Newsarama is reporting that Will Eisner passed away from complications related to his recent quadruple bypass.
Eisner, Kelly Freas…God, is this year off to a crappy start.
I’m looking right at the Eisner Award plaque I got back in 1992, which I had him autograph on the back. What a great moment that was in my life.
I know they both had good runs and left behind an incredible body of work, but that just doesn’t really mollify it, y’know?
PAD
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I only got to meet Will Eisner because my car broke down. When I was living in AZ a few years back, my wife and I decided to drive out to San Diego to visit with her brother and then take a trip up to LA and Universal Studios. About 5 miles out of San Diego our car broke down and we spent the next day sitting in a garage getting it fixed. We decided to scrap the trip to LA and looked around for something to do that weekend. Coincidentally, it was the same weekend as the San Diego Convention and we decided to go. My wife decided it was a cool idea when she found out that Kevin Smith and Chris Carter were going to be there! I had brought some of my own books to give to my brother in law as a gift, but he said I should bring them to the show to show them around. I didn’t get to see Kevin Smith because, I discovered that Will Eisner was going to sign autographs at the same time! When it was my turn , he asked about the books I was carrying. When I told them they were my own work and he’d been a huge influence on me and my storytelling, he asked if he could have one! Who was I to say no! I wasn’t even going to be presumptuous enough to show them to him, and yet he wound up taking one with him! I’ll never know if he actually looked at it or not, but I imagine he did. He was kind, and patient and I will treasure that moment I had with him for as long as I live…
This is from my blog yesterday…..
Sad news today.
One of my idols has passed away at the age of 87. You probably have never heard of him, but his influence is still felt within his industry.
I had the opportunity to meet Will Eisner a few years ago at the San Diego Comic Convention, and it was a real treat. Given his stature in the industry and his age, he could have been a real jerk, but he was the kindest gentleman, taking time to sign an autograph and chat for a minute. He even took a copy of one of my Dougside comic books, because he was always interested to see how other people approached things. This is one of the things that made him great. Even in his 80s he was open to learning new things. I will remember our brief conversation long after the ink has faded away on the autograph I got. An autograph is just lines on paper, but memories stay with you.
Will was a huge innovator in comic books, approaching them with a seriousness that no one else would touch in those early years. He saw that comics could be a lot more than superheroes and infused his Spirit comics with a film-noir feel that is still rippling with influence some 60 years later.
He never sat on his laurels and was always innovating. He invented the term and the concept of the “Graphic Novel” back in the 1970’s with his hugely influential work A Contract With God. Eisner practically invented the use of silent, wordless panels to help evoke the emotion of the characters through the drawing alone. Some scholars have gone so far as to compare him to Orson Welles in the film industry. And that is fairly apt with the exception that Eisner never had any trouble getting his work published. He had continued to work long past the time when most others would have hung up their pencils and brushes. His most recent book was published just a few years ago and his final work will be published later this year.
He was well regarded within the comic book industry to the point that the ahievement awards are named after him. He even handed Eisners out to the winners, something you don’t see at other award shows.
Will Eisner. Dead at the age of 87. He will never be forgotten.
If you are interested in reading some of his more intersting work, check out A Contract With God, A Family Matter, The Dreamer, and of course his collected work on The Spirit.
This may be slightly off-topic, but I discovered Eisner’s work thru the Warren reprint magazine:
http://citypaper.net/articles/current/cover.shtml
It’s an article on Jim Warren of Warren publishing.
My condolences to Mr. Eisner
I knew Will Eisner very well. No I never met him, but I have read everything he wrote and almost every interview ever published on him. He was a man who gave a part of himself in everything he did and it always shone through.
Like some others mentioned, the first time I saw a Spirit story was in the book The Great Commic Book Heros and I was hooked. I collected all the Warren reprints, Kitchen Sink reprints and now DC’s hardcover collection of every single Spirit story in chronological order and am loving every minute of it. I’m also heartened by the fact that Will lived so long to see his creation finally get the format it deserved. The comic industry could not have asked for a better spokesmen who in his own right was simply a genius.
Good-bye Will. At 87 you lived a good life and my only regret is that you couldn’t extend it for another 87.
From Neil Gaiman’s website:
“Hi, Neil – Denis Kitchen mentioned to me yesterday that you had suggested that we add a spot on the willeisner.com site where friends, fans, etc. could leave a comment or share a memory. Just wanted to let you know that we had done that. It can be found at: “>http://willeisner.com/condolences/
“This Week” on ABC actually mentioned Eisner during it’s “Memoriam” segment and included a quote caling him “the most important (or influential, forget which) comic book artist ever, which leasanty surprised me since they initially labeled him a “cartoonist”. They also had some footage of him in an interview. Very nice and classy.
While naturally wish there had been more, I am pleased the mainstream media has seen fit to note his passing.
Just received my Time Magazine in the mail and was pleasantly impressed to see that they posted Eisner’s passing in their Notebook section, referring to him as a “comic-book pioneer”.
Fred