daniel Clowes’s “Ghost World” (1997), Marjane Satrapi’s “Persepolis” (2003) and other graphic novels have Will Eisner to thank. A pioneering figure in the history of comic books, Eisner also served as the form’s artistic conscience, a beloved writer-illustrator who explored personal themes within and then beyond the superhero genre. Yet as legendary as Eisner remains to comics aficionados and to the comics industry itself—there’s a reason the medium’s equivalent to the Oscars is called the Eisner Awards—he remains little known to the greater public while pioneers of the form such as Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster (the last two of “Superman” fame) have received their due.
Born in New York to Jewish immigrants in 1917, the young Will was very much influenced by his father who had gone from painting Catholic churches in Vienna to painting backdrops for vaudeville and the Jewish theatre in order to keep the family afloat while his mother struggled to raise and feed the family, imploring her son to ensure that he never gives a woman worries like the ones his dad’s precarious finances did to her.
Selling newspapers to support his family during the Great Depression and becoming a standout in high school art classes alongside future Batman co-creator Bob Kane, the book firmly plants Eisner at the heart of what is now referred to as the Golden Age of Comics, seeing the creation of characters like Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Eisner’s own The Spirit. It was a brand-new American art form that has lasted for nearly a century and led to multi-million-dollar franchises.
While it’s maybe not the most exciting or action-packed tale in the world, writer Stephen Weiner does a commendable job of demonstrating how poverty and artistic ambition fuelled the young Eisner, how the burgeoning comic book industry took to him and how personal tragedies would fuel A Contract with God, his first graphic novel and a game-changer for many. He depicts Eisner as a curious and driven young man, as if he sees the world as a continuing puzzle that must be solved, which he does in middle age.
Artist Dan Mazur is clearly a fan of Eisner in that he throws in one or two visual references that those who have read A Contract with God will immediately clock, but he is very much his own man and he largely avoids painting New York as an overcrowded series of slums, instead highlighting how bare the rooms could be and the streets are remarkably clean, indicating that pride in one’s neighborhood was very much in vogue among these immigrant families.
Maybe not the most essential read (that would very much be A Contract with God) but it’s nice to see a pioneer be treated with the respect he deserves in a format he helped pioneer.
Stephen Weiner (Author), Dan Mazur (Artist), 2025, Will Eisner: A Comics Biography. NBM Publishing. ISBN: 978-1681123578
⏩ Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist and is the author of A Vortex of Securocrats and “dethrone god”.
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