Will Eisner

February 15, 2016
Eisner was already high in the pantheon of comics greats for his creation of the Spirit, the most artistically inventive of 1940s costumed-hero strips, when, three decades later, he embarked upon a series of personal, book-length works that pioneered the modern graphic novel. This second act, which began in 1978 with A Contract with God and continued with more than a dozen books exploring subjects ranging from Jewish tenement life in New York City to the Vietnam War to extraterrestrial contact, continued right up to Eisner's death in 2005 at age 87. Levitz, who worked with Eisner as an executive at DC Comics, traces the artist's lengthy career, highlighting not only his artistic innovation but his business acumen, a rare trait among comics creators. But Eisner's story is best told, and the book dominated, by the generous reproductions of his artwork, many shot from the original drawings. From the start, Eisner sought legitimacy for his widely disparaged chosen medium. He lived just long enough to see the graphic novel (a label he popularized) achieve mainstream acceptance.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)